Snowcaving…almost!

Okay, so our 11 year old scouts decided they wanted to do the winter camp.  I had heard about the winter "Klondike" but thought I'd keep it quiet in hope that it would pass and we could look to warmer adventures.  But no, one of my scouts parents found out about it.  So, I did the only smart thing, I asked the 3 boys if they wanted to go winter camping.  I hoped they would say, No Way! But, they all said, yeah, let's do it.  So for the last six weeks we've been preparing.  We learned how to lash, collect branches to build our own Klondike sled to be raced at the event, and surveyed the internet for as many cold weather tips as we could gather.  After a few lists, and a motivating roundtable for scout leaders, all was set.  We had built the runners for our sled out of 2x4's, I gathered the perfect branches from the city dump, we carved said branches to fit into the holes of our runners.  We had the list, we checked it twice.  Now, all we had to do was wait for friday afternoon.
We loaded up 2 suburbans full of gear.  We had all the branches bundled together so that we could lash them together on sight.  Off we went!
Well, guess what the first thing my scouts learned? Yes, it's cold on a winter camp out.  0 degrees to be exact!  Not a cloud in the sky to hold the heat in.  Also, the scouts all assumed we'd pull right up to the camp site. Not to be.  We had to load in all the gear about 300 yards.  No one had snow shoes, so imagine walking on the path and having every footstep sink in 3-4 feet.  It was hard work.  You would try to step on packed snow, but, ever so often, bam, down 4 feet.  We started to wonder why we packed so much gear.  Do you really have to eat, sleep, have a sleeping pad, shovels, etc.  And, what was this, they told us no fires.  Yes, you heard right, no fires was the speech at the roundtable.  I'll never listen to that again.  Also, my little portable stoves just wouldn't work at that elevation and at that temperature.  Not doing good.  As I was carrying in our pile of branches to make our sled, I was dropping a branch ever so often.  (remember, the sun has gone down, it's cold, branches are heavy,) Well, I thought to myself, I'll lay this bundle down by the side of the trail.  I have my nice ratched tie down securing them all together, they'll be okay.  I'll fix the stove, then come back and get them.  Well, on the next trip  to the car to get more supplies, I noticed the branches were gone.  Yes, some scout troop stole our branches and my tie down.  I guess there fired camp was in need of fuel while our cold camp was, well, just plain cold.  My boys were pretty discouraged.  No warm food, no fire, freezing toes and hands from digging out our snow caves, and the sled we'd worked a month on was gone.  One boy just wanted to crawl in and go to sleep, another was having the time of his life and the third, well, I couldn't read him very well.
I had better tally up the adults here, I, Daniel (who had a horrible snow cave experience a few years earlier, and I thought I could "fix" it this time around, Larry who was an eager volunteer and Marty Bergsjo who was the father of one of the boys).    Daniel wasn't to thrilled but was there, Larry did great, so did Marty.  Marty's son also was doing really well.  Well, at about midnight, one of my boys said, "I can't do this any more".  So, Daniel and I drove him down the mountain.  While I was home, I got a call saying I should just stay down (I had a meeting in the morning I was going to come back for, then return) So Daniel and I snowcaved in our warm beds, my volunteer leaders stayed up with the boys.  The next day was supposed to be filled with scout activities and the big race of the sleds.  I got another call early in the morning.  "We're coming home!"  The boys figured since the sled had been stolen, it was cold, no fire, the promise of a breakfast as McDonalds was too appealing.  So that was the adventure of the snowcaving that almost was.
We'll talk about what we learned tuesday...
Demarious was right about scouts.  Read that however you want.

john