Ski Weekend Recap - Gore Mountain 2015

 

The flip side to wet weather following Troop 4 is that for winter activities where snow is important we end up with plenty.  Last weekend we went skiing at Gore Mountain and true to form wet weather followed, except this time it manifested itself in fresh snow Friday night (3"),  Saturday night (3"), and all day Sunday providing fantastic conditions for skiing.  All ten lifts and all 100+ trails were open this weekend. 

We stayed in the Camp Read ski cabin and were well taken care of by the Read staff including having all our meals prepared for us by the Camp Buckskin kitchen staff.  The Scouts played board games after dinner and watched some clasic bad movies each night before lights out, and everyone skied hard both days.

Rides up the mountain were comfortable in the Gore Gondola and everyone loved the new high speed quad to the mid mountain which is a tremendous improvement over the old lift.

Saturday we skied from 8:30am to 4pm with only a couple of breaks for food and rest, and we skied another 4 hours Sunday and managed to get out of Gore ahead of the snow storm that dumped another 8 inches of snow Sunday.  If only we didn't have to get back for work and school.

Cabin Camping and Horseback Riding Merit Badge Weekend

It was cold again for another Troop 4 outing, thankfully the fireplace in the Cabin at the Ten Mile River Scout Camp kept us all toasty warm.  The Horsebarn though was on the chilly side, but at least we were inside and sheltered from the wind.

We had nine scouts spending the weekend and earning their Horsmanship Merit Badge at the Rolling Stone Ranch in Bethel, NY.  Appropriate that a ranch uses a musical theme for its name in the town Woodstock was held but it is somewhat odd they chose a band that didn't play that weekend.  Anyway one of everyone's favorite horses this weekend was Jagger.  Unfortunately Bianca was in a different barn and we didn't get to meet her.

The scouts learned a lot about horses and spent time working on their riding skills, but probably everyone's favorite activity was mucking out the horse stalls.  Well maybe not the Scouts favorite but the staff's favorite, because when Boy Scouts come for their Merit Badge the Scouts do the daily chores the staff usually has to do.  Next time your scout complains about cleanning his room remind him it's a much easier job that shoveling horse sh*t.

To break up the day with a little fun our Merit Badge instructor held a Troop horse race which we managed to capture on video.

Scout horse race from Trip Balch on Vimeo.

Back at the cabin dinner was prepared and lots of board games played.  The classics (Chess/Monopoly) as well as the new classics (Settelrs/Ticket to Ride) were played several times. 

For a complete photo record of the weekend check out the Troop photo album here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/114081196567743974684/TenMileRiverCabinCamping

Board of Review update

5 Scouts completed their Board of Review last night and earned their next rank.  Troop 4 promoted two scouts to 2nd Class, two scouts to Star, and one to Life.  Congratulations all.  We look forward to presenting their ranks next week and celebrating these accomplishments together at our Court of Honor and Holiday Dinner.