Fairchild Airforce Base Visit

As part of the Citizenship in the nation merit badge, we recently were given a guided tour of the SERE (Survival School Lab) by Staff Sargent Josh Strom. Enjoy.

Winterfest 2010

Troop 323 participated in the Council Sponsored Winterfest at Camp Cowles Dec 29th.

Attending:

Daniel Springman Star Scout & SPL
Cullen Fletcher-First Class
Zac McMaster-Life Scout
Jace Culley-Star Scout
Ryan Culley-2nd Class
Hunter Geren-1st Class
Chris Howell-SM
Howard Ashby-ASM


Absent:

Spencer Harlan
Kramer Geren
Josh Keetch
Adam Culley


We left on the 28th and overnighted in the cozy comfort of Howard Ashby's cabin on the opposite side of Diamond Lake from Camp Cowles. We arrived around 7, had a hot dinner of pizza and green beans and apples. We played some chess and had a little scripture reading and prayer.

Wed we were up at 6:30. Some even earlier. (Cullen) We had a breakfast of cereal and fresh fruit. Next we had a presentation of the flag, recited the oath and left for Camp Cowles.

We arrived about 20 minutes early to a winter wonderland of snow. It was warm and snowing. We checked in and offered to help with the set up which included packing the sled hill and clearing the new snow off the mini golf and bowling games.

The morning was taken up by winter camping instruction and demonstration.

The afternoon we turned our attention to the snowman building competition. Our guys had lots of ideas, but decided on two "snow scouts" around a fire roasting marsh mellows. You could see they had scout spirit by looking at their eyes-we used neckerchief slides. One of the biggest challenges was keeping the new snow from burying them. We placed first in the diarama class-prize is either pizza or ice cream at some later date.

About 2:30 we helped with the take down and headed back to the cabin.

When we got back, some wanted to try their hand at building a snow shelter and all ended up in the hot tub after that!

Wed night was games, a quiz on the winter camping instruction, (ask them the normal body temp or what about windchill) some scripture and troop prayer.

Thurs we were up a bit later than Wed and had a hot breakfast of bacon, french toast, hot chocolate and fresh fruit. (Daniel can take care of his guys with good food)

Next order was flags, scripture and the Oath followed by house cleaning. We did dishes, vacuumed, took out trash and did some other work to leave things tidy.

We left around 10:30 for Pend Oreille County Park where we put on our snow shoes and hiked to a hill overlooking the Newport Highway with Zac leading the way and then down into a ravine and doubled back to the van. Watch out for Hunter he was well prepared with gaiters, boots and his own snowshoes-he is a prepared scout and knows how to work.

We were home about 3pm.

Great food planning and execution. Great team work on the snow scouts and lots of fun and snow.

February we'll go to Northrup Canyon for camping and eagle viewing.