minutemen

August camp out – Union Valley Reservoir area August 17, 2008

August 15 -17 – Campout to Union Valley Reservoir (Highway 50/Ice House Reservoir area, about 20 miles West of Lake Tahoe). We will continue to practice skills such as cooking, fire-building, knots, lashing, Hiking, etc. We will try to cover skills from Tenderfoot to First Class that we have not covered yet. Stay tuned for more about this trip. Cost is $7.50 for the campsite. You should plan on the total being about $20.00 per person with food and gas. It was limited to 31 participants.

Due to the fact that the July camp-out and the August camp-out were only three weeks apart, we kept the patrol leadership positions the same. So the cook from the last trip was the cook for this trip. I was the grub master once again.

This camp out was more of a family camp out as there were several siblings tag-a-longs. There were 10 boy scouts, fourteen parents, seven siblings and three Eagle scouts who helped out.

The highlight of the camp out was the brown bear which was around 150 to 200 lbs (about 2 years old) that run through the camp-site. There were two younger children in the group napping in their tent when the bear came by real close to their tent. Someone saw it on a picnic table near the tent. Most of the Minutemen Patrol who were on the camp out saw the bear. However there were a few in the group who missed it because they were not at a good vantage point. My mom and younger brother were in our minivan and the bear ran 30 feet in front of them so they got the best view. There was several “Active Bear” warnings posted in the different camp sights.

We also did water rescue techniques — the “Reach, Throw, Row, Go” philosophy was part of this training and all the boys who were present successfully demonstrated that they knew what to do. We also did fire starting techniques.

Names to follow.

We enjoyed the lake. Several of the youngest siblings rolled in the mud or smeared each other in the mud. Having the boats with us was an additional joy for all the boys. The evening events were great.

Those who were at the swim test two Tuesdays ago also completed that requirement. The boys were distracted and our leader had to keep calling on the boys, but in the end we did get the task done. Names to follow.

On Tuesday August 12th several Minutemen were presented with the Scout Patches.

Jon P has advised us to make sure we get our month long exercises done to achieve our tenderfoot rank. We just have to be diligent about doing the exercises each day to learn how exercising each day can improve over a month.