More Day 1

Michael, Evan & Sam Climb On!

Philmont trip!

Rocky Mtn Nat’L Park

Exploring the tundra at 11,000′ atop Rocky Mt National Park. The thin air got everybody’s attention! Baldy Mtn in New Mexico goes up to 10,500′, so we know we’ll have our work cut out for us!

Philmont Itinerary for Expedition # 709-N1 (Power Rangers)

Here are maps and a short summary for our expedition:

Day 1: Arrival in Philmont, Opening Campfire

Day 2: Bus to Ponil, Hike to Sioux Camp

Day 3: Hike from Sioux to Ponil, Burro packing–take Burros to Flume Canyon, and set up camp. Activities at Pueblano (1 1/2 miles past the campsite):

Day 4: Hike to Head of Dean for Challenge events:

Day 5: Hike to Miranda to drop off burros, mountain man rendezvous, and Balck powder rifles; continue hike to Ute Meadows:

Day 6: Circuit hike to Baldy Mtn, Activiites (Gold panning, blacksmith, gold mining at French Henry, pick up foor at Baldy Town, return to camp:

Day 7: Ute Meadows to Upper Dean Cow–no special activities

Day 8: Dean Cow to Upper Bench:

Day 9 Upper Bench to Cimmaroncito; Pick up food at Ute Gulch, Rock climbing, rapelling, and environmental awareness at camp (Staff camp with showers):

Day 10: Hidden Valley loop hike, cabin tour at hunting lodge

Day 11: Cimmaroncito to Clark’s Fork for horseback riding, Western Lore, Chuck Wagon Dinner; hike 2 1/2 miles to camp at Ponderosa (note: dry camp)

Day 12: Hike over tooth of time to base camp (bring lots of water!)

Winter Merit Badge Schedule

Thanks for your responses on the proposed Winter Merit Badge Classes. Based on your requests, here is our preliminary schedule:

Each of these classes will meet three times each starting on Sundays in Jan/Feb at the Scout House:

Family Life (Mrs Norton) Starts 21/01/08 6:00PM (Monday—MLK Day)

Meeting 2: April 20

Meeting 3: May 11

Environmental Science (Mr Donahoe) Starts 27/01/08 6:00PM Sunday

Meeting 2: March 9

Meeting 3: April 13

Emergency Prep (Mr Norton) Starts 18/02/08 6:00PM (Monday—President’s Day)

Meeting 2: Mar 30

Meeting 3: Apr 27

Camping (Mr Coleman) Starts 24/02/08 6:00PM Sunday

Meeting 2: Apr 6

Meeting 3: May 4

This Class will meet every 1 -2 weeks, Sundays at the Scout House:

Personal Fitness (Mr Evans) Starts 27/01/08 5:00PM Sunday

Bill Andrews
703-938-3270
baandrews1@verizon.net

Blue Card Status–Citizenship in the Community

Scouts with Remaining Requirements:

• Frank Whitesell 7C
• Michael McKeon 3, 7C
• Connor Lobb 7C
• M Butkiewicz 7C
• Caleb Royce 4B, 7C, 8
• Johnny Bieniek 7C
• Josh Conrad 4B, 6, 7C
• Mike Conrad 6

If you are in need of volunteer ideas, check Food for Others (http://www.foodforothers.org/volunteer.html)

Citizenship in the Community Honor Roll (Complete):

Winter 07/08 Court of Honor

• Sam Hoehn
• Stephen Lokke
• Michael Vaughn
• Tho. Vaughn
• Sam Parker
• Joe Nappi
• Sam Dowell
• Evan Harvey
• Brian Hur
• Joe Raines
• Charlie Toch
• Leo Toch
• Patrick Andrews

Summer 08 Court of Honor

• Mark Hilliard
• Samuel Jackson
• Nick Roy
• AJ Norton
  
• John Generous (Fall 2008) 

Citizenship in the Nation (Fall 2008)

• Nick Roy
  
• Thomas Vaughn
  
• Michael Vaughn
  
• Johnny Bieniek
  
• Matthew Butkiewicz
  
• Stephen Lokke
  
• Leo toch
  
• Charlie Toch
  
• Michael McKeon

Pictures and Thanks

Hi gang, I noticed on some systems, the right side of the pictures are clipped. Sorry, I fixed them on the web here so you can see the whole picture without clicking on it. these are pretty low resolution pictures scaled for the web, if you want to download or print one, go to the flickr link below.

