FALL CAMP OCTOBER 24, 25

The boys just planned a fall camp at the Willows in Lehi for Friday, October 24th!

We will meet at the church at 5:00pm that afternoon.

Please make sure that everyone is at scouts on Tuesday the 21st so that you will get your assignements.

It ought to be fun!

City Council Meeting - Citizenship in the Community MB

Our patrol made up more than 70% of those in attendance on the September 16th Riverton City Council meeting.

They talked about the tax impact that the large retail stores have on the city (i.e. WalMart) and spent a lot of time discussing some changes that could be on the horizon with how the Sheriff's department is structured and how that would effect the City's manner and ability to interact with that 'independent' department. Of interest, a little known ordinance was brought up regarding Alarm Systems... In order for the Sheriff's department to respond, every alarm MUST be issued a permit. Councilman Tingey brought up a complaint that a Riverton resident had with the sheriff not responding to an alarm when he was out of town. Because his alarm did not have a permit, the sheriff refused to go to his property despite the homeowner's request.

Council meeting was a little dry for most of the scouts - the topics were not too contraversial to keep their attention for too long... But it was a good learning experience!

NO SCOUTS ON TUESDAY

We will be meeting at the church at 6:15 on Wednesday, October 1st (6:30 - 9:30). We will be going to the Riverton Fire Station at 4124 West 12600 South to attend a Fire Safety Merit Badge Class. Please call if you have any questions or concerns.

game night

game night has been fun because, we started playing rock band and i played Call of Duty for a long time (on the PC), now they are playing Call of Duty (on the PS3).

Merit Badge - PERSONAL MANAGEMENT

This week we started working on the Personal Management meritbadge. This is one that will require a lot of follow through and commitment to finish. We will try to do as much as possible at scouts; however, the following two requirements will need to be done at home. Please take note:

1) Do the following:
a) Choose an item that your family might want to purchase that is considered a major expense.
b) Write a plan that tells how your family would save money for the purchase identified in requirement 1a.
1 -Discuss the plan with your merit badge counselor
2 -Discuss the plan with your family
3 -Discuss how other family needs must be considered in this plan.
c) Develop a written shopping strategy for the purchase identified in requirement 1a.
1 -Determine the quality of the item or service (using consumer publications or rating systems).
2 -Comparison shop for the item. Find out where you can buy the item for the best price. (Provide prices from at least two different price sources.) Call around; study ads. Look for a sale or discount coupon. Consider alternatives. Can you buy the item used? Should you wait for a sale?
2)Do the following:
a) Prepare a budget reflecting your expected income (allowance, gifts, wages), expenses, and savings. Track your actual income, expenses, and savings for 13 consecutive weeks. (You may use the forms provided in this pamphlet, devise your own, or use a computer generated version.) When complete, present the results to your merit badge counselor.
b) Compare expected income with expected expenses.
1 -If expenses exceed income, determine steps to balance your budget.
2 -If income exceeds expenses, state how you would use the excess money (new goal, savings).

CAMP TRACY - DAY 2 & 3 (July 11 - 12, 2008)

We started out day 2 with Archery - everyone was able to show off their skills after a brief lesson on range safety.

(You can't see it in these pictures but scout leader John Edwards is down range with an apple on his head!)

Maps and Compass
Magnetic North and Magnetic Declination, two important map reading skills that we mastered.

We then went to the Rifle Range - It was amazing how well everyone shot, could it have been the video games they play... Many of them had never shot a rifle before. Ian had a grouping of five shots all within the radius of a quarter - this qualifies for one of the five that he needs for the rifle shooting merit badge.

After lunch we got the opportunity to properly handle the United States flag. I think when we repeat the Pledge of Allegiance, we will be more mindful that it says "One nation under God" not, "One nation, under God" like often times it is said.

Later, Spencer took a fall down the rock face, into a patch of poison ivy, then into the frigid river below... Good thing we all knew first aid!

