Historian

02/26/2009

On Thursday February 26, 2009 twelve scouts and three adults made their way to the Boston Rock Gym in Woburn for our annual evening of fun climb.  The scouts — Greg, Brodie, Derek, Tucker, Christian, Kevin, Jack T., Jack O., Adam, Andrew, Robbie and Hugh — were driven to BRG by Mrs. Berube and Mrs. Leighton.

At the Rock Gym we were greeted by a group of fairly young staff members who led us into the “preparation room” to get our climbing equipment, which consisted of shoes and harness.  The staff then led us into the climbing area to explain climbing etiquette and to review safety guidelines.  An important safety rule is “don’t stand directly underneath a climber no matter how interesting it is to watch him or her climb!

We all split up and climbed for almost 2 hours, from 7-9 pm.  The Rock Gym has three kinds of walls for climbing.   First, there was the free climbing “cave” where we could climb without ropes.  This wall had bizarre angles and sections some of which looked like half of an oil drum had been attached to it.  Second was a “regular” wall where you had a staff member belay you and finally, there was an advanced climbing area down a separate hallway from the main area.  In the advanced area, all of the climbers were belayed because the walls were extremely tall and a fall from such a height would be very dangerous.  The walls were very challenging because there was a backwards slant as you climbed higher so you had to really use your arms in order to climb.  We spent most of our time in the free climbing cave or regular wall areas.  All of the walls were extremely tall and physically challenging.

When we were climbing in cave area, one of the staff members placed a neckerchief on the free climbing wall for us to try to retrieve.  Adam thought that this game was the most fun.  Greg showed that he was a skilled climber by retrieving the flag several times.  Some of us spent time watching several very experienced climbers climb up a wall where you have to reach the ceiling then climb across the ceiling till you reach a gap where you then need to throw yourself across it. Needless to say no one in our group tried this!

The Boston Rock Gym is an exciting place to climb, with many walls of various difficulties to climb atd it’s a great place for you to practice all of your techniques. Everyone who went enjoyed it.  Even though we all were tired after two hours of climbing, we still didn’t want to leave when our time was up. The trip to the Boston Rock Gym is one of my favorite scout trips and I cannot wait to go on it again next year.

Respectfully submitted,

Derek Benson, Historian

02/06/2009 – 02/08/2009
Waterville Valley

This year’s ski trip was quite a change.  Our troop’s traditional annual ski trip was during school winter break.  Gone was the quaint, rustic cabin and wood burning stove, bologna & cheese sandwiches at the base lodge made lovingly by Mr. Brown and Mr. Lehr.  Our new venue had us staying in the Waterville Valley Resort Conference Center, taking part in Waterville’s special Boy Scout overnight program.  Troop 28 along with 5 other troops from New Hampshire and Massachusetts “camped out” on the carpeted floor of the lower level of the conference center.

We had 17 scouts make the trek up north: Brodie, Evan, Kevin, Andrew, Jack O., Robbie, Hugh, Julien, Sasha, Hayes, Derek, Jack T., Adam, Greg, Alec and Christian.  Our adult leaders were Mr. Thomae and Mr. Ackley, who along Mr. Jackisch, Mr. Mack, Mr. O’Brien, Mrs. Hillman and Mr. Benson helped make the trip a great success.

The weather was very unpredictable — it would be bright and sunny then 5 minutes later, it was snowing and the sun was nowhere to be found behind a thick cover of clouds.  The good news was that it was not bitter cold and windy and even though it was the weekend, the slopes were not overcrowded.

Day one of the trip consisted of driving to Waterville.  The scouts arrived between 7:30 – 9 pm because of heavy Friday traffic.   It didn’t take long before a table was dragged into our sleeping quarters for the nightly poker game.   Day 2-Saturday, we woke up early, put on our ski clothes, put our equipment on the shuttle bus and headed to the mountain.  Mr. Thomae took the kids to get their rentals and Christian handled the food vouchers. After everyone had eaten their very pricey breakfasts, we began our wonderful day of skiing.

