This month's camping trip took Troop 54 for its first visit to Camp Collier, in Gardner, Massachusetts, and marked our first participation in a Wachusett District event. We had four youth participants and two leaders at the event.
We got to the camp at around 7:45 PM that Friday and found a spot to camp, right next to the dining hall. Once again, we set up in the dark. With the ground frozen, it was a bit more involved to get the tent stakes in. A very light snow blanketed the camp site overnight, and we when woke up, it was 8°F.
This year's Wachusett District Klondike Derby was a council-wide event for Nashua Valley Council. They had 11 stations for the sleds to visit, and a sled had to get to all of them to earn a participation ribbon. The big event was the sled race, which was run on the frozen camp pond. The participants had to sled to the the other shore and back, a total distance of about 300 yards. Our sled, dubbed the Ruh-coon Patrol, came in 7th place in this race.
The local Elks Lodge provided a hearty beef stew lunch for the entire encampment in the dining hall, a tradition going back over forty years. The patrol and adults cooked our other meals in our camp site. Keeping the water from freezing was a major challenge.
At the closing ceremony that Sunday, our patrol was awarded ribbons for participation, third place in the knot relay, third place in stretcher bearing and third place overall (out of 24 patrols). We were the only "out of council" unit at the event.
This was our 49th consecutive month with at least one overnight camping trip.
Page updated 7/23/13.
