From canoeing the mighty Huron River to Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Troop 8 at St. Thomas Church runs the most amazing year-round outdoor adventure and leadership program in the area.

First Day Travels

Hello Everyone! This is Jason Dean, reporting from a church in Kingston, Canada, where sleeping bags are strewn aplenty. (A fascinating phenomenon: Boy scouts seem to like sleeping close together.

Arrived!

The group today did a great job getting out in the morning, even though Aedan again tried to keep the group up late, and there was something about a fort of chairs in the middle of the floor housing sleepers like Maks and Jacob. There was also an early morning crew of older Scouts led by Jack, Nima, Dawa, and Pike that got up early and hiked out to Lake Ontario to catch the simultaneous sunrise/moonset. What a weird and adventurous group we have!

Despite all this, we had the cars loaded and packed and ready to go in record time.

First Day of Skiing

The day dawned bright and clear here in Vermont, with a beautiful view of the mountains… and COLD. A clear night led to a very crisp morning, but the scouts are so used to Michigan this year they had no problem at all with the cold. In fact, about half of them felt they were too warm all day.

From Sun to Snow

(This blog brought to you by Faux News reporters Pike, Shane, & Nima)

We went from cold and clear yesterday to (somewhat) warmer with SNOW! today on the mountain.  Awesome.

Today only 3 people have been hospitalized after the round hearth ran out of hot chocolate. The skiing was great except for that one thing, but who cares about that? Jacob and Thomas were patrolling the blue slopes along with their super awesome amazing instructors,(Mainly Nima).

Start the Telemarkers

Today was our day of offness. To start the day, though, we took some time to help out the Round Hearth staff by doing a quick cleanup around the lodge, restocking wood, shoveling off the walks and such. There was even an attempt to build a Snow Bear outside.

For the rest of the day, there were really two groups: a pre-Venture group that was intent on doing a day of telemark instruction, and the rest of the guys who were engaged in a round-town fest.

For those who are not in the know, the original downhill skiing turn was developed in Norway near the town of Telemark.

Midweek Photos

Here are some midweek photos from our various troop photographers for your enjoyment!

Shane leads a parade celebrating Canada's famed eatery.  All of the scouts for some reason march in order.

 

Be sure to click on this entry to see more photos!

Wednesday in Town

On the non-telemarketing front the day began with chores and building a snow bear. Well, “bear” ended up being loosely defined as Jack lead the creation of a bear-turtle kind of creature…

We made a foray into ice skating after the chores and lunch were finished. You would expect that a bunch of scouts that could handle large sharp metal things strapped to their feet at high speeds would excel at having small sharp metal things strapped to their feet at low speeds.

You would also be wrong.

Wednesday Photos

Here are some more photos from Wednesday to share!

Andy helps load up the massive woodpile to fuel the Round Hearth

 

Click the title to see more pictures!

 

Fantastic Snow Thursday

Ah, beautiful Thursday! You could not ask for a nicer ski day. Bright blue sky, warming temperatures, relatively fresh snow. This was grand.

Half the boys were off on their own exploring and free-skiing the mountain. We hear that Brandon crashed on the bunny hill, and Aedan tried to board a two-person chairlift with three people, but other than that all the boys were having great fun exploring all of the intermediate trails all over the mountains.

Thursday Photos

Some Thursday photos to share!

Blue skies over the Gondola run.  Gondolier is in the center.  Perry Merrill (Merry Peril) is behind the trees on the left.

 

Earl's Friday. Who'll stop the rain?

A grey morning this morning, and warm! Several boys are skiing in T-shirts and rain shells. The snow is, well, interesting… if it can still be called snow. In some areas, it was groomed by the mountain overnight, which means they dragged a toboggan along behind to break up the ice and create “corduroy” snow. Unfortunately, it then sleeted and froze, so it was sort of corduroy ice. In other areas, they did not groom, and we got a crusty layer of ice with snow beneath that one would periodically break through.

In short, “mixed” conditions, punctuated by occasional rain.

Friday Photos

Our Friday photos were a bit limited by rain, but here's a quick overview.

 

Grey day up on the mountain.