 I need to take a minute to thank so many people who made this a great week at camp…the dads who attended camp did all the heavy lifting by running the training, medical issues, achievements, service projects, quartermaster issues, and our campfire program. Without the strong involvement of all 11 dads who took a week off work to help at camp we would have achieved far less.

Our Scouts did a great job leading and following. Leaders of patrols and the troop learned a lot about setting standards and motivating people. Followers learned much about being team players. Their efforts earned Clean Camper Award, Honor Patrols for all 5 patrols, and Honor Troop for the troop.

WELL DONE!!

Bill Andrews

PS: All My Photos from Camp are posted on Flickr. CLICK HERE or on the FLICKR link below on the right. I’ve upload the full hi-res versions so you can print-edit as you desire.

Final Update

Hello 681 parents, We’re having a great day, mid-70’s blue sky. Here are some final pictures before we return home tomorrow. We should be home around 2 PM.

James had a special wakeup for his birthday this AM. (BTW, this tent DID pass inspection 40 minutes later) 

Brothers

 

Fingerprinting was a popular (1 hour!) merit badge. What career is this prep for?? 

All the patrols completed service projects:

 While the leaders did strategic planning:

 Spirits are high as merit badges are completed…

 

Mark Jarvis taught a “totin chip” class, and the Cobras are now legal to carry knives.

Several scouts worked on rock climbing this week….here our leaders are helping:

 

 This was the result: a “leap of faith” where our boys could dare to try.

 

and grow in many ways.

 Bill

Thurs Update

Hello T681 Moms and Dads,

 We had a fine Wed and Thurs is off to  a good start. It’s hot and very humid today, and all are drinking lots of water.

the Cobras are learning a lot from the great Dan Beard staff in their first year at camp:

It’s great to have some brothers at camp this year: Big C and Little C at lunch:

 Poker is still popular as ever before bed,

As well as the ever-popular camp store! (although funds are getting scarce by now):

We didn’t place very highly at the water carnival, but the kids had fun.

This afternoon, many patrols will be finishing their service projects, and we’ll be doing a troop service project.

The food’s still been great, and all are eating well. Night time has settled down a lot, and all are on a good trajectory—as the week progresses, the boys lead more and more activities and the leaders get to be less “hands on”!

Behavoirs have been very good throughout the troop. A few scouts have had to write me two-page essays on the scout law, which has been very helpful keeping everybody on the right track as we enjoy our last two days at Ockanickon. I’m very proud of the progress I’ve seen in skills, self-reliance, leadership, teamwork, and conduct this week!

 Bill

More Pix from Wed

Wed started out well with a tasty Breakfast of French toast and bacon….maybe not so good for our senior scouts??

Perhaps more popular with the other patrols……

And definitely good with the junior scouts and leaders!!!

Falcons are cool:

Hawks are happy to be getting fed

Same for the Knights and Arrows:  

Today the troop competition was a “one match” firebuilding challenge,

Which brought out the best (and channelled!) our pryomaniacal tendencies (under supervision of course)

All the patrols worked on service projects in between other fun camp activities.

Tonight all are looking forward to the water carnival!

No health problems in camp–all are happy, eating well, and having fun….

’till tomorrow,

 Bill

Wed Update

Good Afternoon T681 parents, the troop is in a groove, splitting time between merit badges, pool, and having fun at the campsite playing catch, cards, or working on fire skills.

Thunderstorms threatened Tues PM, but all slid by to the north or south! 

  Pond next to our campsite and T-storm.

the Hawks had some neatness gaps in their tent area, so they “voluneered” to set up a dining fly in case of evening rain.

The Beavers were supposed to help the Hawks with their vast experience with ropes, knots and canvas, but they had to call in Mr Cobert for engineering advice.

 But all were proud of the final results

 the Troop has been looking good at retreat ceremony each evening,

And can’t wait for dinner immediately afterwards! (waiting for the doors to open)

 

Hawks rounded off the Evening with a great campfire!

 We had a bit of rain at about 4 AM, but stayed dry inside our tents.

Tuesday at Ockanickon

Hello from Ockanickon,

Troop 681 is having a great Tuesday. Last night (Monday), the Cobras and others going after the swimming badge did clothing inflation in the pool…Mr Cobert lifeguarded the event and helped all 72 scouts make it through their ordeal on how to survive falling overboard.

Falcons then hosted a fantastic campfire at our site. Skits, jokes and cheers were followed by s’mores supplied by Mr Jackson.

