By: Annabelle L. (Kiwis)
On Saturday, February 22nd, the troop left St. Francis at 9:30 am for Summit Ropes, an indoor ropes course in Sterling, VA. After all of the scouts arrived, we waited around for a bit and drank lots of sparkling water while the adults sorted everything out. We were led to the side of the course to watch a video so we could learn about the belay system and how to navigate through the obstacles. The harness was a bit uncomfortable, especially since the straps had to be pulled tight for safety. It was totally worth it when we found out you could hang from your harness and do funny things.
We ended up doing various challenges, which included a Via Ferrata, a rock wall, a net tunnel, and several tightropes, for around an hour before stopping to eat Costco pizza and drink coffee with way too much cream and sugar for lunch. The parents were there to pick us up as we were finishing lunch and they dropped us off at Fairfax Difficult Run Stream Valley Park, where we completed a service project.
After we arrived at the lady’s house in Oakton, she taught us about Fairfax’s invasive plants and how to remove them. We followed her through her backyard and into the woods behind her house to clean up the acres of invasive plants. For the next 3 hours, we pulled out painful thorny invasive plants called Japanese Barberry, making sure not to cut the precious hollies so we don’t get yelled at. The work was pretty exhausting and the girls had pulled up the same amount of plants as the boys even though there were five times the amount of guys, which proves that boys are slackers.
Later, we were driven to Camp Snyder to spend the night, and upon arrival, we pitched our tents and started the campfire. Even though there were wooden platforms, we were told to set up our tents on the ground for more warmth since there were slats in between the wood. We quickly discovered that the only bathrooms were freezing Porta-Potties but they were better than nothing. The trailer rolled in at around 6:30 pm, which was pretty late so we rushed to grab our patrol box and start cooking. For dinner, we ended up making burgers while snacking on apples with a dessert of brownies cooked by a Dutch oven. However, the brownies backfired miserably when we found out we were actually baking an empty Dutch oven, by accident, for 15 minutes. After we found out, we quickly switched it with the actual brownies and hoped that nothing bad would happen to it, but it was a struggle nevertheless. After dinner, the scouts had the campfire and the PLC meeting and went to bed. During the nighttime, the temperature plummeted to 16F, which was pretty cold.
Our alarms were set for 6:00 am, but we finally started cooking around 6:30. When everyone woke up, our patrol made English muffins for breakfast as we cleaned the rest of our equipment and packed it into our chuck box. Cleaning was a tedious job but we got it done with team effort. Since our stove was broken, Mr. Maxson helped scramble our eggs over the newly built campfire as we cooked sausage patties. After a nice breakfast, everyone packed everything up and had Sunday service before leaving to head back to Great Falls Library. Overall it was a memorable and fun trip and I think everyone in our patrol had a good time.
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By: Drew Kim (Scorpions)
The ropes course outing was an enjoyable and fun experience for the scorpions. We started off the day with some ropes course fun at summit ropes. All of the scorpions would do it again. Tommy Keating was very good at the ropes course, I was okay at it. There were a few obstacles, but we all agree that the swinging logs were the most difficult. We would all do it again.
After the fun at the ropes course, we did a service project in which we picked Japanese barbs out of the ground. A lot of the barbs got stuck in our fingers, and that was okay. It was painful, but we were able to get through a lot of the Japanese barbs. Tommy Keating removed a lot of the roots from the ground, while I grabbed the plants and put them in the bags. It was difficult, but still a good bonding experience for everyone in the troop
Once we got to camp at camp Snyder, Tommy Maxson arrived. We cooked hamburgers for dinner and roasted apples for dessert. After a fun campfire, we went to bed. We got up relatively in the morning, and immediately realized just how cold it was. The water jugs froze over night and a lot of the gear wasn’t working. We had to improvise, and made egg sandwiches for breakfast. We were able to leave in relatively good time. All of the three scorpions were good and we would all do this outing again.