Our last class we took was knife, saw, and hatchet safety... please pass the knife.... THANK YOU, YOUR WELCOME... Remember what the blood circle is? Well, for most of you DOUBLE IT!

TIME TO GET CAMP SET UP - it was a pretty cool place, if we could have stayed away from the hyper-active, talkative, attention deficient, laser pointer confiscating camp councilor (Jacob) that found his way to our camp site.

More camp pictures will be posted at the bottom of the page...

CAMP TRACY - DAY 1 (July10, 2008)

Day 1 of camp came and went - What a blast!

6:45am came pretty quickly for most of us - another hour of sleep would have been perfect. However, despite our crusty eyes we were ready to go.

Here is a list of our days events:

1)Nature trail - passed off our native plants and animal recognition. See if you can remember the following plants: Juniper, Saw tooth Maple, Scrub Oak, lamb's ear, White Fir (smells like tangerine), Oregon grape, dandelion, choke cherry, and try to remember the ones that had flowers like popcorn and the plant that looked like rhubarb.

2) BSA Swim Test - EVERYONE PASSED! Way to go!

3)Lashings - No, your boys didn't get a beating; but they did practice the clove hitch, square knot, half hitch, and square lashings.

4) Knots - More good application of the Bowline and other important rope skills.

5) BOATS! - Impressively, what was set out for a "two-hour tour" actually went without a hitch. There were no Gilligan's on the water today (at least not in our troop - two others found themselves capsized in waste deep muck!).

6) First aid- The energetic instructors saved this otherwise mind numbing exercise! This was good review of CPR, and how to treat injuries such as puncture wounds and bites. More requirements passed off!

Lastly, we had a fun run through the Riverton WALMART shopping for dinner and breakfast for our camp. Great job finding bargains and sticking to your meal plans and lists.

Bicycling Merit Badge/ Advancement Requirement

What started out as a 5 mile bike ride along the Jordan River trail, turned into a full 10 mile ride! Part of the bicycling meritbadge is to do a few 10 mile rides - however, each scout must document the trip... We have encouraged each boy to write about what they experienced and the route they took so they can get the credit when the discuss this with the MB councilor.

Hat's off to Dallas for having gone the whole way on his BMX bike! He had no problems keeping up, in fact, we often had a hard time keeping up with him!

We will let the boys post their report on the blog to better document our trip. There will be more bike trips to come. I think with a little more preparation, these guys will be able to do a 20+ miler with no problem.

Pony Express Trail Camp: April 25th - 26th '08

We had an excellent time at our last camp! We passed off a number of advancement requirements and learned a good deal from our experience. After a brief orienteering instruction at our camp, we took a 5 mile hike. The first mile we had to blaze a trail using a map and a compass to get to our first check point - an atv trail that led to a gravel road.

We found that this was a good challenge as we tried to orient ourselves with the terrain around us. While we traversed through the canyon our perspective on the small Onaqui mountain peaks began to change and we could see how easy it would be to get lost. We were able to use landmarks, such as, cliffs on the ridge of a mountain peak just south of our base camp, snow covered peak in the direction of our travel, and three smaller peaks to our east to ensure we were where we should be. Our compass held us true to the direction we needed to travel and the map with contour lines aided in identifying our approximate location with the landmarks.

This portion of the hike took us through a somewhat dense mountain juniper and cedar forest with slopes covered with big sage brush, grey and green rabbit brush, shade scale, cactus, and a varied assortment of wildflowers such as Indian paintbrush. We identified other plants such as liken which grew on and around rocks. This helped us pass off our native plant recognition requirement.

We also paid close attention to evidence of wildlife. In our camp, we had a resident wild tom-turkey and his hen. He promptly moved away from us, but occasionally we could hear them in the distance. They left very large and easily identifiable tracks along with plenty of scat which we had to avoid when pitching our tents. On the trail, we found a hide of a cotton tail rabbit which insinuated the presence of predators such as bobcat, cougar, coyote, or raptors such as the golden eagle which are all known to live in this mountain range. We saw jack rabbit, cotton tail, and even prong horn antelope. Bro. Lyman indicated that rabbits (cotton tails) are generally safe to eat in months that have 'R's due to parasites they are prone to have in warmer months.

