Scout Camp Treasure Mountain 2015

We showed up to the church at 7:00 am Monday morning, said a prayer, assigned kids to vehicles and left.  We pulled up to scout camp a little after 8:00 am and got signed in.  Swim checks were at 8:40.  Most of the boys got swimmer with the BSA swim test and a few of them got beginner.

my nephew Garret on the left there

contemplating this challenge and how they did

Kaleb's rock hard bigfoot biceps

Ben can still swim as good as the boys

The swimming staff and their long poles to aid the swimmers

The handicraft area

The Waterfront.  I did an hour of service sitting up in the lookout for the lake.  I was to yell if I saw any trouble.  It was very peaceful and the perfect temperature.   I could have done it longer if they had wanted.

As I sat in the lookout I snapped pictures of our troop members as they walked by unsuspecting.  There's Ben going up the trail toward our camp.

I learned a lot watching the kayak class

Zach.  I made sure when they walked by that they knew I was up there and could see if they were doing anything a monkey would do and not what a scout would do.

Andrew, Dalton and Kiowa

Andrew and Antonio at the front, Dalton, Kiowa and Chase in the middle.  This is the group trying to earn Environmental Science and they are just finishing the hike they went on.

Zach and Trevon

I drove out to catch service and on the way back got these fantastic photos of the Tetons as I drove back to camp

Trevon was the first boy to get a merit badge not only in our camp but in the whole scout camp on Tuesday morning.

We were the proud 1st winners of the spirit stick on the first morning (Tuesday)  Here is our decorations.  I think it looks rather indianlike.  Trevon looks manly while holding it and Bridger does not scare him

Trevon looks so thrilled

The rain started the first afternoon and pretty much did not quit all week.  We had more rain than not rain but we made it through ok

The boys tents.  The left is my wall tent with a tarp on the front end as it was leaking with so much rain..  The tent on the far right is where Bridger and Trevon slept.  The middle tent had Antonio, Tucker, Kyle and Evan.  The tent on the left had the rest which were Ben, Kiowa, Chase, Dalton, Jaron, Kaleb, Zach, and Andrew.

Getting under the big canopy

Notice it really hasn't rained a lot yet

Moving on to merit badges, this is the basketry area.  These guys are working hard on getting the baskets figured out.  You can see Kiowa, Chase and Dalton

Zach in the foreground with the Teton Redskins hat

A zoom out of the Handicraft area.  This is a typical setup for each of the areas at scout camp

We're starting to get wet.  Doing our skit on Wednesday night

The skit was about a doctor with a magic chair.  If you sat in it your ailment was cured but then the doctor contracted it.  Pretty soon the doctor which was Evan had a headache, allergies, broken leg etc.  The last thing he contracted was "the runs" by Tucker.  It was funny and should have been the one chosen to perform for the whole camp except you couldn't hear the boys very well so I don't think the rest of the camps heard it.

Another troop performing a skit.  Its kind of hard to do in the rain.

Back to camp and trying to divert the water from running under our tents.

Tucker slushing water out of the hole.

The leader's tent.  Notice my cot tent in the background that I never got to sleep in because it was too wet.

Cooking.  Ryan Webster on the right came up to help out.  Ben Kearsley in the grey coat

Tucker is happy in the rain

Fun under the canopy.  What you pointing at Kaleb?

Bridger ruffing up Chase and Antonio

Aw the sun finally showing through Thursday morning.

Chase, Zach, Kiowa and Dalton working on First Aid

Kiowa is tussling the kid with the mop head pretending he's a squirrel

Zach look a little more excited

Bridger lighted the stove turning on the gas before he struck the match.  The gas ran a little too long before he got the match lit and then POOF!  the flame singed his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.  Another good lesson learned at scout camp.

Ben so happy cooking sloppy joes.

On the way to Battle of the Tetons!

Our perch where we watched the battle

Getting on the canoe

Kiowa, Andrew, Chase , Ben and Bridger rode the canoe

Umm, where are the bail buckets boys!

As we didn't really have enough buckets to fling water, we went down pretty fast

Just about down as Ben and Bridger get blasted with water.  Look how close they are to sinking.

And we are in the water 

Now to fish out the sunken canoe

Thats the third time the shaggy haired kid in the pajamas got in my photos

Heave Ho

So nice of them to stack the canoe

Chase on his way out with a lot on his mind

Kiowa looks determined to get them next time

You can't go out of the waterfront without saying your name and getting your buddy tag.  Andrew, Bridger,Kiowa and Chase

Just a comment here about Battle of the Tetons.  Even though we told the boys to get buckets and shields I don't really think they understood what it was all about.  I'm not the type of person to hound and nag and so that is why I didn't do anything once I discovered they didn't all bring buckets. Sometimes the best lessons are learned when a leader allows a boy to "fall on his face" and learn the hard way.  I'm sure next time around they will have thought much about it and won't make the same mistake again.

