We started off at the church as usual around 5:30.  It was about 45 minutes to get to the Richland Creek Zipline campsite. We waited about 10 minutes while the leaders and the SPL were shown our camp site options.  When they came back the owner took us to the campsite by tractor and a trailer with seats. By then it was already dark and it was getting cold. When we got to the campsite right away we took out the tents and tarps and set them up. After everyone was finishing up on their tents, Austin started a fire and that was the end of Friday night.  Austin and Ian slept under the stars that night.  The next night Andrew and Carlo followed suit.

On Saturday morning it was FREEZING. Right away Austin made a fire from Friday night’s the embers. For a good 15 minutes almost everyone was crowded around the fire until we realized we had to eat breakfast. We ate, did KP and we went back to the fire. The PLC Decided to go ziplining at 2:00 so we played some games. A few scouts arrived in the morning that didn’t come with us the night before. Mr. Palmer arrived that morning and he gave us a tug-of-war rope.  We had a competition between patrols and then eventually against the adult leaders.  Of course the scouts won.  We then started jump roping with that large tug-of-war rope. All the scouts were having a blast.

We then had lunch around 12:00. Another game Scoutmaster Dan had us play was to tie a clove hitch around two trees; a race between the patrols. The Flaming Jalapenos did it the fastest. After we cleaned up, we’re off to the ziplining towers. The people there strapped on our gear and they showed us how to zipline. It was so much fun going down the ziplines. The guides were doing flips and tricks on the zipline. On the last zipline we went over a river and the guides were pulling down on the line making us bounce all the way down the zipline. After that we went back down to the campsite and some sat around the fire and others did some more jump rope and some just went to there tents and chilled until dinner. Then we started preparing for dinner. We had dinner around the fire. After everyone was done with dinner, we started with KP. It had started to get dark. After that everyone went back to the fire. The Flaming Jalepeños were making Cherry Cobbler for dessert and The adults were making Apple Crisp. But that meant more KP for them. After they did that everyone went back to the fire. It was cold that night so we were crowed there almost all night. Austin brought his guitar and shared an Austin original, among others.

Everyone also had a very strong conversation about the football games that night. After that almost everyone went to sleep. The next morning it was a fast breakfast and everyone took down their tents and put everything back in the trailer, and had a quick police line. Carlo led us in our Sunday morning service with Austin’s help and his guitar.  We sang and prayed.   After that all the scouts hiked back to the cars by patrol.  Everyone got there right away.  It was another 45 minutes back to the church and arrived about 11:30. Everyone had great time.

By: Rene Soto”

More Pictures of our trip here.

Written By: Anthony

Mount rogers a very beautiful and exciting place. That was where me and nine other scouts went for our two night stay in the snowy, icy, and cold mountains. When we got out of the cars at the bottom of the mountain I could already tell that this was going to be one heck of a weekend.

We left the parking lot at about six o clock from the church and it took us a little bit more than two hours to get there so we started the trail at about eight thirty. We had to then walk one mile to our campsite. By the time we got there it was ten forty five. Then we had to set up our backpacking tents and get everything we need out of our backpacks. Everyone was in their tents by eleven thirty, and my bed was not as warm as I thought because it was in the teens at night. The troop and I also didn’t expect snow to be on the ground when we got there.

In the morning we had breakfast which was the usual oatmeal granola bars or freeze dried breakfast . After breakfast when everybody’s fingers weren’t frozen anymore we packed for our hike to the top of mount rogers. We got to Thomas’s nob at about two o clock then we ate lunch and filtered some more water. Next we started on our way back at about three. Our troop S. P. L.said that we needed to pick up the pace so we could get back by sunset. So we got back to camp at around five o clock. We all made our freeze dried food which was not my favorite. All of us were done with dinner at about six thirty and then all of us went to bed.

After the long night we all got up in the morning and started packing. It took me a while to pack up because I learned a valuble lesson that trip. The lesson was that you NEED to watch what you pack and don’t pack too much. So after I packed everything Mr. Bob helped me tighten the straps on my pack and then we were on our way to the parking lot. When we finally got to the parking lot I was excited to be on our way home after the cold weekend. I definetly wanted to be on a cruise with Mr. Dan. :-)  Overall the backpacking trip was eventful and I definetly learned valuable lessons.  I will remember this trip for a long time.

More photos our our trip!

Ravens Knob, a beautiful and exciting campground. That’s where we were headed for a two-night-stay. As we loaded up the trailer I already could feel the temperature dropping. At that moment I could tell that my toes were in for some fun. During the hour and fifteen minute car ride Troop 26’s Scouts and Pack 16’s Webelos anticipation to grew. When we got to Ravens Knob we started looking for our campsite and eventually found it. We soon realized that we were at the higher elevations in the camp and decided to find a campsite at a lower elevation in search of warmer temperatures. We checked in with the Ranger, switched camps and got to work setting up our tents in the dark. Despite the cold the scouts were excited and chatter could be heard from the tents for several hours after lights out.

The next morning we woke up and ate breakfast, which for my patrol was sausage, pancakes, and orange juice. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time for K.P., which we would do after our hike. After a flag raising ceremony we geared up for our adventurous hike to “The Knob”. As our adrenaline rushed from the climbing we all knew that something was waiting for us at the top. That something was the five-million dollar view. It was absolutely amazing, and we all agreed that the hike was definitely worth it. After that we came down and did K.P. from breakfast, and started lunch which was simply lunch meat. Lunch was followed by some free time, where scouts were able to unwind before we rolled into the afternoon activities. In the afternoon we did what we called a round robin which is where you rotate stations to absorb as much information as possible and these skills would be used for a skills challenge. When everyone finished we were briefed on the rules of the skills challenge. Here is how it works, you go to four stations orienteering, first aid, scout spirit and knots then come back to camp and build a fire high enough to burn the rope at the top. For my patrol our first station was first aid where we preformed some first aid procedures, second was orienteering skills where we measured distance and degrees, third was knots where we all worked together to tie four knots, and finally fourth was scout spirit where we talked mainly about what scout spirit is and what it means. Shortly after that we came back to camp and tried to make our fire burn the rope, which was difficult but with teamwork wasn’t too bad.
Next we lowered the flags because it was about sunset. Right after that we had dinner. After dinner we did K.P. and headed for the big campfire. At the campfire we song some songs and did some cool and funny skits. One funny skit was a skit called olla where a special visitor comes and climbs a tree and eventually falls. Then we ended it off with a flag retirement ceremony. When it was done we headed to camp and had our own campfire, where we told spooky stories. I liked Tailey Poe, a spooky story that was a little scary and a bit funny. It was late, we had a packed day, so we headed to the tents and the chatter from the night before was absent.

The next morning we ate breakfast and packed up. Then we took down the tent. After that we had our Sunday prayer service and then headed home. Despite the cold weather I think we all agreed that we had a great time. By Andrew Danko
Here are the pictures from the trip.

Enjoy.