Cub Scout Webelos Campout Camporee

    Hello Everybody! Today I’m going to share about my first ever Cub Scout camping trip. The camporee site was near Rainier Oregon. It was 48 minutes away from my house. At this camp out I learned the important skills of camping and had fun doing activities with my friends. I was expecting for the camp site to be a small area but it was very big. I was waiting for loads of fun.

Tent Campsite

     Before we left for the camp we had to pack. I packed with the help of my parents lots of clothing, a tent, sleeping bags and bags to carry everything including the very important ten essentials. My dad and I left from my house and went to a meeting spot with the rest of my webelos den. Then we drove to the camp site.

     The first thing that we did there was pitch our tents for storage and for sleeping. I helped the other people in my den pitch the tents and one person had a huge tent that we named the Taj Mahal. I learned how to pitch a tent properly.

Cookies

      After pitching our tents we made a buddy system and went to campfire. The buddy system was an important thing because it's dark and if we get lost in our buddy groups we won't be alone. With my webelos den there were other dens and scout troops. At campfire, there were some announcements and some nice songs and skits  performed by Order of the Arrow scouts. Then we went back and there were actually 3 birthdays and somebody brought in 225 cookies in to celebrate. I ate a couple of cookies and then we went to discussing about the next day. After that we went to sleep.

     I slept in the Taj Mahal (the giant 10 person tent) with the rest of my friends. It got a little chilly at night so as a tip, make sure you bring a sleeping bag, a blanket and wear at least 2-3 layers of clothing at the minimum. One of my friends was being annoying and kept talking and kept us awake for a while but then we all slept quietly for the rest of the night.

     We woke up at 6:00 am the next day and we brushed our teeth and went for breakfast. There were breakfast Burritos made by adults. Breakfast was at 7:00 am and it was really cold. After we ate, we went to opening ceremony. At opening ceremony we learned about what we were supposed to do. The three levels of activities were basic, intermediate and advanced. We chose the basic category. Let the games begin!

Fire Building

     There were different stations and my favorite three were the Fire building, Minefield and The Monkey bridge. At fire building we had to build a fire with a limited amount of supplies such as wood and 4 matches. We came prepared with dryer lint and newspaper too. We were scored for all the activities so we had to do our best.

     One of my other most favorite activities was the minefield. At the minefield, we had to get everyone across the minefield without stepping on mines. We had an idea to put sticks on the field to know where the bombs and where a clear path was. We made it across and it was very fun.

     Another of my favorite activities was the monkey bridge. The monkey bridge was a long rope with supports on it that we had to go over. There were also 3 trivia questions to go with it. The first question is what type of animal marking is on the bridge. The second question was how long is the bridge. The third question was what type of hitches were used on the bridge. On the bottom of the bridge there was some scrapings. We thought about which type of animal creates wood pealing and came up with the answer of a beaver. I measured the bridge by using my pace. Lastly we looked at the hitching and found that it had some half hitches and square knots. 

Strawberry shortcake

    Once we were done with all the activities, we turned in our scores and went back to our campsite. We did some whittling which is carving wood with pocket knives and then we ate dinner. At dinner we ate cornbread and chili on buns. We also had dessert of strawberry and blueberry shortcake.

     We went to campfire after this. At campfire there were more announcements and our webelos den had won 1st prize for the basic category! There were a lot more skits this time and we also got to perform our own. Our skit was called fly. The skit was about how there were some kids that were taking the body parts of flies off and then kids came and ate them thinking that they were raisins. 

Hot Chocolate

     Once campfire was over, we went to our tents and went to sleep. Some of my friends had left and went back to their homes for an activity. I slept in my tent and surprisingly went to sleep very fast. It was also less cold that night.

      We woke up and ate breakfast and drank some warm refreshing hot chocolate. We had closing ceremony with all the troops and packs and then we went for packing up. We disassembled our tents and went back for home. At home I also whittled a stick that now is very white and sharp.


    Signing out, 
Rishab Jain