As we trekked through the hill side, we saw holes which could have been coyote dens or perhaps a badger nest... We identified deer tracks, Bro. Duke helped us understand the size of the animal and the direction it was travelling. This part of our hike was slow going but we had the most fun.
Once we hit the atv trail and the road it was smooth sailing until we got back to camp... We learned that when hiking we should 1) make sure we don't loose our compasses (twice), 2) bring soft paper - not many leaves out there if you know what I mean, 3) a 5 mile hike in this terrain is not a walk in the park - you have to be prepared, and 4) a GPS unit is worth it's weight in gold.

We camped near Look Out Pass - Legend explains that an Indian once took a shot at one of the riders or a stagecoach driver near this place, so whenever a new rider or driver was put to work he was told to lookout here. Thus, the name: Lookout Pass. In pioneer days, this wasteland sectionof the trail was referred to as “Paiute Hell.”

Frank C. Robertson described this country "From Lookout Pass you look out over forbidding deserts of mountains and flats. . . . It is hot as the hinges of hell in summer, cold as the polar regions in winter. In winter, blizzards block the roads; in summer, cloudbursts wash them out." This site is situated in a small, beautiful mountain valley, covered with cedars.

Look Out Pass was a station on the Pony Express trail. The original station consisted of a small log cabin, a stable, and a small spring just a few feet away. The station manager was a Mr. Jackson. From 1866 to 1900 Horace Rockwell (Porter’s brother) and his wife Libby Rockwell ran an Overland Stage Station at this site. Since “Aunt” Libby had no children, she filled the void with pet dogs and cats. As her pets died over the years, she buried them in a cemetery. Also in the cemetery are three human graves, two adults and one child. The scouts dared not to visit the cementary the night we were there.

In 1885 James P. Sharp visited the Rockwell's when he was a boy and wrote: “They had no children but did have a whole colony of black-and-tan dogs; I believe they said they were of the Fiste breed. You know the kind, with short hair, and always trying to stand on three legs, shivering, to keep from freezing to death in July. But I'd better not get started on stories about those two strange characters, their dogs, and dog cemetery."

That evening we had a great campfire - full of stories, jokes, and star gazing. We didn't retire until close to midnight.

Saturday morning, just after the howling of the coyotes in close proximity to our camp, J.Duke and A.Wells took off for their early morning soccer and lacrosse games - they were sorely missed. The rest of us had fun making breakfast - pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hot dutch oven cinnamon rolls. Z.Lyman and I.Edwards took off after breaking camp and went in search of buried treasure - well, not really - just a few geo-caches. Little did they know that it would take them on another mile hike up a steep and rocky cliff. They found the caches, two ammo cases, and I.Edwards scored a nice little pocket knife from one of them.

After we packed up - we embarked on a 14 mile journey (in truck) to Simpson Springs where we had lunch. We hoped to have seen the wild heard of horses along the long dusty road; according to the BLM there are about 150-200 horses in the Onaqui Mountain herd management area. Wild horses have occupied the Onaqui Range since the late 1800’s and are probably ancestors of horses who escaped from Army herds from Camp Floyd, or horses that escaped from local ranches.

On our way out there, we passed over a dry desert creek bed called 'Government Creek'. This was the scene of a despicable massacre of 10 friendly Goshute Indians by U.S. Calvary in 1863. It is said that bloodthirty Captain Samuel P. Smith, hunting fame and glory, was responsible for this disgraceful act.

When we got to the springs, it was a photo opportunity and a chance to get the binoculars out to look over the vast desert floor. After lunch, we took off and headed home - all the while thinking of where we should go next...

Happy trails,

Erik
Asst. SM; Kodiak Patrol