Troop 301

Pack 340 out of Smithtown Elementary asked if we could help the Cub Scouts build wooden toys while the leadership did an orientation for the new parents. This was on October 1st.

Lowes provided the toy kits and the boys seemed to enjoy helping the Cub Scouts.

At the end, some got to do some building of there own with what was left over.

The evening was a success.

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October 3rd was St. James Day and the troop had the usual location by Dairy Barn, starting the event with the traditional assembling of the tripods to support the TROOP 301 sign.

Eagle Scout Travis Ochs even came to lend a hand….and in his SUNY Maritime dress whites!

The tables were then filled with the baked goods and fundraising began on that cold cloudy morning.

Sales started slow but with the sun trying to peak out and lots of hot coffee to keep the adults warm, the event was a success.

Break-down and cleanup was done in record time and it was time t count the profits.

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On October 16th & 17th, the troop went up to Harriman State Park to go backpacking. We drove to the Lake Tiorati traffic circle parking lot and left our cars there.

We were going to pick up the Appalachian trail from the parking lot but learned a valuable lesson there. When we compared Mr. Herrmann’s map with Mr. Anello’s we found that the head of the trail was shown in two different places. A quick walk to the ranger station yielded that the head of the trail had been moved about a half mile up the road from the traffic circle so we instead took the BLUE trail and followed those blazes until it intersected the Appalachian Trail near the water tower.

Mr. Anello showed the boys how his pack was packed to minimize weight and therefore make hiking easier. He encouraged the boys to leave behind what was not absolutely needed. No one seemed to want to part with anything and many of us left carrying too much (including the Scoutmaster).

We started at an elevation of just over one thousand feet and climbed to the ridgeline of around 1,400 feet. We stopped way too often on the way up and the boys seemed to have much more energy than many of the adults.

Mr. Herrmann was NOT one of the slow ones

Our first destination was the Fingerboard Shelter which turned out to be about 2 miles in with full packs.

We reached the shelter to find it occupied and we setup camp along side the shelter but at a distance.

After pitching out tents and stowing our backpacks we gathered our lunches and set off for the Lemon Squeezer with daypacks. We were following the white blazes marking the Appalachian Trail.

We stopped for a group picture at the old mine. This pile of rocks was “man-made”.

The weather was windy and cold but the views were beautiful.

The ~3.5 mile round trip to the Lemon Squeezer turned into more like 5 miles when we missed trail markers on the unmaintained Bottle Cap trail and the boys had to use their ORIENTEERING skills to find the red trail and the rock formation known as the Lemon Squeezer.

After you pass through a split in the giant rocks about 18 inches wide it leads to a long narrow and angled channel in the rocks and back out in the open. You then need to choose an almost vertical 10 foot tall face to clime or take “the easy way” to the left. The picture below was the “easy way”.

Once on top of the formation, it was time for our long awaited LUNCH.

The sandwiches looked big when we packed them but after all the hiking and climbing, they just didn’t seem to hit the spot .

After we ate, it was back on the Appalachian Trail and back to the Fingerboard Shelter.

I’m still trying to figure out how the trail could be “up hill” both directions.

We got back to camp about 3:45 pm and after a little down time, tried out our new liquid fuel backpacking stoves and made a yummy dinner of dehydrated food.

Bedtime came early but Troop 201 still managed a campfire before hitting the sleeping bags for the night.

We broke camp Sunday morning and the pace back to the parking lot was roughly twice what it was hiking up.

I don’t think that the boys next trip on the Appalachian Trail will include Mt. Katahgin in Maine (northern most point on the trail).