Steamboat Rock and Northrup Canyon Hike

Troop 323 had a great winter camp out. We drove to Steamboat Rock State Park on Banks Lake near the Grand Coulee Dam.

We ate in Davenport at Edna's Drive In and arrived at the park around 8pm. We got a fire going, set up tents and put out our sleeping bags.

Our campfire included a hot cup of cocoa, some songs (we were in trouble til Howard saved us), a game of run sheepy run, thank you Matt Borders, a visit from Ammon and how a scripture prophet epotomized the scout law...Bravery and Helpful come to mind. We also had two reports; one on eagles by Zac and the other on Banks Lake by Daniel.

We or at least some of us turned in about 10 pm.

Aaron was up early to warm up and get the fire going. We had a hot and hearty breakfast of "All in One" breakfast from the dutch oven. ( hashbrowns, eggs, sausage and cheese)

About 9 Kent Morris joined us and we hiked to the top of Steamboat Rock for an awesome view of Banks Lake in north and south. We also saw a small herd of deer.

We returned to camp, had some lunch, broke camp and headed to Northrop Canyon by car.

There we hiked to Northrup Lake and got back to the trucks about 3.

All told we did 10 miles of hiking. We did spot 3 eagle but not the hundreds that have been reported.

The weather couldn't have been nicer, given it was early February.

Thanks to Kam, Howard, Aaron and Kent!

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.

This weekend was our Fall Camporee at Camp Cowles. We arrived Friday evening and had a nice hot bowl of chili and built up a big fire to sit around during our campfire program.

Saturday's activities consisted of teaching cub scouts first aid in the morning and scout skill competition in the afternoon.

We were lucky to have Howard Ashby, Kevin Innes and Aaron Binns (two docs and a chiropractor) with us to help our boys develop their presentations using the EDGE method. (Explain, Demo, Guide and Enable.


Logan Binns and Daniel Springman's graphically demonstrated the himelick method of helping someone that is choking. Logan would load his mouth with munched pretzels and spew them on the thrust.

Jacob Presley and Scott Innes did an outstanding job teaching how to dress an abrasion to the arm.

Zac and Spencer discussed how to wash and bandage an eye injury.

While we weren't graded, I was very very impressed what outstanding teaching skills the boys of troop 323 have.

The afternoon was full of scout history questions at each skill station. Of course you know the scouting came to America in 1910, but when did it come to Spokane and when did Camp Cowles come to be??? 1915 and 1920 respectively.

The skills stations included the following:

First Aid-simulated life threatening injuy. The boys had to assess and address.

Pioneering-rope throw, log tie, hoist and tie off with clove hitch.

Tomahawk Throw

Team Building obstacle course

Plant Identification

Fire Building-build a fire, light it at the bottom with one match and burn a stretched string 4' above the ground-timed.

We took a third place in the fire building event with a time of 58 seconds, BUT we took Grand Champion award for best overall score in the camp.

We had a very fun and successful camp.

Mancation in McCall

Last week we had our annual mancation in McCall. We rode three days to three different hot springs. We had a hard ride and and easy ride each day...but the easy ride almost cost an overnighter for three of the group. We ate breakfast pizza, burritos and lots of trail dust. We had devotionals and prayer. We got tired, dehydrated, cranky and sweaty. Our machines were beaten, smashed and abused in the rough terrain....but we came back to our jobs and routines with memories of good times and brotherhood to support us when times are tough. This trip was not for the faint of heart. Surprisingly we only did about 25 miles per day....but it was like a marathon on motos.