Venture Crew hosted another fabulous outing!

We had a great day at Bidwell Park in Redwood City for our geocaching adventure.    The troop used map and compass skills to find four well hidden geocaches.

Approximately 19 scouts and 8 adults gathered Saturday morning at 7:30 AM at the church for the Troop’s annual Klondike outing.  The scouts divided up into cars and headed out for Cisco Grove.

Upon arriving, the scouts unloaded their gear and started setting up snow shelters.  There was 2 feet of snow on the field and 1 foot of water beneath the snow.  A few of the scouts fell through soft spots in the snow and were drenched by the cold water underneath the snow.  These scouts were rescued by other troop members and dried out/changed clothes before continuing to work on their shelters.  During dinner, the troop huddled around a fire to keep warm.  Due to the efforts used building snow shelters, the scouts turned in early for bed.  It snowed six inches overnight, causing a couple of tarps to collapse on some sleeping scouts.  After re-setting the tarps, the scouts were able to get back to sleep.

Sunday morning began with breakfast (bacon and eggs) followed by flag ceremony and games and activities.  Approximately 10 boy scout troops and one cub scout pack (along with the Troop 27 venture crew) camped at the site, although a few troops left before the games began.  Activities included a sled race, snowshoe relay and four man ski.  The cub scout pack performed well, beating one of the Troop 27 patrols in the sled race.  Unfortunately, there was no tobacco spitting event this year.

Troop 27 was very well prepared for the weekend and the elements and was the last troop to leave the event.  The troop had soup for lunch, took their gear out on sleds and finished the event with a snowball fight. On the drive home, the troop stopped at IN-N-OUT burger in Davis for dinner. Back at the church, many of the scouts took a troop tarp home to dry out.

Scouts for food

Scouts gathered at Redwood Shores Elementary School and started out with some fun games.    Scouts divided into small groups and off we went.   After several hours, cars returned to the school packed with food donations from wonderful folks in the Redwood Shores community.    Some folks even gave cash donations.   Several scouts left to shop with the donations.   When we finally arrived at Second Harvest Food Bank, our donation weighed 1,114 pounds!    Thank you everyone for supporting us!

Shotgun Shooting

Saturday morning we caravanned over to the shooting range in Windtermine Park.   We started with gun safety and learned how to always point the gun in a safe direction.   We learned about different parts of a gun and how to load it properly.   We shot moving targets of clay pigeons and practiced our accuracy and aim.    Afterwards we caravanned over to Skyline Ridge in Napa to camp.    Patrols cooked dinner and then we had a campfire.    Around 1:30 in the morning, it started raining.   Lucky for us it stopped before 7:00 am.   Patrols cooked breakfast and cleaned up the campsite.    We hiked to a lake and had lunch on the shore.

The troop had quite an adventure in Yosemite this year!    We drove up Friday night and set up our tents.    We drove in at night to an eerie view of the fires from the controlled burn on the Valley floor.    The early crew pitched all our tents which was great!    Friday night the rain started and Saturday morning we built a rain shelter.    Saturday morning there was a river running through the campsite.    The adults had to move their tents because of flooding.   The scouts’ campsite had a little river and we put out rocks to channel the water flow.   After breakfast we dug out the drain as it was backed up.   Scouts dug out tons of dirt and finally the drain was cleared and water started draining.   We took a hike in the rain at Bernal Falls and had lunch at the rock area on the trail.     Dinner was cooked under the shelter we built.   The rain stopped for an hour so we could have our campfire with songs, stories and jokes.    Saturday night the rain started again with lots of thunder and lightning.    All the tents got flooded and all the gear was put into garbage bags in the morning.   Luckily the shelter survived so we had a yummy breakfast under the tarp.   Lots of wet gear was packed, loaded and off we went.   For lunch we ate at In-n-Out Burger and took all the gear home to dry out.   We had a blast!

We had a great outing to explore the inner working of the Golden Gate Bridge.    We got a behind the scenes tour of what you don’t see when you drive across the bridge.      We learned lots of facts about the bridge and saw how maintenance and repairs are done.    Thank you to our awesome tour guides!

The troop taught Webelos lots of fun skills and took them out in our canoes.    Webelos had the opportunity to climb up a tall tripod and ring the bell at the top.   Scouts and Venture crew took Webelos out on the Bay on troop canoes.