Scout Camp

Scout camp was a wonderful experience and everyone had a fantastic time. Everyone earned at least three merit badges and most of the scouts earned four.

Some of the highlights include:

Horseback riding

KP Duty

Building outside shelters for the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge

Having Steve deliver pizza to us

Church in an outside chapel

Capturing gigantic bugs

Playing in the creek and lake

We built a trail sign for a poorly marked trail as a service project for Camp Geronimo.

Mitch was selected for a commercial showing all the great things that Thunderbird Charities has built for Camp Geronimo. He was chosen because he looked like the best boy scout.

Click below for a million pictures.

Wet Beaver Creek/Bell Trail/The Crack

This was one of our best hikes and campouts. We parked right off of I-17 by the Wet Beaver Creek ranger station, south of Oak Creek. We hiked in about 3.5 miles down the Bell Trail, taking the Weir Trail fork. Out camp site was stellar, right next to Wet Beaver Creek, on a sandy beach. The boys had a great time skipping stones and playing in the water.

Another youth group told us about "The Crack", off of the rim trail. We hiked another mile and a half to The Crack, and discovered some fantastic cliff jumping. The jumps ranged from 6 feet to 32 feet. It was 107 degrees out and we jumped into the ice cold water, which felt great and refreshing.

The photo below is a great example of the areas natural beauty. You can see the Sedona-like red rock on the bottom of the hill, crowned by lava rock on top. Without the lava rock, this area would look just like Sedona.

The Bell Trail, which we took, was made by a local rancher to get his cattle up to the Mogollon Rim. It is now an old jeep trail, which means it is very wide and pleasant for hiking.

Mooney Trail

We went to Mooney Trail, which is between Sedona and Cottenwood. It parrallels Loy Canyon, the trail we did last month. This trail was originally built to drive cattle to and from summer pastures on the rim and is still used for this purpose.

During his talk the following Sunday, Brother Dalton did a great job summarizing our experiences on this trail. It wasn't well-marked, but we had fun exploring and finding the trail. I don't think anyone was worried when we veered off. Everyone but Wesley Stine had to go to the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby, afterwards. We each had either a brother or a son competing in the event. Included are photos of the trail, the pinewood derby, and the SunDogs playoff game that night.

There are there photos of note. One, we stumbled upon some animal tracks and took two pictures of it. We don't know what kind of animal it was, but the main part of the paw was larger than my hand. Any help in identifying it would be appreciated. Two, you can see how close Brother Dalton came to the edge of that cliff he talked about. And three, my friend John dressed up as a buck hunter at the hockey game because we were playing the Laredo Bucks. The mullet is fake.

UPDATE: The tracks we found were from a black bear. Look at this site to compare: Black Bear Tracks

Teacher's BBQ

The Teacher's Quorum put on a BBQ for all the YM/YW. After eating, we played volleyball and capture the flag. Everyone had a great time. Thanks, Teacher's Quourum! Click on Brody to see all of the photos.