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The Boy Scouts are incredibly fun. There are a lot of things that are better done outdoors in groups, especially for inexperienced youngsters. As by far the largest organization dedicated (more or less) to imparting outdoor skills, it's definitely the place to look. My troop did a ton of multi-day backpacking trips, whitewater rafting, and things of that sort. Sometimes we would hike from lake to lake in the mountains and catch fresh fish for our dinners. It was fantastic. It's hard to get into a lot of that stuff without someone who is experienced already, so the vast majority of people I spend time with /out/ these days were in the scouts at some point. There's also the usual hijinks that happen with a group of kids, and that's not a bad thing. It certainly beats sitting at home in front of a computer after school every day.
Summer Camp was just a merit badge sweatshop, and Scout-O-Rama lost any shred of usefulness it might once have had when it moved indoors.
The merit badge program has some issues. Merit badges such as Beekeeping, Taxidermy, and Stalking have been replaced by the likes of Disability Awareness and American Cultures. There are three separate citizenship badges required for Eagle, but only one of Hiking, Swimming, and Cycling.
Scouting hasn't been completely immune to modern America's tendency to try to make everything as safe as Disneyland (pic related), but what has? My troop was ultimately ruined by soccer moms making sure their kids never got hurt or cried, and by a crappy scoutmaster who encouraged it so he could get his son his Eagle at 13, use us in political stunts, and give our equipment to a friend of his. A lawyer who was the father of one of the kids in the troop stopped the last one, but the damage was done. Maybe it's all still in a basement somewhere. Maybe we should have realized it was over and let the SM's friend take it. But the fact remains that I got an Eagle and five or so good years of outdoor adventure out of it.
