GimletBlog

When is it possible to be snowed out of winter camp?  When your traditional camping spot is Paradise at Mount Rainier, and the national park is closed for avalanche danger!

Friday was a beautiful day, the road from Longmire to Paradise was plowed and open, and the weather report called for an additional 2-3 feet of snow.  The scouts and their leaders arrived without incident and began the usual task of digging snow caves.  This year, one leader who happens to be a structural engineer built an igloo with the assistance of a homemade device.  One of the scouts used a tarp as a roof for his group’s shelter.

That night, the predicted 2-3 feet of snow fell.  The poles on the equipment tents all snapped, the shelter tarp caved in, burying the boys in that shelter, and the snow cave roofs dipped in under the added weight.

Click to view video of that morning (Quicktime)

In the morning, nobody was hurt, although the boys in the shelter had to be dug out.  Whiteout conditions still prevailed, so the usual sledding and snowshoeing was cancelled in favor of survival.

The smaller, younger boys were helped to the parking lot first while the larger, older scouts broke down the snow shelters and cleaned up the camp site.

Click to watch the older boys breaking camp

The road was now closed with three scout troops stuck at the Paradise parking lot.

Click to view the scene in the Paradise parking lot (Quicktime)

The next several hours were spent in the Paradise restrooms staying warm under the hand dryers while a plow cleared the way for evacuation.

Finally the park ranger told our scout troop that the road was ready.  The convoy of cars followed the snowplow out of the national park while a trooper brought up the rear.

Click to view the snowplow in action (Quicktime)

This year winter camp was all work, no play, but thankfully all made it home safely.

Thanks to Ben, Danny, Josh, and Thing One for sharing their photos and videos with the group!

Related posts:

Before the summer gets started, here’s a look back at some of Thing One’s Boy Scout activities this year.

In January the Gimlet took some of his scouts to a Friends of Scouting breakfast.  Not only would the area’s scouting supporters get to meet and talk with local boys about their experiences in Scouting, but the guys would get to meet some of the Seattle Mariners and get their picture taken with the Moose.  And the appeal of a big breakfast to teenagers cannot be underestimated.  Win-win!

Next was the traditional Winter Camp at Paradise on Mount Rainier.

Plenty of snow this year for snow caves, snowshoeing and extreme sledding.

One of the adult leaders, Sam, took some great action shots and generously shared them with us.  This year two young men who had recently moved to the US from Africa (and had never seen any snow) came along with the troop.  Reports are that they were quite cold (never fear, they were provided with plenty of warm gear) but had a lot of fun playing in the snow for the first time.

Group photo under the mountain.  Look at how big these guys are now!

Skipping ahead three months, last week Uncle Q joined Thing One on the Mount Si hike.

It was a bit too foggy for photos, and it snowed at the top, but they had a good time.

The traditional OA visit to Evergreen-Washelli to place flags at veterans’ graves was bittersweet this year.

Looking ahead, Thing One has been hired to work on the staff at Camp Pigott for the summer, and following that a second year of NYLT staff.  We can hardly believe that he’s old enough to be on staff, and measurements taken last month revealed that Thing One is now taller than both his parents.  When did this happen?  We’ll try to be better about posting scout photos throughout the summer.

Related posts:

Thing One has been busy with scouting activities over the past two months, between helping out with Order of the Arrow unit elections around the city, attending his first campout with his Jamboree troop, and other activities.

This has been a very mild winter so there was some question how the troop’s traditional snow camp would work out, but there was enough snow at Mount Rainier’s Paradise to keep everybody pretty happy.  No snow caves this year, but the sledding was as exciting as ever.

Related posts:

At 6:00 am on Friday I met up with the other scouts (The Gimlet did not go), and we drove to Paradise, Mount Rainier. The snow is 6-10 feet high now, and after a while, we got there. We hiked a quarter mile up to the place we were going to, and we started on our snow caves.

There were many different kinds of snow caves. My group built a Quincy, where you pile up snow while digging a hole, dig it out on the inside, and put that snow on top. Another group built a double snow cave. There was one door, and there were two  snow caves coming off of that. There also were other groups and their snow caves. Under the top snow, there was a layer of ice, and that was hard to get through. One group abandoned their snow cave because the ice was too hard, and most of the shovels got damaged slightly.

During breaks, we sledded a little, and I sledded down one hill, and I stopped near the end of it. Suddenly, three other guys stopped me because there was a big storm drain in front of me. Later, another scout troop came and camped on a hill close by. When they were sledding, we told them to stop because of the hole. We think they got the message. Not that many people sledded down there again. At nighttime, it was very cold, and an adult leader said it was less than 20°F. The roof in our snow cave was low, three other people were in that cave, but we slept well.

Saturday morning people noticed there were some parts of my face sunburned and some not. Apparently I put on sunscreen unevenly. After breakfast, we cleaned out our snow caves of all our stuff, and smashed them! The spots where leaders thought it would be weak in our snow cave were not weak at all! Before destroying the cave, we took a picture of the scouts all standing on top including some leaders! We actually could have made our roof much taller, based on how long it took to cave it in.

After all the snowcaves were destroyed, everybody went sledding.   After going down the hill a few times, I made movies of people sledding and catching air at the bump on the hill.   After that, we hiked back to the parking lot, and had McDonald’s for lunch (which is getting to be a tradition with snow camps). After camp food, fast food tastes especially good. One scout ate 5 Big Macs! After getting home at about 4:00 PM, my mom took a picture of me with the sunburned spots, and I started to write this article!

Thing One’s sledding videos (all in Quick Time format):

• Assistant Scoutmaster (4.4 MB)
• Another Assistant Scoutmaster (1.3 MB)
• Two scouts on one sled (5.4 MB)
• One scout (3 MB)

ETA 23 February: Check out Another Assistant Scoutmaster’s photo and video gallery!

Related posts:

Editor’s note: For those who may not have heard the news, The Gimlet was recently made Scoutmaster for Thing One’s Scout troop. Expect many more camping stories, fueled by plenty of red juice.

My scout troop went on a winter camp in Camp Sheppard. We got to the camp by 6:00, and then another troop was staying and lights out was at 11:00 pm. At 6:00 am, most of the people in our cabin (not me or Daddy) went on a hike called the “polar bear hike”. When everybody going was up, I was ½ awake and also ½ awake when they got back, but right then, Daddy got everybody up. Then, we had biscuits in sausage gravy and red juice, and then we had an introduction to the camp and met all the staff. Then, we went inner tubing, and the run we went on had a bump and Daddy made movies of people on the bump. There was another run, but people got too tired to go back up again. Then, we had roast beef sandwiches for lunch with red juice, packed up, deflated all the inner tubes, played games in the cabin, and had a snowball fight. Then at 3:00, we left. We were expecting to be home by 5:00 pm, but we got back by 3:52 pm.

Related posts: