alancar

Our troop sat down about a hear and a half ago for a planning meeting and analyzed our last years trips and we had slowly had car camping creep into our programming. This year We had one car camp in march as it was Pioneering and it would be hard to backpack with the amount of ropes needed (monkey bridge) then April we did 22 mi, May we are doing Bp, June Philmont, July Backpacking, Aug Kayaking 12 mi on Sat. and bike 21 mi on sun., Sept Backpacking, Oct backpacking, Nov Wilderness Survival, Dec Family Feast, Jan Webelos Cabin Camping, Feb Ski

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/03/missing-boy-scout-troop-found-in-arkansas-national-forest/?hpt=T2

A Boy Scout troop from Lafayette, Louisiana, which was missing after a weekend camping trip in an Arkansas national forest, was found safe on Tuesday, officials said.

The campsite of troop No. 162 in the Ouachita National Forest was spotted by a National Guard helicopter, said Jerry Elizandro, spokesman for the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency.

The scouts were being transferred by helicopter to a command post, said Art Hawkins, scout executive for the Evangeline Area Council of Boy Scouts of America. All the boys are fine, he said. Officials hope to find out what happened from the scout master later, he said.

Hawkins said Monday officials were confident the troop was safe, saying the scout master with the troop was very experienced and serves as a backpacking trainer. The average age of the youths is 14, he said.

Arkansas State Police were prevented from conducting an aerial search on Monday because of the weather, Hawkins said. A lack of cell service in the area was also hampering search efforts, he said.

The area being searched was near the scene of a fatal flood last year. Twenty people died in flash floods during the summer.

The Ouachita National Forest, the South's oldest and largest national forest, is a sprawling wilderness of 1.6 million acres, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. There are 480 miles of hiking trails and an abundance of campgrounds.

CNN's Rick Martin and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

Our troop backpacks 5 x per year anywhere from 2-5 hrs away from home our trips are $25/weekend for all but the one big trip 5 hrs away and that one is $40. Our philmont trip is $1500/boy and for those not going to Philmont our summer camp fee this summer is $240.

Just read on p. 4 of the Jan-Feb Scouting magazine article "From the CSE" about Scouting health and wellness initiative.....hmmm Robert J Mazzuca http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4391231792_ace45294c1_o.jpg we need to lead by example...then 32 pages after that is a Dutch Oven recipe that calls for 1/2 lbs of bacon, hash browns, 11 tbs of butter, and 3.5 c of heavy whipping cream. turnt he page and we have a krispy Kreme ad, turn the page and we have a trail mix ad......lets walk the walk leaders.

our troop does a wilderness survival campout and the boys make shelters out of natural materials. lots of great suggestions to make next Nov campout in Ohio even better thanks

We do better at some campouts than others but we composted our food scraps recycled out metal and plastic washed out dishes and silver but had disposable cups at our family feast (cooked 8 turkeys and one was a trash can turkey)

I have a question on how you count days and nights of camping. Say your typical weekend camp out is that 3 days and 2 nights for a total of 5 as it asks for the cumulative days and nights of camping?