2008 EVENTS
Antietam Creek - June 7-8, 2008
Here we go again! The plan was to have the usual Shenandoah Staircase and Potomac Needles white water trip; but the Shenandoah is up way too high and the Potomac is up a little too high. This is also meant to be part of the preparation for the Allagash trip which includes a half day whitewater run in canoes.
So the plan is to canoe Antietam Creek which (according to the internet gauge reports) is high enough to run. We’re staying at Camp Manadokin near Sharpsburg, so we drive through Sandy Hook on the way to eyeball the Potomac at the Needles. It’s flowing clear but with very continuous whitewater and more and bigger hydraulics (low class 3) than these guys can handle.
We dump our camping gear at Manadokin and proceed to set up the shuttle and put in on Antietam Creek. The creek has enough water and is not at all pushy but it’s enough to teach those with flatwater only backgrounds a few quick lessons at no great cost (further evidence that staying off the swollen bigger rivers was a good idea). We get some self-rescue and some rope rescue and some just-round-up-all-the-stuff-that-should’a-been-tied-in practice.
The trip down the creek is remarkable for two reasons: tornados and owls. The area had obviously just been hit by a tornado and there were several swaths of big trees down, including some across the creek. Also we saw at least 4 barred owls as we paddled down the creek.
After we took out and unwrapped the shuttle, we set up camp at Camp Manadokin and prepared dinner from home dried food (again as part of a dry run for techniques needed on the Maine trip). Dried food takes longer to hydrate than freeze dried food and if you don’t get it hydrated can be chewy. We provided the patrols with gravel (dried ground beef), dried onions, dried carrots, dried mushrooms, boulion cubes, and couscous and let them make beef stew.
Sunday breakfast were dutch oven mountain-man (adults), dutch oven breakfast pizza, and Pop tarts!?
Pocomoke Canoe Trip - May 17, 2008
The Scoutmaster earned his pay this week. Boy Scouting is an all-weather operation. In good troops, that principle is woven into everything we do. We train, we come prepared, we’re confident, we work as a team, and we do what we planned to do. This philosophy has enormous benefits including building capability and confidence, setting as a life practice that we’re responsible and in control, and just being there for the great times just before or after a storm, being out when nobody’s around. Weather?, what weather?... So every senior scout and every scouter hates to call an activity off because of the weather; it just isn’t done. On the other hand, once every five years or so, a scoutmaster has to make that decision because the alternative is potentially lethal.
Plan A was to run a canoe camping trip between PawPaw and Little Orleans on the Potomac in western Maryland. That stretch of river is level 1 with a few stretches of light level 2 (analogous to the Allagash, coming up in July). The idea was to introduce the rookies and refresh everyone on canoe camping prior to the 7 day trip in Maine. So we started looking up the river gauges two weeks ago and were surprised to see that the Potomac was 9 to 12 feet above recommended levels (just in flood stage). So for a week, we hoped that the levels would just come down, but it didn’t happen. At those levels, the (brown) water is up into the
trees on the bank and getting out into the river requires starting pointing upstream, working your way out of the trees and then executing a good peel-out into the current. Watch out for the hot water heater floating by in the standing waves. Getting out of the river isn’t a matter of just steering over to shore and jumping out; it requires a good shore eddy maneuver, then facing upstream and paddling through the trees to shore. Yes, I’ve done it, and Larry and Jim are also NOC trained (and we were all 20+ years younger), and Chris Casey has never seen it but can execute the maneuvers… but no chance for the whole troop. Let’s take the gear drive out there and see if it’s really that bad !? Uh-uh!
Plan B – Tidal water can’t flood really bad (without a hurricane or nor’easter). Let’s get a group site at Shad landing, camp there Friday night (pretending to canoe camp), then paddle down the Pocomoke, Nassawango, and Corkers. Take out at Shad Landing, repair to the group campsite and pretend to canoe camp again. The only problem is that when Jim tries to make reservations by computer it hiccups. He calls the park and asks them to check. They tell him that we have no reservations and there are no sites available. (They later bill us for the site that Jim reserved, but Jim challenges that and they play back the recorded conversation and admit that they messed up.)
Plan C – Just get the canoeing gear and everybody together and spend the day canoeing the Pocom
oke without the impedimenta. So, we get to lovely Snow Hill about 9 Saturday morning. The guys at the canoe livery there at the bridge advise us to put in upstream of the bridge at their docks and call the tender to raise the bridge. We unload the canoes and the drivers set the shuttle. Andrew Browne and Cathy Reed are back from college (their muscle will be helpful later) and supervise the boys in getting the canoes downstream of the bridge when it opens. The Pocomoke is narrow, deep, and stained dark from the cypress trees. The day is clear blue but windy. No luck fishing, but there are lots of ospreys and a bald eagle. We turn up into Nassawango Creek and canoe past lots of pickerel weed (Stephen Pickeral is unimpressed) and spatterdock coming into bloom. Back into the Pocomoke and strong head winds as we fight our way down towards Shad Landing. We’ve brought a standard dry bag lunch of cheese, crackers, hard sausage, juice boxes, and apples. The trick is to find a piece of dry ground to get out of the boats. Cathy (19, fit, lifeguard, grew up on the water) is my bowman (life is good). One of the boats can’t make it up wind, so we put Cathy in the stern and I take their bowman. That works better. We get to Shad Landing and take a break (at least the adults take a break). The boys find watersnakes and turtles in the dock area. Somebody notices that the gum tree we’re under is loaded with mistletoe. Larry who grew up down there said he made pin money by shooting mistletoe out of trees with a 22, then selling it in town during the holidays. After the rest, we paddled up Corkers Creek and under the bridge into very old stands of cypress. You just keep expecting to see ‘gators sliding into the water. Back to Shad, undo the shuttle and on the way home with a stop in Easton for Scottish food.
