No winter activity can strike more fear into the heart of a scout leader than the Klondike Derby. Scouts from the local district gather at a scout reservation for a weekend of winter camping.
Camping. In. The. winter.
The guys started out pretty enthusiastically.
And fortunately, we had mitigating circumstances: a cabin with a wood stove.
We had dinner. We had s'mores.
We had the iron-fisted drill sargents.
And we got through a pretty good night's sleep.
Next day we had spring-like temperatures, and not much snow.
A bunch of troops showed up.
Our enthusiasm ran high.
As did our camaraderie.
There was some posing and swaggering.
And a pretty cool cheer:
The starting line was muddy. This is not an actual picture. We had more mud.
The scouts hauled the sled to different stations and had teamwork and campcraft skill competitions.
Here is the four-man ski race.
Here is crossing the volcano.
Here is the valley of fire and brimstone. It is actually where we had to start a fire and boil some water and cook some lunch. We were scored on everything.
You may not be able to fully appreciate how muddy it was.
We finished the day with weapons.
Oh, and mud.
It was pretty fun.
We had four new campers, and no one who fell into the creek
(they know who they are) got hypothermic.
We came. We conquered. We got the patch.
(Not our real patch--we get that later...)
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