Boulder Mountain

July 22, 2010

Last week I went to scout camp with my ward scout troop (I am currently the scoutmaster). Instead of attending an organized camp, we made our own. We had 6 leaders and 17 boys, which was a good ratio. We also had enough vehicles to provide some flexibility about which leaders were required on particular excursions. Sometimes a leader or two were able to stay back, and we also had vehicles if one of the boys needed to return home early.

We camped about a 1/4 mile west of the Wildcat Ranger Station (which had bathrooms with running water). We borrowed Marlan Brown's trailer which was very helpful in hauling equipment, keeping food away from bears and keeping things out of the rain. Temperatures at camp were great – it never got above about 80 degrees and there was plenty of shade and usually not too much wind. I brought my wall tent and cot and we slept very comfortably with 5 people in the tent.

Some of the kids were quite scared about bears. We weren't likely to see any bears, but we kept food, mess kits, sunblock, chapstick, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. out of tents just in case. We had a whiteboard in our tent and one night one of the leaders went out to use the bathroom and when he came back in he knocked the whiteboard over and it made a really loud sound. I woke up with a start and thought we were being attached by a bear :) Another night I had a really vivid dream about an old friend. That dream stayed with me for the rest of the camp.

On Monday we drove to camp (about 3 hours), setup tents and had dinner. There was quite a bit of downtime between camp setup and dinner that could have been used more productively.

On Tuesday we went on a desert hike to Zebra Canyon. It was a long hike - 8 miles total? and difficult to find. I don't think I would do it again. Only about 200 feet of the slot canyon was accessible without rock climbing equipment. Then we found another slot canyon that had water at the bottom. We waded through the water (about waste deep) and cooled off, but it was quite muddy and gross.

On Wednesday we spent the morning fishing at Lower Bowns reservoir and caught very few fish. In the afternoon we did merit badges (Fishing, Fly Fishing, Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Science, Wilderness Survival). One of the leaders brought a camp shower and let me use it, which was nice.

On Thursday we hiked to Oak Creek Reservoir and built shelters for Wilderness Survival. The hike was very steep - about 2.5 miles. Brother Jacobs' truck was able to make it to the top, but Brother Burnham couldn't get into 4-wheel low and we had to carry the equipment from his truck for the second half of the trip. The wilderness campout went fairly well; next time, however, I will bring more equipment (jackets, sleeping bags, emergency blankets, etc.) because it got a little cold and I let some of the scouts borrow my equipment. I gave Camden Tramell my sleeping bag because he was cold and stayed up all night tending the fire.

On Friday we hiked to Upper Calf Creek falls (there is a white rock near mile marker 81 on highway 12 that marks the trailhead). It was steep and not well-marked (we got a little lost on the way back), but led to a beautiful oasis with an 80-foot waterfall and a 45-degree emerald pool. It was invigorating.

Saturday we broke camp and were home by about 1:00pm