[Rhodes22-list] Unexpected Polar Bear Winter Camping Trip

[Steve Alm]

What? Females on a boy scout trip?  Chocolate or no chocolate, this is
heresy!  What's this world coming to?
Slim

On 11/3/02 11:19 PM, "Roger Pihlaja" <cen09402@centurytel.net> wrote:

> I just got back from a weekend backpacking trip with my Boy Scout troop.  We
> hiked & camped on the Jordan River Pathway, which is in the Mackinaw State
> Forest about 15 miles SW of Gaylord, MI.  It's about a 2-1/2 hour drive north
> from my house in Sanford, MI.  We had 19 Scouts and 5 adult leaders along,
> which is by far the biggest group we've ever tried to do a backpacking trip
> with.
> 
> Our troop has developed sort of a bimodal age distribution in the past couple
> of years.  We have a bunch of 11 & 12 year olds & a bunch of 16 & 17 year olds
> with relatively few Scouts in the 13 - 15 year range.  It's hard to find an
> activity that's interesting & challenging for the older Scouts that wouldn't
> absolutely kill the new Scouts.  So, we tried something a little different on
> this camping trip.  We divided the troop into Group A & Group B.  Group A
> started their hike from a place called "Deadman's Hill"  & hiked about 8 miles
> + about 1200 feet of total elevation change + several small stream crossings
> to our overnight destination at Pinney Bridge Walk-In Campsite.  Group B drove
> the vehicles to another trailhead & hiked about 3 mostly downhill miles to the
> same overnight campsite.
> 
> I hiked with Group A along with 6 Scouts & one other adult leader.  We hiked
> about 4 miles & stopped for lunch on the trail.  We covered the entire 8 miles
> in about 4 hours.  The trail conditions were pretty tough for hiking.  The
> area got about 3" of snow the night before & we got occasional wet snow
> flurries during the hike.  The temperature was right at freezing.  The ground
> was still warm enough to melt some of the snow on the trail & there was
> freezing cold water dripping off the trees.  The trail was slippery from the
> snow, mud, & wet leaves.  You had to be really careful of your footing,
> especially on the hills, or your feet would go right out from under you or
> you'd twist an ankle.  This was the 1st time I've ever parallel "skied" in my
> hiking boots!  Did you you know you can "hockey stop" a pair of Sorels in the
> mud if you edge them really hard?  Without the heavy backpack making me so top
> heavy, it would actually have been kind of fun.  Fortunately no one in our
> group got hurt, all though we were all pretty wet & muddy by the time we made
> it to our overnight campsight.  The fall colors were just past peak & the
> scenery from the high ridgelines along the trail was great.  I saw an 8 point
> whitetail buck, an easy 50 yard standing broadside shot with a rifle.  But, it
> ran away before I could get my camera out of my pack.
> 
> Group B got into camp about 2 hours ahead of us & had the campfires burning
> when we arrived.  All the younger Scouts had done just fine on their 1st ever
> backpacking trip.  Nobody in Group B had gotten hurt either.  We all said a
> little prayer of thanks for that blessing.
> 
> One of the adult leaders in Group B was Brenda Acklin.  Brenda wasn't able to
> find a babysitter & had her 12 year old daughter, Emily, with her in Group B.
> This was also Emily's 1st backpacking trip.  Emily is kind of a whiner & a
> fussy eater.  I knew Brenda would have her hands full taking care of her.  So
> when we were planning the camping trip, I promised Brenda that I would cook
> dinner & breakfast for the 3 of us.  For dinner, I made Polynesian chicken
> over rice, green beans with lemon-butter sauce, hot fudge brownies for
> dessert, & all washed down with hot spiced apple cider.  Emily was a little
> slow eating her dinner &, in the freezing temperature, the food got stone cold
> before she'd finished half of it.  I warmed up Emily's whole plate of food at
> the same time as I was warming up the brownies in my double boiler.  Waving
> the dessert in front of Emily did the trick & she soon finished the rest of
> her dinner.  I've found that when you camp with women, you simply must bring
> chocolate!
> 
> Saturday night, the temperature got down to about 23 deg F.  After dinner, I
> started feeling pretty tired & cold.  I was in my sleeping bag by about 7:30
> PM & slept straight thru to 7:30 AM Sunday morning.  I think most of the troop
> was in bed pretty soon after dinner & nobody got too cold overnight.
> 
> Sunday morning, I made breakfast burritos + fresh baked honey cinnamon sticky
> buns for Brenda, Emily, & me.  The last of the new Scouts was finally packed
> up & ready to leave by 11:00 AM.  We all hiked out together via the easier
> Group B route.  Hiking out from Jordan River level to the ridgeline was uphill
> almost the whole way, about 450 feet of elevation gain in 3 miles.  Some of
> our new Scouts were hurting bad by the time we reached the trailhead.
> 
> For some reason, the tailgate on my Chevy Astro minivan wouldn't open when we
> got back to the vehicles.  I think it was frozen shut.  It made loading
> backpacks into the rear cargo area thru the side door & over the 2nd & 3rd row
> of seats a royal PITA!
> 
> We drove a short distance to another scenic overlook to have a look at the
> site of an ancient landslide.  Then we hiked about 1-1/4 miles to the
> headwaters of landslide Creek.  The headwaters turned out to be a spring that
> bubbles up out of the hillside & cascades down the hill in a pretty neat
> little waterfall!  Yes, that's right, this stream starts out with a waterfall.
> 
> On the way home, we stopped in Gaylord, MI & had lunch at Taco Bell.  We
> arrived back the SUM Church in Sanford, MI at 15:58, two minutes ahead of
> schedule.  I love it when a plan comes together!
> 
> The Jordan River Valley has quite a history in the lumbering industry in
> Michigan.  There used to be a log flume on Deadman's Hill.  I imagine getting
> in the way of a 5 ton log going down a 450 foot log flume would just ruin your
> whole day!  There were some fatalities at this site, hence the name.  Our
> campsite at Pinney Bridge Walk-in Campground was originally the site of a
> lumber camp around the turn of the century.  The Jordan River Valley was
> reforested during the 1930's by the CCC's.  Nowadays, it is managed by the
> Michigan DNR as a working forest.  Along the trail on our 8 mile hike, there
> were signs pointing out the sites of relatively recent wood harvesting
> operations.
> 
> I'm really proud of the way our troop handled this backpacking trip in fairly
> tough conditions.  Nobody got hurt or hypothermic.  They all managed to cook
> their own meals & slept thru the cold night without any problems.  A few of
> our new Scouts got cold wet feet & I'm sure they all learned a few things.
> 
> I wish I'd brought an extra pair of fleece pants.  The pair of fleece pants I
> wore on the 8 mile hike in on Saturday was pretty soaked by the time we'd
> reached our campsite.  I really missed having a dry pair to wear after dark on
> Saturday night & Sunday morning.  I had to make do with light weight
> polypropylene long johns & nylon wind pants.
> 
> We're calling this our 1st Polar Bear Winter Camping trip of the year.  It
> didn't start out that way, but that's Michigan weather for you.  Our Scouts
> will certainly have bragging rights at school tomorrow.
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> 
> 
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