The campout that troop 55 went on this past weekend was in Pennsylvania, at Laurel Caverns. This was my first campout way back and it never gets old. This
year I had the privilege of going climbing and rappelling while doing the Climbing Merit Badge. This was so much fun. My brother and I were a little scared of it at first because it was a 40 foot drop to the bottom of “Devil’s Staircase”. It was way more fun than I thought of it at first and we got to do it multiple times! Outside of the cave, there were many traditions that we had fun with including a mini cooking competition at dinner and Dutch oven cooking. Anyway, I had a really great time in and outside of the cave and I know everyone else did too.
– Corey H.
Lead Historian
Scorpions Patrol
Laurel Caverns is always a super fun campout for many reasons. This year, that did not change. Other than the great food and the wonderful campfire, we went caving. The newer scouts went upper caving, an extremely fun experience. The others all went lower caving, a more difficult, true caving experience featuring a stream crawl to give it effect. We also did many merit badges. You could choose between geology, climbing, and rappelling. I did climbing, where we worked our way up a climbing wall and rappelled down what is known as Devil’s Staircase, a 40 foot drop. Later, we were ready for lower caving. After squeezing through a small passage, we walked into a large, open room where we took another passage and descended further. My favorite part of lower caving was doing the stream crawl, where we crawled through an underground stream with murky, cold water and emerged on the other side, completely covered with silt and soaked. After all of this we had an amazing campfire where we retired a flag, and I was one of the speakers. This was an extremely fun outing as it has always been.
– Nick H.
Historian
Sharks Patrol