Almost on cue, there were rumblings of thunder and a few drops of rain right at lights out time at 10:30 PM. This did a much better job scooting the scouts into their tents than the bellowing of the scoutmasters. The thunderstorm skirted by our camp to the north, but by then all the scouts were out cold.

I may have to buy some subwoofers for our van for the rest of the week–turn on some rumbling sounds at about 10:25 each night to get people settled in.

Tues AM was smooth, Jeff Hamilton’s Cobras had the best looking site in camp and aced the morning inspection…our youngest patrol set a great standard for the troop. Messiest site was captured by the Hawks–maybe they have too many dads in camp! Our scouts have been pretty well focused on merit badges, a few malingerers were caught in camp after lunch and sent on to their Merit Badge classes.

Knights/Arrows–Working on T681’s unofficial merit badge: “Poker!” 

 

Hawks at Canoeing

 Falcons at Canoeing Merit Badge

 Nick Choppa leading the troop to Dinner on Monday

 All the scouts are healthy. One had some bug bites on Monday night that settled down with benadryl, one had an upset stomach at Mon PM dinner, and was down in the mouth after losing his knife. I’m amazed at the lack of homesickness evident around the troop.

 

Food has been great as usual at Ockanickon.

You can see from this picture of Mr Harvey: it’s all work, work, work at camp for the leaders.

Bill

Monday Afternoon Update

Hello from Ockanickon,

 Our Scouts got many merit Badges underway this afternoon, some were a little dull, since the first day covers many safety topics. Temperatures have been cooler than last year, probably in the high 80s.

Magic Cards have been attraction for several of our scouts

 

Victor Launched a fire-building competition to help as an outlet for our scout’s pyrotechnical interests.

  (click for bigger image)

Many of our scouts headed to the pool during open swim periods to cool off!

All are healthy and happy.

Bill 

Monday AM update:

Quite a few Knights/Arrows/and Hawks got off to an early start with the Polar Bear Swim at 7AM, We inspected camp at 7:45–appearance was generally pretty good, although we had a lot of trash (wrappers mostly) that needed collecting.The Cobras (our 6th graders) had the best looking tents, great job putting the pressure on the rest of the troop!

Breakfast started out with a bang: Choc Chip Pancakes, Sausages, and fruit. Robert Cobert got the leaders going with 2 different flavors of coffee brewed at our campsite–a great alternative to the mess hall’s.

The boys all departed breakfast for merit badge classes. and are learning lots.

Bill

Sunday Evening Update

Troop 681 arrived safely at Ockanickon on Sunday afternoon at 3 PM. It sounds like Burger King was a popular stop on the way up.

We did a camp orientation, processed through medical checks, then took a swimming test. The first afternoon can be summarized by “hurry up and wait!” Like here in the Medical processing line:

Food started off on a popular note at about 6:30PM with hot dogs, hamburgers, beans, ice cream and brownies on Sunday Evening. Hand Washing is an emphasis item at Camp due to the virus this summer:

Dinner was followed up by the opening campfire where the staff “entertained” us (I use this term generously) with several skits.

We settled into our campsite “Mohawk” It’s pretty spread out, with little clusters for each patrol. Nick Choppa did a teriffic job leading a patrol leaders council, getting our boy leadership up and running!

Lights were out (in theory) at around 10:15 PM, although I made further rounds at 1100PM breaking up a bull session in the Hawk patrol, a card game at the Falcons, a Magic game at our senior scout patrol (Vikings, Beavers, Rangers), and some running around at the Arrows/Knights. Knight/Arrow gabbing had to be reigned in a few times after that, but quieted down after the promise of permanent latrine duty at around 12:45 AM

Bill

Last Minute Camp Reminders

Please arrive at the scout house at 9:30 on Sunday AM so we can:

- Pass out T-shirts
- Collect $20 for gas, $8 for T-shirts
- Collect Medical Forms — IMPORTANT– without medical forms, we can’t go to camp
- Collect Troop Permission form

*All scouts need to be dressed in their class-A shirts coming and going to camp. Take metal pins, attachments off
*For those with totin’ chits and fireman’s chits, please bring them so you can carry your knife and participate in fire-building. If you don’t have them, we’ll offer training during the week. If you had them but can’t find them, you can take a test to get another.

If you have any problems, I’ll have my cell phone at the scout house in the AM, 703-638-5915. See you Sunday!

Bill