The Klondike for me started about 5 am on Friday morning. I was asked to do the fire starting event by Ben Kearsley who normally does it and was not going to be there. I had one of those light bulb turning on moments while lying in bed. The thing that kind of stunk about that is I didn't have to work much that day and had planned to sleep in. But the idea persisted and as I rolled it around in my brain while lying there I could not go back to sleep. Finally about 6:30 I gave up any hope of going back to sleep and started researching on the internet to see if I could find any ideas. I did find a couple and satisfied there was at least something to go off of I went to sleep again for a little while. I had a skype meeting from 9-10 with my staff and then some individual issues were solved and by 10:30 I was headed into town. Before leaving for town I had come up with a list of items to buy. To make a long story short I searched Ace Hardware, Kings and Broulims and between all three was able to find the adequate materials.
My idea for the fire starting event was this: To start a fire using primitive techniques but with steel wool and a magnesium sparker. To make it more fun and challenging I decided to figure out some way to make a projectile that could be shot from some kind of contraption and hit an object 10 feet away. They would start the fire and then a string would be attached to my contraption with it cocked and ready to fire. Once the string was burned through it would trigger the mechanism and fire the projectile. I had looked at many different types of catapults and guns but I finally settled on a marshmallow gun that I had found on Pinterest. The only problem with that particular marshmallow gun is that it was made with empty toilet paper rolls. I don't think that would stand up to a bunch of scouts. I then devised a way to make it much bigger and stronger using pvc pipe and giant rubber bands and epoxy. Once I got the necessary items in town it took me 3 tries and different builds to actually get something that would fling a marshmallow far enough.. Again to make a long story short I finished the satisfactory contraption by 2:30. That only gave me a half hour to get ready as some of the boys were going to show up at my house at 3:00 pm so we could go grocery shopping to fulfill some rank requirements.
Me, Zach, Kiowa, Bowdy, Gabren and Josh went to Broulim's and they did a fantastic job planning and buying food. They showed good wisdom in their selections and it shows that they had been taught somewhat by their moms to shop. They only ran with the carts once or twice which is pretty good for a bunch of active boys. It only cost $91 this year. I believe it was around $120 last year.
We were done by a little before 4:30 and were able to meet up with Tom, Andrew and Chase at Tom's office. The plan was to leave at 5 all together but Tom's car got a flat tire and so he needed to go get it fixed before coming up. We crammed all in my pickup except for Andrew as him and Tom would come up later. Those that did not come were Dalton and Carson and they were missed.
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| Sundown behind the tents |
Before going up the mountain we swung through the church parking lot to meet up with the older boys. There we met Ryan Webster, Kaleb and Antonio with the trailer. We drove up to the parking lot on top of Piney Pass and lo and behold there were a lot of camps set up already. There were two spots left. One really slushy and wet and the other muddy and wet. We pondered a bit and then Ryan had the idea of putting the tents up out on top of the deep snow. We walked out there and didn't sink much at all. It also helped that it was beat down a little by snowmobiles. We started setting up camp and by then Scott Stanger arrived and the tents were done pretty quick. The boys set their stuff up and were able to get a bunch of sledding down the hill in. We set the fire up and cooking stuff in the parking lot. You will see the menu below but for dinner we had it easy and roasted hot dogs and drank lemonade and rootbeer. Shane Albertson, (Bowdy's dad) came up as well that night and was a great help. Tom and Andrew were finally able to make it and Andrew had fun on the hill as well.
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| Look at our muddy parking lot. Never in the history of Klondike do I remember mud. Scott and Ryan tending to the fire pit. |
We had a fireside at 8 that night and a story told by Meredith Wilson about using a guidebook while mountain climbing. He related that to using the Holy Spirit as a guide as we go through this life and to get outside and explore rather than playing on devices. Tom and Andrew then had to go as they had someplace to be over the weekend.
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| The main campfire |
We went back to our camp and then had a birthday cake for the two birthday boys, Chase and Josh. Chase turned 12 that night and Josh had turned 11 the day before. Bummer that Chase is moving up but looking forward to having Josh as a scout for the next year. The cake was made by Katy and Macey, my daughters, and they had filled the inner section with M&M's. It was pretty good.
