New Scout Trip Day 1

We hit the road with 20 new scouts headed to Fort Flagler for camping, rank advancement and capture the flag. This group picture with the Kitty cam will be their first trip on the road to Eagle.

Check the blog often.....can you see us Beth? This will be fun!

Tony Gaudio Eagle Project

What an awesome day for an Eagle project! Several troop members and volunteers have descended on Fisher Creek Bike Park to work on the observation platform for Tony's Eagle project.

Tony is leading a team of about 20 volunteers as we speak, making final measurements for the pavers.








The process involves digging out the area, filling in with gravel, machine compaction, sand filler then laying of the pavers.





Sabrina Yoker and Cindy Gaudio went to get the pavers, so we are focusing on filling and levelling as we speak. Look for more after the break!

Baker Snow Caves - Day 2 Wrap-Up

It is hard to think we could have had a better day than yesterday, but today was no slouch.  After an exceptionally warm night in the cave, we woke up around 8:30 and began to bring things together for the next day.  As you can see, we were bundled up rather warmly in our sleeping bags for the night and we all had an opportunity to grow “closer to one another” in an effort to stay warm.



Everyone started getting up and working on getting ready for a great day of skiing.  Some of us of course get up a little faster than others…

The troop quickly got to work on tearing down the cave we built the previous day. As many of you know, tearing down the snow cave is critical to the safety of others in the back country since someone could become seriously injured if they fell through the top of the cave while hiking, skiing or otherwise.



While shovels and ice saws are our first choice of tools to complete this task, some of the scouts had other more primitive methods of accomplishing the task.

Once we were done with cave teardown, we hiked out to the parking area to tailgate some breakfast.  Muffins, OJ and some sausage hit the spot to prepare everyone for a full day of skiing. The day was a bit overcast, but our skiers were able to take advantage of all the spring skiing conditions Mt. Baker had to offer.

 
The day ended a little wet, something to be expected in the Northwest ski season. Once the chair lifts ended, we hit the road and stopped by a little restaurant near Western Washington University to have a little dinner for our trip home.  We’re returning now, laughing about the weekend and reminiscing about the wonderful conditions we had.  This was a trip to remember and we all can’t wait for another year of good times in the snow cave.  Take care and we’ll see you on the next trip!

Baker Snow Caves – Day 1 Wrap-up

Shortly after the last post, we decided to check out the ski lodge and the surrounding areas.  Due to the very rare clear skies, we had some phenomenal views.  Check out this wonderful view of Mount Shuksan (9720 ft).

After hanging out around the Baker ski area for a while, we all settled down to grab some dinner. Scout Yakisoba was on the menu and we all settled down for a good supper.

 

After dinner we snow shoe hiked back to the caves we dug to settle down for the night…but not without a bit of midnight Frisbee.  Reverend Luna brought his LED Frisbee and several of us stood under the stars playing for a few hours while we waited for the International Space Station to pass over us.  Given that we had no artificial light (aside from K-fresh’s Frisbee), we were able to see the stars with amazing clarity.  You can’t appreciate the night landscape like you can when there is no city light to drown out the stars. Mars was particularly bright and the Milky Way was fully visible. Being a clear night, the winds were still and we were surprisingly warm.  The space station went over us around 7:54 PM and gave us a heck of a show with the new solar panels they installed.

After the show we all grabbed our gear and headed for bed.  Everyone’s gear stayed dry and our big cave is surprisingly warm given the lack of wind.

 


That’s it for day one.  Stay warm, we know we are!  More updates to come.

Don’t Tell Mom What I Did at Baker Snow Caves – Episode 1

You think that shovels are only good for digging snow caves?  Think again...

Baker Snow Caves - Day 1

What a day!  Troop 466 left home at the crack of dark (4:30 AM) and drove up to Mt. Baker for our annual snow caving trip.  The day was wonderful and the site we picked looked like a scene from Ice Planet Hoth. 

OK, well it wasn’t this exciting, but pretty darn close.  We settled on our usual spot at the base of Artist’s Point.  Its quite hard to describe how incredible the view is from our site, but hopefully the pictures will do it justice. The weather couldn’t be beat and we were once again blessed with the Luna-bubble of great weather for our camping.

The troop went straight to work on creating the caves, opting for  the “uber-cave” once again for our group of 15 people.  In true survival fashion, we practiced digging the caves teams on each of the entrances alternating digging and clearing every 4-5 minutes.

 

Our multiple years of snow caving experience has paid off and we were able to dig the 15 person cave in less than two hours.  Amazing teamwork allowed us to complete work and



We all broke for lunch and enjoyed the spring sunshine on the mountain, doing a bit of “potluck” with our lunch items, sharing stories and savoring the time we saved digging the caves.


Shortly after lunch the Mt. Baker Ski Patrol came up and informed us that the group at the base of bowl had an injured person from a backcountry skiing outing and that they needed assistance getting the person and their gear to the lodge.  It turned out that the person had severely injured their knee, so the scouts went down with the Ski Patrol reps and assisted getting the person out of the forest area and to safety.   
With our good turn for the day behind us, we hiked the rest of the group to the Mt. Baker lodge to enjoy some of the wonderful backcountry views and some well deserved fries and sodas.

For now, we’re settling down and figuring out how to spend the rest of the time we were able to spend.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Troop 466 2010 XBox Games!

Move over Vancouver, the Troop and Crew 466 annual XBox games have started! Live from the electrical outlets of Valley Camp in North Bend, the athletes are warming up for what I am told might be an all night activity for most.



Our athletes once again descended upon the great Teneriffe Lodge to put their best skills on the line. The opening ceremony brought hopes from some for 466-Olympic gold and some brought old scores to settle where they were “owned” on the playing field from previous years.



Our athletes are bulking up and ingesting their allotment of 1500 Costco calories a piece.




Our stadium has 4 gaming consoles fired up and Halo is the sport to watch. Some of our Olympians are focusing on two new sports this year: Playstation and Wii. These sports have some of of our most seasoned contenders making a run for their money.



Others are taking the event in stride. Just look at this young sportsman hams it up for the camera.



Notable stats from the XBox games:

• 3 XBox consoles
• 1 Playstation 2
• 1 Wii Console
• 4 projector screens
• 4 screens
• 8 Pizzas
• 42 Costco muffins
• 24 yogurts
• over 144 chocolate chip cookies

After several hours of playing we called it a night and began a small clean-up effort to prepare for Saturday’s snow shoe hike.  Thanks to everyone for making this a great event!