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December was a challenging trip for the Troop... with obstacles to overcome and new skills to learn!
The Troop “went home” to Onteora for a winter backpacking expedition. We drove upstate to Livingston Manor, home of our own Onteora Scout Reservation, and strapped on our backpacks and snowshoes. Everything that we needed we carried on our backs, and we hiked up to Dull Knife campsite. The snowshoes were different, but nobody slipped or sunk deep into the snow. The views were great from our site and everyone agreed that Onteora is very different in the Winter.
The big story was the cold. It was about 18 degrees on Saturday when we got into the parking lot and it went down to about 8 on Saturday night. That’s too cold for the propane stoves to work, and they would have been too heavy to carry anyway. The menus were planned so that all of the cooking could be done with hot water and a fire, and we fed the whole group off of two MSR single burner gas backpacking stoves. We all learned that with the right equipment we can stay out, even in the depths of winter! Mr. and Mrs.Pomerico from the Sagamores came to our meeting a few weeks ago to help us plan and their lesson paid off!
Saturday night there was a spectacular moon and some of us saw shooting stars. The moon on the snow made it very bright, and ours were the only tents in all of Onteora.
Special thanks to the hardy adult leadership who stuck it out to make this trip possible for the boys: our overnight team led by Scoutmaster Steve and consisting of ASM’s Ed, Drew, Mark, and Mike, along with Committee Members Andrea and Kathy, plus Tobi who joined us for the day on Saturday.
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