I got the wood stove going for the boys in my wall tent and before long it was dang toasty. The boys were all in there but they said there was no room for all of them. So I made them arrange themselves better and there was plenty of room. The funny thing when I went to wake them up the next morning is that they were all in a ball practically cuddled together in the middle of the tent. There was room probably for another 5 sleeping bags. There's a rest of the story here and I will tell it later.
As I was helping them get to bed a good majority of them couldn't find certain items. I'd like a nickel for every time a boy asked me if I had seen their gloves or something. Funny how they think I can keep track of all that stuff. :)
The thing that I have never experienced at a Klondike is being able to go to bed about 10 pm. Ryan, Shane, Scott and I arranged ourselves into the teepee tent provided by Jeff Jeppeson. I felt like I slept pretty good even though it took me quite awhile to get to sleep. Even though the boys chatter almost all night it doesn't really bother me. Its a good sound. A bunch of happy boys in a tent having a good time in a clean environment while doing a worthwhile program. It makes me happy I am part of it.
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| About 5:45 am. I couldn't sleep any more and got up. What a beautiful morning. |
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| The trailer just before sunrise |
The other thing I have never experienced at a Klondike is how warm it was. I was almost hot in my sleeping bag. I woke up around 5:15 and then laid in my bag for a half hour before I gave up, got dressed and went outside. It was really pretty and still and very peaceful. I took a neat picture of the moon up over the tent. It was a very nice sunrise as I started building a fire and getting ready for the fire starting session I was in charge of.
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| Sunrise on the tents |
The funny story of the trip was when I went to wake up the boys they were all huddled in the center of the tent. Well it turns out that they had thought they had heard wolves the night before and so it scared them a little. (I heard coyotes but I didn't hear any wolves.) So sometime in the night they all got up and did their number one's all around the tent because they thought that would scare off any wolves. They made a lot of yellow puddles. Then they proceeded to huddle together in terror. When I went to wake them up I thought dang those boys really had to go but it turns out they had a little more motivation other than just having to go.
We started our Mountain Man breakfast and we encouraged the boys to get packed up. Its always nice to have everything put away before the Klondike starts so that we can just leave when its all done. The boys did pretty good sticking with cooking and then when we got to a point that Scott could manage we went up and I helped them stuff all their amazingly difficult bags into their stuff sacks. Boy there were some doozies. We then ate breakfast and then right after we were done we finished putting the camp away.
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| Josh, Chase, Scott, Bowdy, Ryan and Shane. Sorry I got Ryan and Shane picking up wood. By the way thanks for helping me there. |
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| Beautiful sunrise over the camp |
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| Josh, Zach, Scott, Bowdy, Kiowa, Ryan and Shane |
The Klondike started at 9 am. Ryan was in charge of the knots. Usually I follow the boys around and take a lot of pictures but where I was doing the firestarting I didn't get to take very many pictures. I was a little bummed about that as I didn't get a photo of everybody. Sorry moms.
The video below shows me, Katy and Quinn testing my fire starting contraption.
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| Burned steel wool. See the dark blue areas. It would be hard to get this to work at this point. |
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| The marshmallow gun |
Shane helped me with the fire starting and did a fantastic job. He was a real help the whole time. The first group that came through did not do so hot and were unsuccessful getting the fire going. The second group that came through was our troop and they were so close but didn't quite get the fire going. The third group got the fire going and were able to shoot the marshmallow gun. They got an extra 10 points because of where they hit the target. The 4th and last group was my old troop, Troop 81. They really rocked it. They all worked as a team and planned it out well. They got the fire going really quick and was able to shoot the gun a few times. They ended up winning the Klondike overall and our guys were 5th or 6th. We still got a nice big cast iron skillet which is not too bad. They did really good as the majority were 11 year old scouts. The Driggs first ward were all a little older and more experienced and had accumulated some good skills. Aaron Jenkins and Jon Jensen were their leaders and should be commended for the excellent teaching.
At the end we were all given donuts and sodas and we said farewell to another year down.
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| The sledding hill. |
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| Assignments and Menu |
