6 Scouts and 2 leaders spent the week aboard the Adventurer a 41 foot Morgan Out Island sloop in the Florida Keys. Our time was spent sailing, snorkeling coral reefs, and fishing. In the process, our Scouts got to experience the only coral reefs in North America before they go extinct. Over the last 20 years, the reefs in Florida have shrunk by 50% with no end in sight.
We got to fish a lot and the Scouts caught hundreds of fish (no fish story) including a massive 30+ inch Grouper. Sadly the Grouper was out of season and we had to release it instead of making it feed the crew for the week.
We learned about navigation and sailing and put up and hauled in the sails numerous times to power ourselves around the Keys.
We lived on board the boat for the week anchoring off the coast along the way with a mid-week mooring at John Pennycamp State Park to use the showers, empty the garbage, and use flush toilets. Most nights we spent sleeping on deck under the stars.
For a full accounting of our week please check out our photo album from the trip:
Henry Balch and Chris James returned from college to accompany the older scouts on our annual Mini Venture. This year's trip took us to the West Canada Wilderness Area in the Adirondack Mountains for a backpacking trip. The Troop ended up hiking 27.7 miles through breathtaking scenery and some ferocious downpours over our 3 days and four nights on the trail.
The lean-tos along the trail were in relatively good shape and placed in convenient and scenic spots. After hiking for over an hour in the rain we were extremely happy to stumble across one where we could wait out the worst of the day 2 storm.
We carried everything we needed into the wilderness and in true Leave No Trace fashion packed all our garbage out.
For a view of all the picture from this awesome trip please check out the Troop picture folder here:
Last weekend we had a great first outing of the Spring. The Troop went to the Bridgeport Adventure Park for their ropes course and then to Camp Wah Wah Taysee in CT for an overnight. The new Scouts were awesome and managed to seamlessly join the Troop 4 campout rhythms, setting up their tents, joining in the cooking, cleaning, and general camp chores like they have been doing it forever.
A special thanks to John K. and Andy S. for joining in on the campout.
For a complete photo record of the campout please check out the album link here:
Segment 2 of our quest to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail contained in New York State is completed. There is almost 90 miles of trail in NYS and we have covered about 13. AT this rate we should get the entire route covered in about 5 years. Our Route this time took us from RT 55 in Pawling south to RT 84.
Our Shelter for the night was the Morgan Stewart Memorial Shelter. We met two other hikers who shared the site with Monarch and Hiking Hippo. Monarch is segment hiking the AT and was completing the NY segment she started this summer. I wish I got a picture of Hiking Hippos pack, he had a 120 Liter backpack that seemed like a magicians hat. He seemed to have 1 of everything in it. A very different philosophy that our packs which ran in size from 38 Liters to 75 Liters.
The sky was dark and the leaves mostly dropped but the forest we hiked through had a stark beauty that contrasted with our summer outings. An appropriate finish to our 2017 camp outs.
For a complete photo record of our trip please check out the album.
Apologies everyone. I went to post pictures for our last camp out and realized I had a huge backlog of un-posted photos. To make up for it this post will be a single catch up of all the activities with photos since last May and our last backpacking trip will follow as a separate post.
Troop 4 pulled off its first High Adventure trip with an outing to the BSA Florida Sea Base. The scouts chose the out island adventure and we spent a week on Big Munson Island living on "island time", fishing, snorkaling, kayaking, and exploring our island.
High adventure trips are designed for High School age scouts who are at least 1st Class in rank and prepared to live a wilderness high adventure experience with minimal assistance and oversight. Our trip was 1.5 years in the planning and both adults and scouts agreed the single best scouting adventure any of us ever had. As a Troop we will look to try and pull one of these adventures off every 3 years.
Day 1
Arrive at the Brinton Environmental Center on Summerland Key 25 miles north of Key West which was the staging area for our adventure.
Day 2
Pack our dry bags with gear, hit the commissary for our our food and we are off in the war canoes for a 5.5 mile paddle through the Atlantic Ocean to our island paradise and home for the remainder of the week. In true Troop 4 tradition of making all our hikes up hill both ways the trip out and back were both into the wind and against the tide.
To protect the boats we moored them offshore and trekked through the water for the last leg of the trip with our gear for the week.
Day 3
Our campsite
On our third day we explored Big Munson and got a lesson in the ecology of the Florida Keys from our Mate Charles who was our Sea Base guide for the week.
Charles
After our exploration it was on to kayaking the mangrove swamps and finding our way through the maze.
