May 1-2, 2009: Nolan's 1st Scout Camp

Nolan's 1st opportunity for camping with the his Tiger Cub Den and the rest of the pack was this past weekend. Earlier in the week, it just looked to be cool and dry for the weekend, but the forecast went "south" and we ended up with a cool to cold and very wet weekend. Luckily, up at 7500 feet in the Laramie Range it was dry Friday night compared to down-the-hill in Cheyenne.
We had a good night and did not take on water from the few periods of light rain that moved through the LCCC/LCSD Outdoor Education lands that we were camped on.

We awoke to light rain in the morning and around 38 degrees and headed to the education building where Nolan was able to help prepare the breakfast of "omelletes in a bag." Here are a few pictures of his onion cutting.





The omelletes turned out great with onions, cheese, green peppers, ham and of course, eggs. We each made our own in the zip lock bag and then the bags were boiled in water on a propane grill.

After breakfast, the scouts raised an American flag.

...and then gathered for the Knife, Axe and Saw Safety presentation from the two older boy scouts that were sort of the MC's for the weekend.

Then, below, one of the kids grandfathers gave a great presentation on Forestry including identifying trees, the current bark beetle infestation, and other very interesting facts.

The kids then had some free time for frisbee, football, etc. and then we went on a very short hike with the older scouts before lunch.

We had great weather with very little rain (and even a little sunshine) throughout the morning and early afternoon. After Scott did a presentation on weather safety and a little more free-time, the group headed out on our ~3 mile hike to waterfall and a few overlooks. Shortly after the next photo, it started to rain steadily for the rest of the hike. The trip around the end of the loop was interesting as we had to work as a team to get everyone back across the stream since the bridge had been washed away by the recent rapid melting of several feet of very heavy, wet snow. We also saw several examples of the damage done by the bark beetle in the area and tons of evidence of very recent mountain lion activity in the area (carcasses and tracks).

Everyone was sufficiently soaked following the hike, so we did shelter building and fire starting in the education building.

With rain changing to snow, temperatures already in the lower 30s and snow starting to stick at dinner around 800 PM, Nolan and Scott decided to head home after the camp-fire activities. No fire was possible outside in the weather, so Nolan enjoyed participating in the skits and songs while Scott loaded up the car with the tent and gear. Scott made it back to the "indoor camp-fire" activities for about the last 30 minutes and saw Nolan participating in a skit, and lots of other fun.

Below, Nolan is running around the audience as part of his skit.

After waking up this morning at home, we were glad we decided to come home since some of the highway webcams not far from the camping location showed about 2-3 inches of new snow on the ground! It would have been really wet and cold this morning, and we were just going to leave after breakfast anyways.