Badge-Tastic!

Hey we had a court of honor in November and gave out a bunch of the badges and rank advancements that the boys have earned since summer camp. Here are some highlights. I missed a few of the pictures. Sorry.

 Isaac earned merit badges at camp.

 Trent earned his first Eagle palm.

 Hunter earned a rank advancement and some badges.

 Colton earned some badges at the pow wow and at summer camp.

 Christevan earned merit badges at camp.

 Ben advanced in rank and earned some badges.

 Three new scouts earned their first rank.

 Grant earned some badges and got the life rank that he earned about a year ago.

Adreck earned some badges.

"Y" go hiking up the mountain?

Hey we had a scout camp out planned for the 24th and 25th but none, nada, zero of the scouts said that they would make it for sure so we canceled that trip and I jumped in with varsity scouts on their adventure up to the top of Y mountain.

We got the usual meet at 6:00 and leave by 6:45 start and everyone knew this was going to be a night hike from the get go. Fortunately half of the crew had already done this one in the dark before, and this time they had flash lights even.

At the trail head just in time to catch a pretty sunset.

Could this pack be any heavier? Well yes actually just ask Cameron Brown. His was so heavy that he about passed out at turn 3 on the trail up to the Y.

Trent and Christevan were the first to the Y (officially the easy part of the hike). I guess that there is something to be said for running 5 miles a day for cross county practice.

Here are the last couple to make it up to the Y. Note the complete darkness that needed flash and Photoshop to make this even somewhat visible.

Checking in on the Provo High Homecoming Game, couldn't see the score but the band was sounding really swell.

"Can we go now?" Trent says. Cameron had some trouble on the way up but after some rest, water and high fructose corn syrup, Cameron and I made it up to the top of Slide Canyon to make dinner and set up camp in the dark

 

The next morning oatmeal and hot chocolate was the fuel of choice. Some of the group had to head back down and the rest of the real men hiked up to the top of the mountain.

This is the view close to the top. Looking to the southwest with Provo Peak in the distance.

Brandon and Reid taking a break looking down into rock canyon and Squaw Peak with Timp and Lone Peak in the distance.

Reid, Trent, Brandon, Christevan are chillin' on the summit looking down on all the little people, little buildings and little smoke stacks.

Looking Southwest to East Bay and our own street.

A great chance to hang with my son Trent.

Everyone else cruised down the mountain because Reid had to be somewhere at 12:00. I knew that I wouldn't be able to descend that fast so I told them to go ahead without me while I picked my way down to save the pounding on my knees. I asked them to send Trent back to give me a ride home and figured that would be best for everyone.

When I got down about an hour plus later Reid and the whole gang were still at the trail head. Ahhhh, how special. They waited for me. Oh well nice thought. Turns out the truck battery was dead and the it took an hour and a half to get a crew together that could jump it and get it started. Well at least I didn't have to wait around.

Gone Fishing (and we actually caught something this time)

Friday and Saturday about half the scouts and all of the leaders went up to Payson Lakes for some fishing and camping action. I don't know what the weather was like in the valley but we got some really soggy thunder storms right after we got up there at about 6:00pm. We got the tents up and the it started to sprinkle. We got a couple of tarps up and it started to pour. It would rain for an hour and then clear for 20 minutes and then rain for an hour. I think that we had 4 storms run through. After the last storm went by I remembered that we had an EZ-up canopy in the trailer and after we put that up it didn't rain too much the rest of the night. After a good meal of subway and cobbler and talking until about 1 in the morning the boys got up and were ready to head to the lake and try their luck at landing a big one or even a little one (that would be better than the nothing that anyone had caught the previous weeks.)

Heading down to the lake for some angling action.

This looks like a good spot.

After two casts Gavin had lost his gear and was determined to wade in and find it. After another 30 seconds he had slipped and gotten his "warm" clothes wet and only had a dry swimming suit to change into (lesson on what to pack for a camp out soon to follow).

By the time that Gavin and I had gotten back to the lake in dry clothes Ben had caught his limit of four trout.

Gavin got one on the shore. Um, so now what. Why's it so flippy?

There it held still for the picture.

Doug took care of dehooking duties for everyone.

Now I know that smoked salmon is great, but I am not sure about what Damon is attempting here.

After about two minutes I had one on the line.

A pretty decent rainbow.

Adreck got a big one. It's amazing what can happen when you stop throwing rocks in the water.

This one is not getting away from the two fisted death grip.

Whoa this one is really fighting.

Oh wait it was just an old sock.

I just guess that I need to go fishing more to really under stand this.

Is it the mate to sock from before?

No, its a fish.

Nice fishy fishy.

Too bad we didn't get a picture of the person that Devin was talking to on the other end of the string with the fish to their ear. That was classic!

These are the keepers and the fish that we caught. Everything else was thrown back.

And just when you thought the real fun was over, time to gut and clean these babies. Well if it involves a fresh rending blade then a scout is going to have fun.

Lunch is on. Who knew that these little flippers could taste so good!

You know your are done when you only have a string of bones left like this.

Quack. Ben wanted to know how close he could get to the ducks. Pretty close it seems.

After lunch we took a nature walk around the lake and identified plants and animals for our rank advancment requirement. Good times.

Thanks for looking. Please leave a comment.

Priesthood emcampment and emboatment

Hey just yesterday we got back from the priesthood encampment and boat-a-palooza. It was a great time had by all. Sunburns should be cooling off in a few days.

Walkers stop on the way up.

Boat action.

Collin's death grip engaged.

Lobster flesh.

shouldn't that rope be a bit longer?

Sic

beach

Whoa he's up!

Pulled pork anyone?

Lance cook miester.