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| Gabren, Brent, Bridger, Zack standing above Moose Creek. Brent told us an interesting thing about the creek which I didn't know. He said it freezes from the bottom up. Most creeks don't do that but you could tell he was right. |
The bummer was I had so many boys get sick and they missed out. I hope they get feeling better so that next time we can have a blast. Zach, Josh and Gabren were strong and came though. We had the honor of having Bridger Clark and Brent (Zach's dad) Douglas come as well and I was grateful they did. I had heard Beau was visiting from North Dakota and might come but I was bummed he didn't. Chase, Dalton and Bowdy were all sick. Not sure what happened to Kiowa, but maybe it was a good hunting day. I've been kind of using Bridger as a troop guide and the boys really like him. Bridger had outgrown his snow boots and so was just wearing regular shoes. His feet got a little cold but warmed up after running in his snow shoes a ways.
We met at the church at 11:00 an and then all got in my suburban as I had plenty of room for all. We then drove to the Moose Canyon road where they stop plowing and got out there. We had an adventure getting everybody's snowshoes on and matched up with their boots. I'm really glad Josh borrowed a couple pairs of snowshoes from the Warburtons because they were big enough to handle the bigger boys. I had mostly small snowshoes from the school. The funny story is I had gotten all these snowshoes from the school and ended up only needing one pair.
It was quite cold though and obviously below zero. I got out my warmest bibs and coat, which are heavy, but I was glad I did as I didn't feel the cold much compared to the others. I sweated a lot walking but once we sat down to each lunch I stayed warm. I was proud that for the most part everybody was well prepared and if we had gotten lost I was confident we would be ok.
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| You can see Brent, Bridger, Zach and Gabren on the far side of the corral |
We started walking down the road toward the Wilderness area. I had brought a big backpack full of pots and stoves and some hot chocolate to eat on the trail. The weight of the pack was quite a bit more than I would normally take on a hike like that. I was planning on doing some demonstrations with the stoves and different ways to light them but once we got to that point it was too cold to do much. All I did was set up a wood stove and a handmade pop-can stove and boiled water during lunch. The wood stove was much more potent than the pop-can stove which only uses alcohol. I have an idea how to make one which would use something like hand sanitizer as fuel which might last longer. I will have to do the other demonstrations another day.
We paused and took photos on the bridge crossing the stream and while eating lunch. The other thing we did while eating lunch was put a stick in the ground to watch the shadow moving a certain way which would show us true north. Over the last few normal scout meetings we've been talking about ways to find north without using a compass. I really hope to have these boys prepared if they are ever out in the Wilderness and need to survive. I think overall it was a good trip, but I wish it hadn't been so cold so we could do a few more things.
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| That hole would be very cold to jump in. It just looks deep and ominous and if you fell in it might pin you under. I wonder what the temperature of the water was. This is the east side of the bridge. |
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| Looking on the west side of the bridge. The water was a really neat aqua color. |
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| Bridger warming maybe under the sun. |
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| Zach and Gabren throwing snow in the creek |
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| We stopped to each lunch here on these big rocks. As Brent was clearing snow he knocked the tree and a bunch fell on Josh's head. |
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| That looks cold. Or does it feel refreshing, Josh, after getting all hot walking here? |
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| More snow being knocked off. |