Annapolis Rocks - April 12-13, 2008
We parked near I-70 and walked up the Appalachian Trail to Annapolis Rocks. The Boys had no problems, but there was ample evidence that some of the adults need to get in better shape or stick to flatter terrain. Former campsites have be closed because they’d been over camped. We ended up in a fairly rough campsite with very little level ground, a lot of brush and rocks. It was a challenge to get a small tent up. After lunch, we went the last hundred yards to the rocks themselves.
Annapolis Rocks is a series of rock outcroppings between 50 and 100 feet high, located a half mile west and about 150 feet down from the ride where the AT runs. From the rocks, you can see west over the nearest valley and into Hagerstown. As is often the case, standing on the edge of the cliffs, there were strong updrafts from westerly winds. After gawking a bit and noticing that about half the lads were not cool with getting close to the edge, we moved to a smaller outcropping in the lee of the biggest rocks. Under close supervision, the older scouts set up a top rope and a rappelling line over a 50 foot cliff. The older scouts with training belayed as every scout and the adults that were interested climbed up, climbed down, climbed up, rappelled down for a several hours.
We use the spring for water, purifying with pumps or the UV Purifier. Dinner was freeze dried food. Chris Casey caught, cleaned, and was cooking a snipe when the youngsters came back from the spring. This lead to a larger snipe hunt later that yielded no meat. The youngsters need to work on sneaking up and grabbing. After breakfast, we walked out Sunday, mostly downhill.
Tumbling Run - March 29-30, 2008
It was sunny and clear as we backpacked in an easy mile or so to the Tumbling Run shelter on the Appalachian Trail. We set up camp (some tents, some hammocks) in front of the shelters so that real hikers could make use of the shelters. After a bag lunch we walked up the trail along tumbling run to a 25 foot rock face just off the trail. We then did some training in the use of ropes, rope harnesses, belays, turns, and scouts in safely lifting and lowering conscious and unconscious folks. Eve
rybody got to play each part at least twice. We paid particular attention to the ten boy scouts and a belay trick. We made our way back to camp and gathered water from the spring on the other side of the run for dinner. In part, in practice for the Maine trip, we used purification pumps and tried the new UV (light saber) water purifier. Dinner was freeze dried food.
After breakfast, Sunday morning, we used the ten boy scouts and a belay trick to set a taut high line across Tumbling Run and operated it both as a ranger crawl and with a pulley and ropes. A good time was had by all. We gave the site a good policing, hiked out and returned home.
Father/Son Camping Trip - February 8-11, 2008
We arrived at Camp Rodney (opposite Susquehanna flats on the bay) at about 9:30 Friday night. While one crew set about getting the two woodstoves cranking, every one else brought in the food and gear. The evening snack was griddle top pizza, enjoyed a
long with rounds of the card game Capitalism.
After breakfast, we drove up to the state forest range on Ireland Road and everyone shot rifle, shotgun (skeet), pistol, and air-guns to their hearts content. It was pretty cold so the hot cup o’soup lunch from the back of the pickup was welcome. Several of the more reptilian lads could, from time to time, be foun
d sunning themselves, out of the wind, in the beds of black bed-liner pickups. After lunch everybody shot until they’d had enough around 3 PM.
We returned to camp and prepared jambalaya in a huge (7 gallon) dutch oven. After dinner and cleanup, some troop planning and discussion about the Maine trip, then more Capitalism, ice-cream and more Capitalism. Sunday breakfast was egg, cheese, and Canadian bacon muffins.
Straus Bike Trip - January 12-13, 2008
The TLC tempted fate by scheduling a bike trip in western Maryland in January (again) but the weather Saturday was more like early spring. The boys and spryer adults (Paula, Bryan, and Jamie) left the C&O Canal parking lot at Lock at Paw Paw and cycled the towpath through the 5/8 mile canal tunnel towards Little Orleans. The troop hunted newts in the canal bed in tunnel hollow and walked up to the canal worker’s spring and the path over the portal. The shuttle staff (lazier
adults) left most of the vehicles at the intersection of Oldtown and Mertens (dirt) roads, piled into one 4WD pickup and went down Outdoor Club Road to the canal, arriving just as the troop approached and joined for bag lunches. After lunch, Bryan was so enthusiastic to get on-the-road-again that he demo’ed a full, mounted forward roll. Undamaged, Evil Auld and the bicycle crew proceeded down the tow path. The shuttle crew visited Green Ridge Station, Stick
pile Tunnel, and the Carrol Iron Furnace, got back in the shuttle vehicles, and drove to Little Orleans just in time to meet the cyclists at the Fifteen Mile Creek aquaduct. The scoutmaster bought a round of (root) beer at Bill’s and we proceeded to Camp Straus for the night. We stayed in Allegheny, the Adirondack (3 sided) shelters and cooked dinner in dutch ovens. The weather report for Sunday was fiercer than the few flurries and snow pellets that actually showed up. The morning view of Sideling Creek confluence with the Potomac had a light dusting. We had no trouble getting home.