We took our Scout group (Troop, Pack and Colony) to winter camp this past weekend. It was the first chance for sledding all year, so we did A LOT, but we wanted to do some Scouting too!

We had 23 youth and about 10 Scouters and parents, 1 furnace heated cabin for Colony (5-7 year olds) and Pack (8-10 year olds) and 1 woodstove heated cabin for Troop (11-13 year olds). We didn't have enough snow for quinzees but did set up a tent and a tarp shelter for 2 of our leaders to show the youth how real wintering camping can be done. (And to reassure the inexperienced adults.)





On Friday night, we challenged Troop with a campfire contest. They had to find dry tinder and kindling in the morning and get their fires lit by 11:30am, with a good bed of coals for cooking by noon.

To help the process, we took everyone on a huge (uphill) hike and taught them about tinder and kindling along the way, as well as a little tracking, map and compass work, Hug a Tree and, of course, the basics of winter clothing and survival kits.



While the Scouts were fire building, Pack and Colony got a hands-on lesson in campfire cooking using tin foil and coals. They made their own foil meal packs and then used the Scout's coals to cook them for lunch. After that, the Scouts had a lesson in dutch oven cooking and made a really yummy venison stew with bannock for dinner.



Everyone had a great time. Pack and Troop got some important badgework done and everyone got their fill of GT snowracing!

Wonderful!!..love the blanket..

I like his blanket too, Canoedogs. He and kevingg have me rethinking my own campfire blanket. I cut mine to make it a poncho and now I'm eyeing a mil surplus wool blanket to make it a hoodie without ruining the blanket.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=qw8I-5kiQuE

a hooded poncho is easy to make,i have run a few photos of the one i had made from a Army poncho liner.a head hole cut like the one on a tee shirt and the hood made from two sections cut from the lower ends in the back and your good to go.a hooded blanket i think would be better than a hoodie because you could lay it out and use it blanket style.it's late now but tomorrow i'll get mine out for some close up photos of how it was made.i have several old,the good WW2 surplus,blankets that i'm thinking of have made into hooded ponchos.

Man, this brings back memories. I remember making "stick biscuits" by wrapping biscuit dough in a spiral around a stick and cooking it over the coals. I know we don't get snow here like you guys do, but we did get to camp in roughly 2" of snow one time when I was a Scout.

That would be great Canoedogs! My blanket has become an ongoing search for the perfect design. With a little luck, I'll still have badges to add when I'm 80. DS is going to outgrow his in a couple of years and he'll need a new one too.

We tried those pillsbury cinnamon buns at our last camp, Red, and it worked really well. The Scouts are working on duplicating it but got sidetracked making dutch oven chocolate cake for dessert instead. YUM!

We haven't had snow like we usually do either. We were worried we wouldn't have any this trip but Mother Nature gave us a nice dumping on Saturday. Just enough for 2 days of sledding.

One of my favorite Scout trips was the time we were backpacking on the Appalachian Trail and got a surprise of 6" of snow overnight. We had an absolute blast. We also learned a valuable lesson; pour your water into the pot the night before so when it freezes overnight you're not trying to get it out of the plastic bottle.

Great times. When we lived in Colorado I was active in Scouts as an ASM. Our winter camp was in January up on Kenosha Pass, SW of Denver, about 13k ft. elevation. We usually had plenty of snow for quinzees for those who wanted to build them, most boys did. Adults usually stayed in tents, but some made quinzees or just a snow trench. Had a ball.