After a very full day we still had one more post dinner activity, the Troop went shark fishing in the bay that fronted our camp site. While we caught no sharks we did catch a rather large Barracuda.
Day 4
Fishing day. A boat arrived at the island to pick us up and as we headed out the rain and wind kicked up into a fierce storm. Yet our scouts persisted without complaint. Check out the video below to get a sense for the intensity of the wind and rain. Even with raincoats the rain felt like pins.
Persistence pays off. Not only did we catch fish in this weather but after lunch we were rewarded with a spectacular afternoon and the fishing got even better.
Back at the camp we cooked up the fish we kept and had a spectacular seafood feast.
Day 5
Our final full day was spent on the dive boat snorkeling a coral reef. The water and the reef were spectacular. The photos do not do justice to the vivid and amazing colors and creatures living in the reef. At one point a 6 foot shark decided to take a swim underneath the Troop between us at the surface and the coral reef below.
After dinner we had a final campfire and went to bed to prepare for the 5.5 mile journey back through the ocean the next day.
Day 6
After breaking camp and heading back to the base camp (into the wind and against the tide) we cleaned up, put our gear away and prepared for the final Luau and team building games with the rest of the scouts back at the base camp.
A great farewell and parting dinner for the Troop. Our last meal was prepared for us and after a week of Island cooking the Luau was great.
Day 7
Packed up and said farewell to our Mate Charles and we headed north back to Ft Lauderdale for our plane ride home.
For a view of our trip album please check out this link on our Troop picture page:
Spent the weekend exploring American Revolutionary War history in Boston. Hiked the Freedom Trail then visited Concord and the Old North Bridge where the first shots of the war were fired.
To see all of our pictures from the weekend check out our picture page here:
That's fishing not catching. Except for William who briefly hooked a trout before executing a classic Long Distance Release (LDR), no one even saw a fish. It was like aliens arrived and took all the Trout home before we arrived.
Still fishing and not catching is better than not fishing at all.
Most of the Scouts took the opportunity to get lessons in fly fishing and hopefully we sparked a future interest in the sport for some of them.
The campsite was great and the river beautiful. I can't wait to go back.
For all the photos please visit our photo page at:
A perfect Saturday bracketed by rain on the hike in and hike out. What's a Troop 4 Outing without a little bit of rain?
Many things to cover, but I want to start with our visitors Saturday afternoon. North Salem Pack 1 hiked up to see the Troop Saturday and get a feel for what a Scout Camp is like. The Troop 4 Scouts were great hosts, you should be proud of your going men. They played silly field games with the Cubs, then each Scout adopted a Cub as a little brother and showed them their tents, backpacks, gear, and cooking areas. Once again our Scouts did their best on upholding the "friendly" portion of the Scout Law. I want to thank Cubmaster Peter Dibart for hiking the Pack up and back so we could get a chance to meet the Cubs and their families.
The rest of the day was consumed with canoeing, fishing, rank advancement, and relaxing.
I challenged the Patrols to plan menus that mostly fit the MyFoodPlate guidelines and would require little to no refrigeration. Both the Flaming Eagles and OnComing Storm hit the mark. One of the Patrols managed to put together a zero refrideration meal plan the other had only a tiny cooler bag.
The Batmen had their own ideas (older teens usually do) and went full cooler. I will say their meals were delicious (especially the Chili) and they didn't seem to mind hiking with the extra baggage.
Our two newest Scouts dropped right into the mix and imediately added value to their Patrols carrying their share of equiplment, cooking and cleaning.
Looking forward to the rest of our Scouting year.
For all of the pictures in the weekend's photo album please go to our picture page:
I recently realized I have not kept up with pictures and descriptions of our outings since the Ski Trip. In order to get caught up and ready for our Spring camping season I am rolling all updates into a single post. Enjoy and get ready for spring camping.
No rain, but plenty of cold weather at last weekend's outing. Fortunately everyone was prepared.
The ropes course challenged everyone. Several scouts with fears of heights successfully faced those fears and we all had a great time.
Each Scout spent about 2.5 hours up in the trees going from obstacle to obstacle.
I think the coolest part came after the ropes course when we got to camp on the ski mountain.
We made our base camp next to one of the chair lifts.
Did I mention it was cold? Even all bundled up the Patrols had the time to put some extra effort into their meals and what fantastic results they had. Some of the meals I sampled were pulled pork sandwiches, BLT, spaghetti and meatballs, and sesame chicken. All were fantastic, boy can these guys cook.
For the full photo record of the outing please check out the Troop picture page at:
