A Scout’s Friday Night
Troop 514 Scouts saluting the retiring of a worn out flag.
Winter is a long season in the Grande Ronde valley. Local Boy Scouts, however, use the time to learn winter survival skills. Besides learning to recognize and treat hypothermia and frostbite, they learn how to construct a variety of shelters to survive overnight.
This learning culminates in an annual Winter Camporee on Mud Lake across the road from the Anthony Lakes Ski Area. Usually the Scouts go up on Presidents’ Day to build the snow shelters. Then the following Friday they arrive after school and place their gear in the shelters and cook their food in the “snow kitchens.”
About one hundred Scouts from the surrounding area participate. This year, although the overnight temperature dropped to minus five, the boys slept soundly.
The event is certainly more memorable than spending a Friday night watching movies and playing video games.
Igloo by Mud Lake at the winter camporee
Scouts Dale.Noel.Kai in their snow cave
Troop 514 leads the flag ceremony Saturday morning
Kai cooking french toast for breakfast
I remember my days as a Boy Scout in Anchorage, Alaska. We had similar camporees and made snow shelters, “quincies” like the ones in the pictures. One memorable camping trip the weather outside was -27 degrees with 25 mph gust, it was a warm 34 degrees inside the shelter. That year I received my 200 below badge signifying many a night in the same weather conditions. Looking back I am privileged to have been apart of such a great organization that instills skills and values such as the knowledge, hard work and dedication it takes to survive in such harsh conditions.
Thanks for this Eric. You are always so great about taking pictures and then sharing. It’s funny to see the response above. I don’t think the older boys think this is all that fun anymore but years from now I know they will appreciate all they have done and learned with scouts.