Kaleb taking a picture of me with the same camera I am taking a picture of him with.  Ben looks at us like we're weirdos

Zach, Kiowa, Andrew,Chase,Tucker

Chase, Tucker, Jaron, Evan

Getting out the prize knives.  The Trading Post had reduced prices on lots of items as it was the last week and they had excess merchandise.  They really had a lot of knives in the store and I'm pretty sure all the boys bought anywhere from 1-5 knives.  For the boy who got the first merit badge Ben had bought a knife as a prize.  This was Trevon.

Yeah Kiowa lets see some knife control.  By the way that is stinkin dull.  haha

Antonio,Kiowa,Zach, Andrew, Bridger, Dalton,Chase, Evan, Trevon and Jaron

Just thought the reflection was cool.

Nice sunset by the trustworthy sign

Climbing Table Rock.  First stop

Jeff, Antonio,Trevon the tree Master, Dalton, Jaron, Tucker, Zach, Ben, Bridger, Chase, Tom, Kaleb, Andrew,Kason, Evan, Kyle, me

Added Ben Kearsley and took away me and Jeff

Trying to show how steep it is on the Face trail

Ben getting a little help from Ben.  

Finally to the meadow where its not so steep

This picture looks cool cropped into a panoramic

The wise Kason

I like this shot of Andrew

Break is over.  Time to move

My buds behind me for once

Trying to capture some scenic shots now

The guys and their goats.  This is an interesting diversion.  The goats kept getting in the way and then the owners let them go.  They wouldn't come down when it was time.  Haha

Starting to see the big mountains behind Table Rock

The fork.  Left is the Face trail and right is Huckleberry trail

Going to go look over the edge

This was our first vantage point

Here is the view from that first vantage point

Zach and Kason full of energy while I was just barely plodding along

Trevon and Zach told me this was a cool view

This is one of my favorite photos

Getting closer.  Awesome big mountains behind

zoomed out

The rock field

Looking back down

still trudging.  by this time my steps were so small and I was crawling like  a turtle

Dalton and Chase

The grade at the end gets steeper again

Just got to climb the rocky face now

Jeff and Kiowa just a few feet from the top

Looking all the way down the ridge

The scene when I arrive

Dalton and Chase not long after my arrival

resting and eating lunch

Here come the Bens

Ben is grateful to rest

Kyle ponders apart from the group

Here's the stats.  It took us a little over 4 hours to get to the top.  The distance from the trailhead to the top is 4.58 miles.  Table rock is 11,101 feet.  We climbed 3901 feet in 4.58 miles.

Steep isn't it?

The trail up the face

Chase

Kiowa

Zach

Evan

Antonio

Jaron

Tucker

Kyle

Andrew did not like going by the edge

Dalton

Ben

Kaleb

Bigfoot

Kason

Ben and his boys Kaleb and Kason

Here I am

Making funny faces

This is my favorite one

My favorite picture cropped

Going down Huckleberry

Looking back up from Hucleberry

Jeff starting the grade down

Looking down to the boys further down and way ahead of us

Huckleberry was beautiful with lots of flowers still out

Pausing at the stream

Walked with Trevon for awhile

I forgot to push the button as we started down and so this is actually starting a couple hundred feet down from the top.  Notice it starts at 10,737 feet and not 11,101 feet which is the elevation of Table Rock.  This gives you all the stats going down around Huckleberry.  

We climbed around 1,000 feet per mile

Huckleberry Trail.  If you draw a line from the red pin to the green pin that would be approximately the Face trail.  You can see it loops around quite a bit.

Flowers

We got down from Table Rock safely despite sore feet.  Its more of a mental challenge I think to these boys than a physical challenge.  For me its more of a physical challenge.  I am glad they all stuck with it and hope they can confront and complete challenges in the future.

Friday night we had family night where the parents could come up and eat dinner and go to the campfire with us.  Ben had promised he would buy pizza if the boys all made it down from Table Rock before 4:00 pm.  We made it well before them.  As I had some work issues I drove out to make some phone calls and picked up the pizzas for Ben.  I then went to Broulim's and bought a bunch of soda pop, ice, cups and some treats.  I ended up buying a cooler because I didn't have anything to carry the ice in.  Not a big deal since I know one of our coolers was 25 years old and starting to wear out.

