The Adventures of 219 |
The Adventures of 219 |
Five Scouts and two Adults hiked 24.1 miles through Crow Pass on Saturday,June 25th, 2016. The day was overcast with the occasional rain shower, which kept the temperature down so the hikers would not get too hot. The scouts from Troop 219 left Girdwood at 8am and were picked up at the Eagle River Nature Center at 10pm the same day. The 24 mile hike took 14 hours to complete.
According to Nikki Sellers, one of the two adults on the hike, the most memorable part of the day was when they had to cross two rivers. The widest crossing was approximately 50 yards wide and the very cold glacier water in the river came to the hiker’s hips. After successfully crossing the river, the hikers stopped for lunch. The scouts from Troop 219 reached the peak two hours after starting the hike. Another memorable part of the hike was when the scouts had to traverse a snow field that was filled with wet, heavy snow that was on a 45 degree slope. I am sure it would have felt like one wrong move and they might have tumbled down the mountain. The 24 mile Crow Pass hike was long and arduous, and the scouts who completed it should feel very proud of their accomplishment.
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Scouts and adults from Troop 219 participated in the annual NRA Youth Safety Training again this year. This free, highly anticipated event is a favorite of our troop. This year’s Youth Firearms Safety Training was on Saturday, June 4th, at the Birchwood Recreation and Shooting Park in Chugiak, AK. Participants arrived at 7:30am and the event last until 5pm. Throughout this bright, sunny day, the NRA event had a total of 14 different types of guns to shoot at 85 various stations. In addition to shooting and learning gun safety, we got to see SWAT demonstrations involving kicking down doors, blowing down doors, and shooting 3 human outlined targets behind each door.
The NRA not only offers free firearms safety training to youth in our community, it also supplies a lunch of hotdogs, and hamburgers. We all had fun and I can’t wait to see what fun events are offered at next year’s NRA event. Eighteen scouts and six adults hiked the 1.5 mile round trip from Skyline Road to the peak of Mile High on Sunday, August 28th, 2016. The day was bright, sunny and warm. The scouts from Troop 219 had a short meeting at Joy Lutheran Church, followed by the hike straight up to the Mile High Peak. The entire hike took 1.5 hours. After the hike was complete, all scouts and adults returned to Joy Lutheran Church to finish the meeting and return home.
Ten scouts from Troop 219 hiked to the top of Mount Baldy on July 27th, 2016. All the scouts had a lot of fun during the 1 ½ hr. hike to the summit. As you can see by the picture the day was raining and overcast. This activity was done in place of a meeting.
Mr. Estes worked with 7 boys on their Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge taking them to the Coast Guard Command Center located on JBER - Courtesy Mrs. Rivera-Murray.
On May 29th, 2016, the Scouts from Troop 219, met at the Fort Richardson National Cemetery located on Joint Base Elmendorf/Richardson. About 30 Scouts and 10 Adults participated in this service project where we placed American Flags approx. 6 inches in front of fallen servicemen’s Grave stones.
Our Troop was given 2 areas to place flags. We finished our allotted areas quickly, so we decided to place flags on additional sections of graves. One of the boys in our Troop showed us where his father and grandfather were buried. A first year scout named Nick often visits his father’s grave site in this cemetery. It reminded us why we should not take our families for granted. The total time spent on this service project was approx. 1 ½ hours. On the weekend of May 13th, through the 15th, our troop attended and actively participated in the Great Alaska Council’s Spring Camporee. We had 18 Scouts and 5 Adults attend this campout. We spent most of our time outside competing in various Lumberjack events, so it was great that the weather was bright, sunny and warm the entire weekend.
We arrived on Friday evening where we set-up our campsite, had snacks and met campers from the 10 other Alaska Troops. On Saturday, we woke early, had a pancake breakfast, sang songs, and participated in a costume contest. After lunch we competed in the Lumberjack events, followed by a Cast Iron Chef cooking competition that some of the troops and patrols competed in. Participants in the Cast Iron Chef competition made Lasagna in a Dutch Oven. Our troop won 3 of the 13 events we competed in. Our troop won awards in the Nail Driving competition, Caber Toss, and Log Leapfrog. Sam Strickland was awarded the Lumberjack award. When we weren’t competing in the events, scouts from our troop worked on our accuracy and skills in throwing knives and axes. We learned that Troop 219 worked great as a team in the Nail Driving competition. Overall, we had great weather, good food, and proved that we work well in team competitions. The 2016 Spring Camporee was a great success. We arrived at the Alaska Rock Gym just after 8:00 pm on Saturday, April 23, and started climbing in the bouldering area, and if you were 14 years or older, you had the opportunity to be belay trained. We worked on the fundamentals of belaying, and then we were briefed on the rules and given instructions. Once the initial talk was complete, we grabbed our climbing shoes and started climbing
Around 11 pm, the second year scouts arranged a "sharks and minnows" game, but after about 20 minutes of playing time, Mr. Strickland shut down the game, and told us to stop playing. I think some of the boys didn't go to bed until about 3 or 4 am. I felt sorry for a couple of the adult chaperones who probably wanted to be in bed, sleeping long before that time. Around 11:30 pm the adults brought out the first round of food, which was hot dogs, chips, and gatorade, and the around 1 am, we had crackers, cheese, salami, and pepperoni. If you like food, this is a good event to attend. The next morning we woke up about 6-6:30 am, and started getting our stuff packed and ready for the trip home. I think that one of the highlights of the event, in addition to the climbing, was the breakfast we had in the morning. Mr. Estes made, from scratch, biscuits and gravy with sausage patties for breakfast. After breakfast we went over to the corner of the two climbing walls and two boys climb the rock wall and held the troop flag while we took the troop picture. |
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