Troop 658 - Rangers

For October outing, the troop decided to go on a backpacking trip. The people who went were Mr. Myers, Mr. Fountain, Mr. Mantecon, Mr. Matson, Mickey Lorenzini, James Matson, Jacob Matson, Joey Mantecon, Matt Fountain and Chris Fountain. The guidelines for your pack weight was each person had from one fourth to one third of your weight.

We met at the church at 7:00 am then drove to the ranger station where we received our permit to camp in the wilderness. They also told us that the road was closed due to a fire and we were to take a detour. After that, we had to drive seven miles on a very bad dirt road (worse than Lost Valley) then we had lunch at the trailhead. After lunch we picked up our packs and headed out. After about a mile and a half or so we eventually reached a fork and decided to scout around the hills for a good camping site and about half of us searched and half watched our packs and rested. We found a good spot on a hill about a half mile all uphill from the fork.

We set up our tents and a cooking area and rested till 3:30 then went to get water from a stream nearby. We found a good spot on a steam by the fork and started pumping. We carried the water back and started cooking. We [the boys] (Chris, Matt Joe, James and Jacob) had spaghetti, lasagna (it was not the best) , and teriyaki chicken for a main course--they each served two. For desert, peanut butter and chocolate pie, smores, and apple crisp. The main course and desserts were freeze dried (the adults was too) and the adults had stroganoff and blue berry cobbler. At around 7:00 pm Mr. Fountain got out a campfire story book and read stories till 7:30 and we went to bed because it was very cold and dark.

In the morning we woke up and had breakfast. We [the boys] had pop tarts and the adults had oatmeal. Joey and his dad Mr. Mantecon left early right around breakfast. We hiked back to the fork and Mr. Matson and Mr. Fountain went back to the cars while everyone else (excluding the Mantecons) went down the other fork to see an Aspen grove and went to an area where there was a parking lot along the dirt road and they picked us up and we drove till about 11:30 and stopped at a Del Taco and had lunch then we went our separate ways.