We had a good turnout with parents and they enjoyed visiting with their boys.  Some of the boys pretended to be homesick when their parents were there even though they hadn't shown a  hint of being homesick all week.  As soon as the parents were gone the homesickness immediately left them for some reason.....   Quinn came up and spent the night with me.

The ending program on Friday night for the whole camp had to be done in the lodge rather than up at Chief's Rock because of the rain.  The lodge is tiny and so it was packed so nobody could breathe.  They had some funny skits and ending things.  The most spiritual part was when they permanently retired a flag.  I have seen a few of these types of ceremonies but this one really tugged at my heart strings and I had a hard time not getting too emotional.  The manner that it was performed was in the highest respect for the flag.  It seems most people nowadays don't have the respect for the flag that they should and I'm glad these boys got to see this.  I would be awful sad if they developed the sort of apathy that a lot of people are developing in this country.

A few of us got awards.  Me, Dalton, Kyle and Evan all had shooting awards.  Me and Dalton had the dime club award where you shoot all ten shots of a .22 within a dime size area.  I think one of the twins got this as well and then the twins both shot the lid off a milk jug.

My dime size group from the .22 range.  Dalton and I were the first to get it in the whole camp.  We were shooting at a troop shoot I believe on Wednesday night.  This is the only time I got to shoot, otherwise I would have tried all of their contests.

The boys all earned many merit badges.  Chase earned the most in the 11 year old group with 6.  I was pleased when both him and Kiowa right off the bat got their swimming merit badge.

Saturday we got up at 6:00 am and packed up camp.  We were home before 9 am.  What a great week!  I enjoyed every minute of it with these boys.  Feel free to add comments and if you want me to add some photos or other stories let me know.

Recent Scout Activities in the month of June 2015

Just wanted to post a few pictures that I took of some different things we have been doing.  The first 3 pictures are the boys learning how to estimate the height of a tree using a pen and a person.  The person stands next to the tree and tells the scout who is estimating the height how tall he is.  The person measuring stands back away from the tree so that he can see the top of the tree and the person standing next to it.  Then he holds the pen up and uses the person as a reference.  So say the person is 5 feet tall and the pen looks about the same height from a distance.  Then you estimate with the pen how many persons it would take standing on their shoulders to reach the height of the tree.  If it took 5 persons and he was 5 feet tall then you would know the tree is about 25 feet tall.

Chase, Andrew, Kiowa and Zach completed this.

Add caption

Chase is correctly holding the reference stick while trying to get Zach to hold still

Now Zach is holding perfectly and we can get the measurement

The sunset after everybody had left

This is another night and showing a typical free time activity.  Kick Ball.  Typically when we are done with our normal skills instruction and have had time to pass things off then we give them free time.  Its been a little hard to play around our fence building materials.

Hike up Henderson Canyon (where we learn a lesson)

Yesterday which was May 30, 2015 a Saturday we took the 11 year old scouts on a hike up Henderson Canyon which is on the west side of our valley in the Big Hole mountain range.  Unfortunately I did not get a lot of great photos mainly because I forgot to pull out my camera except in one steep spot on the trail and then again on top of the mountain.  I need to remember to get good photos of the scouts doing the things they are doing so they can remember.

Our purpose this time was to fulfill a few of the requirements for 1st and 2nd class ranks.  Those included hiking with a map and compass at least 5 miles, doing an orientation course that covered about a mile, finding 10 different plants, estimating the height of objects without using a measuring device, and finding evidence of several types of animals in the forest.  We accomplished most of those requirements.

The task we did was to take the map and compass and figure out where we were on the map.  We chose a spring that we estimated to be about .2 miles away and set a course for it.  It was interesting in that all of us chose a different angle of travel.  We all figured out the correct angle to start so I don't know if it was lack of attention or malfunctioning compasses or we weren't quite starting from the right place on the map.  Anyway we eventually all got there and got bit a lot by mosquitoes.  The spring was actually a pipe running into some water troughs.

From the spring we headed due north on a trail and our course would be to head toward a mountain known as Horse Heaven.  It looked about 3-4 miles away by the map but if it turned out to be easy enough we would shoot for that.  If not then we would go at least 2.5 miles and turn around.  To make a long story short we found ourselves going the wrong way on the trail and decided to go across country to catch the right trail.  Later looking at the GPS I figured out that we were originally on the right trail and it would have eventually swung around to catch up to where we cut across.

After cutting across and re-finding the trail we hit a steep 2 track road which was pointing the right way.  The opposite direction was the main trail that looped back to the vehicles.  I pointed it out that that was the way to go once we came back.  I'm glad I pointed that out or they would have gone back the hard way (as little did I know I wouldn't be with them).