Waterville Valley has two main lifts — Quadzilla and White Peaks Express.  We were given instructions to stay with a buddy and to meet at 11:30 for lunch at the Base Lodge.  After lunch and a rest, we all went back out onto the slopes for another 3-4 hours, before taking the shuttle back to the conference center for a fun filled evening.

As part of our Scout weekend, we had a pizza party with the other scout troops and then we could go back to the mountain for snow tubing.  After the pizza dinner, Robbie brought the scouts to the movie room and we played man hunt. After playing man hunt for about an hour, we all got into our cars and drove to the mountain for some snow tubing.  This was the first time tubing for most of us.  I think some of the adults had the most fun — Mr. Jackisch and Christian spent all of their time trying to shoot each other over the wall.  We were certainly tired after skiing all day; now after 1 ½ hours of tubing, we were dead.  We crawled back into our sleeping bags and slept until Christian kicked us awake in the morning.

One of the activities planned for the scouts was the snow sports merit badge.  Our merit badge counselor Mr. Benson enthusiastically gathered his students: Hayes, Adam, Brodie, Sasha, and Kevin.   Mr. Benson, with Mr. Mack helping, had the scouts show the basic ski moves and turns, stops hockey stop, pizza wedge and carving edges.   Some instruction was provided.  We learned that Brodie is best riding his snowboard “goofy”, which means left foot forward.  After discussions about ski etiquette and safety, the scouts were released to wreak havoc on the mountain.

On Sunday we all got up at 7:00 am and packed up our stuff into the cars and drove to the mountain.  Again, we ate breakfast at the base lodge and then headed up the lifts.  After a couple of runs we stopped for lunch at 11:30.  Once everyone had eaten we did just a few more runs then returned all the rental gear.  Mr. Thomae grabbed a group picture of us just before we were going to get into our cars and drive home.  By about 2:45pm everyone was in a car driving home.  I think that this ski trip was successful because everyone stayed safe and had fun, but most importantly, we all were able to sleep at night!

Respectfully submitted,

Derek A. Benson, Historian

01/24/2009

Troop 28 fielded two sleds for this year’s Klondike.  It was the first time however that both Troop 28 entries were “leadership” division sleds.  The day was overcast and cold and the Camp Squanto trails were ice-covered.  Tucker who led one of the sled teams felt that this slickness made the sleds easier to carry.

The competition began at 8 am and both sleds were finished by 3pm. There were 10 sleds in the “leadership division” and many, many more in the general competition.  Christian headed one team that included Robbie, Evan, Max, and Brodie. Christian’s sled did well in the river crossing exercise which is one of the harder stations, receiving a 48.

Tucker led the other sled team which consisted of Andrew, Hayes, Jack T. and Sasha.  Tucker felt “this was one of the best Klondike’s that I have been to.”  Scores for Tucker’s team sled were: 45 in first aid, 50 in cooking, 50 in knots and 38 in measurement.

In an interesting quirk of the judging process, both teams prepared the same meal in the “cooking” competition, but because each team was scored by a different judge, one team did well but the other team got slammed!  Life isn’t always fair.

The “string burning” competition was another area where neither team excelled.  We just couldn’t get our string to burn!   The team leaders felt that we needed lots more practice in string burning.  In addition, both Tucker’s and Christian’s sled teams had trouble with the “nature” competition because the judges asked obscure questions about identifying animals.   Mr. Reel felt that the teams did well in “wilderness survival” and “camping” and he was pleased that both teams completed all of the stations.  Our teams also did fairly well in “knots”.

So despite one team coming in 10th out of 10 and the other ranking 9th, both teams stayed upbeat and had a good time.  Everyone considered this a learning experience.  Special thanks to all of the adult drivers and adult leaders, including Mr. Hillman, Mr. Reel and Mr. Ackley.

Go to the photo gallery on our website to see the shots taken by Mr. Ackley.

Respectfully submitted,

Derek A. Benson, Historian