Matthew Inabnit, wrote a very nice entry for our scribe blog about our last trip, which can be viewed below and is posted on our site.
Hot Springs Backpacking Trip 2009
April 24-26
This was probably one of the hardest backpacking trips any of the Scouts have participated in so far. The first night, we camped by a river and ate breakfast there the next morning. Saturday we hiked on a trail called Round Top Ridge and it was almost entirely uphill. Scouts and leaders soon began to get low on water. A lot of people were running out of water completely. So, we cut out our hike to the fire tower since people were so desperate for water. We hiked downhill for what seemed like an eternity and eventually dug a hole in the ground for water. Then, we hiked for about an hour and came across a decent fresh water stream. We stayed there and filled up everyone’s water bottle and water bladder. We then hiked for about 15 minutes and we reached our campsite (Thank goodness!). We rested, played around, and ate dinner for the rest of the day on Saturday. We put all of our food in bear bags for the night to stop bears from eating it and us! There were rumors that a bear was near our campsite during the night. The new fashion accessory for Troup 17 is a hammock! We had 8 Scouts in hammocks and 7 Scouts in tents.
The next day, Sunday, was the best part of the trip. We hiked to the top of the mountain and saw an awesome view of the mountains and the river. We were almost finished with the hike and everyone rushed down the mountain to get to the cars so we could go home. On this trip we hiked for about 13 miles on part of the Appalachian Trail. Now everyone will think we are “hard-core” hikers!