The only problem with the new trail was that it was really steep.  It looked like mostly motorcycles and 4-wheelers went that way.  We started up it.  We didn't get far and I found I was having a hard time.  I kept getting slower and slower and my head started hurting, then my chest was burning.  I've been in a lot of high altitude places but never experienced this before.  I assumed it was from being in not so good shape at first but then I was really really getting slow.  I could tell that the boys hanging back with me (Chase, Zach and Kiowa) were getting impatient.   Chase and Zach started going up to catch up with Tom and Andrew and Dalton.  I sat down and Kiowa sat with me.  We talked for a minute but I couldn't really stand up.  I felt a little dizzy and then thought "Oh no not that thing that put me in the hospital again."  (I had spent a week in the hospital last year which started out as just feeling a little dizzy similar to what I was experiencing now).  I kept sitting hoping it would go away as I didn't have my pills to combat it.  Kiowa then said he was going to go up.  I said ok and to tell them I was feeling sick but should be up in a bit.  He started up and then as I was looking at my GPS I noticed I was sitting right next to another trail that sidelined up and would eventually join into the trail the rest were on.  It looked way less steep but about 150 yards longer.  I stood up and yelled up to Kiowa that I would take this trail and meet them up there and to tell them that I would be there.

I don't think Kiowa understood me well after talking about it later.  I think he thought I said I was going down.  Anyway as I started walking along the new trail my head cleared and suddenly I had energy.  I hoofed it across and then climbed the little way to the top and nobody was there.  I thought maybe they had gone on.  The only problem was there were two trails and I couldn't tell which way they would have gone.  The ground was hard and I couldn't see any tracks.  I thought I would just sit, eat my lunch and wait for them to come back.  I blew my bugle so they would know I was up there.  I heard some voices up the trail and thought "good they heard me".  (I think the wind was blowing too strong as nobody heard the bugle I learned later.)(It was also close to the Crest trail and I could have heard some other hikers.)

I waited and I waited.  I walked around.  I kicked over some rocks and found a little box like a geocache or something.  I threw the remainder of my sandwich at a squirrel.  Took pictures.  Nobody came.  I hoped that they were not lost up there as it had been about 45 minutes.  I looked for tracks up and down the trail they had come but couldn't find any coming or going.  The GPS was not wrong.  I was in the right place as it positions you with the map.  I could see the exact trail I was sitting on, the path that the GPS had tracked me on and they lined up.  I could also see the intersection where I left and that it was only 3-400 yards down the main trail.  Finally I decided to go down, hoping and praying that they had just gone on down and I had heard somebody else on top.  All the way down I looked for tracks and couldn't even find a scuff, including where I had left the trail.  In other words the ground was really hard.

It was a nice easy walk down and took less than 30 minutes to get to the truck.  Sure enough they were all down there bored as heck, building fires out of the papers and maps we were learning on.  I was very relieved to find them waiting there but also a little embarrassed as I knew it would be taken that I had gotten lost.  It was really a matter of communication.  In reality the fault is mine regardless of Kiowa's understanding of what I did or did not do.  You should never take a turn on a trail without fully communicating where you are going to go.  I knew where I was but they didn't know where I was and I didn't know they had gone down.  Its kind of a funny story.  I hope we can all learn from this adventure.

Otherwise enjoy the photos!

Chase and Zach heading up as I was sitting.  

The Teton Range

Kiowa after he left me.  This is about where I yelled up to him so you can see at that distance he probably really didn't hear me.  I must have been really sick because he's a long ways up there and Chase and Zach had dissappeared over the ridge.  The rest may have been sitting on top at this time.

I did enjoy an awesome view.  You can see the point of the Grand left of center and to the far left is Mt. Moran

Craggy windblown trees.

Crazy cloud formations.  You can appreciate the steepness here.

Just some mahogany trees

The map we used

The view at the top

Indian paintbrush

The blue line is my GPS showing our course of travel.  The hike started at the green pin.  We went to the right as a group.  The upper loop that looks like a jump rope is our crosscountry adventure.  The line connecting that and the upper triangle is the steep hill.  The lower part of the triangle heading left is where I left the trail.  We should have connected at the upper point of the triangle.  I came down the right side of the triangle which is where they would have gone up.  After going back down the steep hill the loop to the left is the way we went back down and to the truck which was not far from the green pin.

This is the upper part of the triangle where we should all have met up.  Notice all my wanderings while I waited.  Kinda funny.