Is this fun or what?

Here is a schedule of upcoming campouts:
March 12-13 On the Allebes Ranch
April 9-10 Introduction to Rock Climbing with Don Pierson
May 14-15 Father & Sons Aaronic Priesthood campout at Blue Ridge, Scouts will hike up from the highway. Bishopric will supply dinner, Bro J will do breakfast hot off the griddle.
June 10-11-12 Zion Narrows
July 25-31 is Scout camp at Camp Whitsett. BUY SCRIP
August - 20-21 Mt Baden-Powell

Sometime in Summer I am going to fit in a 3 or 4 day 40 miler that will include Mt Whitney. http://www.dankat.com/swhikes/whitny.htm If I can get a second leader to go, scouts will be invited.

And Larry Milne is planning some trips for the Ventures... one that I am planning on going on is the old Seven Peaks hike in the San Gorgonio Wilderness... it is now commonly called the 9 Peaks Traverse... goes from Mt San Bernardino to San Gorgonio (About 25 miles) http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/170647/san-gorgonio-9-peaks.html

Snow Camp - February 12-13, 2010

Snow camp was a great success. Friday night we went up to Apple Tree Campground near Jackson Lake. The flatlanders were just leaving as we got there so we had the whole place to ourselves for a little while. Two other troops eventually showed up and camped but we didn’t mind sharing the campground with them because it is a pretty big campground.

The rangers said we could have a fire, but we should try to find the fire ring. Well, the snow was about 4 feet deep and packed down really hard, and after we dug out a hole in the snow about 10 feet in diameter we decided we had found the fire ring. It may not have been the one they wanted us to find, but we figured it was right there in the middle of our hole. We cut a bench in the side of the hole all the way around so we had a place to sit while enjoying our fire. It was a very cool seat, if you know what I mean.

Now when you dig a hole in the snow 4 feet deep and 10 feet around and pile up all the snow into one heap, you have a pretty good size pile of snow. And when you have a pretty good size pile of snow and a bunch of scouts, you usually get the idea to dig a snow cave. So that’s what we did. Lots of us took turns digging out the cave and it was eventually pretty big inside, almost big enough for 4 scouts to sleep inside. So, that’s what we did. Alex, Brad & Tanner and Jake all began the night sacked out in the snow cave. Somewhere in the night one of them got cold and moved to the tent. We won’t mention that it was Jake because we don’t want him to be embarrassed. But he was a lot warmer in the tent so he doesn’t feel too bad about it.

In the cave

The rest of us in tents

That's Brigham and Jeff in their own version of snow camping.

The Luge

Heading up the hill

Heading down the hill

Mug shot

The light looks dim because we were up before the sun!

This time I'm on top of the tube...

In the morning we gathered up all the sleds and inner tubes and found places to slide down the snow. Our leaders followed us around with cameras taking pictures of all our wipe outs. They kept suggesting routes that would make interesting movies, but there were lots of trees and bumps where they wanted us to go so mostly we found other spots. We did try a few of their suggestions and by the way they cheered when we planted our heads in the snow, I think they must have gotten some good movies.

Nice head plant, Tanner!

Warming the feet

This hill was a lot steeper than it looks