HIGH ADVENTURE

 
                                           VENTURE CREW 45/BOY SCOUT TROOP 45

 2007 SUMMER HIGH ADVENTURE TRIP – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK

            We all met early on the morning of Sunday, June 24, 2007.  All of our training was complete.  We were now prepared for the final exam – a backpacking hike through the wilds of the Shenandoah National Park .  Our group consisted of three adults - Steve Finkbiner, Darrin Fulghum, and John Sheppard – and six youths – Dan Allmeyer, Dave Caza, Dave Finkbiner, Andrew Fulghum, John Sheppard III and Anna Sheppard, the only female in the group.

            Our drive from Michigan to Virginia was uneventful and we arrived at the Shenandoah National Park in the early evening.  Before going to our campsite, we ate at a Mexican restaurant in Luray , VA and prepared for the challenge that lay ahead.  At the campsite, the boys built a quick campfire and John led a campfire program.  We went to bed and morning arrived early. 

The day was overcast and gray, but that was good because it kept down the temperature.  We ate a quick breakfast, using up the remaining fruits and milk in our cereal.  Then we started off.  As we walked through camp toward the Appalachian Trail we were singing and laughing.  We hit the trail and started going down hill!  This was going to be easy!  Dave F., Dave C. and Anna were leading the group.  But the temperature and humidity started to rise.   We were drinking a lot of water and realized that we needed to slow down.  Just before we stopped for the day Mr. Fulghum, who was in the middle of the hiking group, saw a bear cub . . . but not the mother!  He looked behind him, but did not see her there.  He motioned to the rear of the hiking column to catch up and then we left the area.  That night we camped near a picnic area.  It had a water point, a covered area to eat our dinner, and – most importantly – indoor potties !!

The next morning we got up early and headed back down the trail.  Almost immediately, we  faced a significant obstacle – a huge mountain.  The previous day we had descended that mountain.  Now we had to ascend.  It was tough, and again it was hot and humid.  We took a long rest on top and drank a lot of water.  We were learning that water was a very important resource for this trip.  We hiked on a bit further and ate lunch.  We then continued on to the famed Limberlost Trail.  On that trail, in one of the more remote locations, Mr. Sheppard discovered bear scat!  Mr. Fulghum confirmed that it was bear, but it was a few days old.  We pushed on to another water point and camped for the night. 

Dave F., Dan A. and Mr. Sheppard stayed in camp for a siesta.  The rest of the group traveled up the trail a little way, to the Skyline Drive and played cards.  John looked very funny because he was the only one wearing his mosquito face netting – he needed to because there were so many gnats.  We ate dinner there, so any food scent would be away from our camp.  Then we put up the bear bag and went to bed.  Before we fell asleep we all talked for a long time and Dan was hysterical as told everyone to have a wonderful night's sleep.

The next morning we got up early.  We only had about 5 miles to go, but we knew the last part was uphill.  Hot and humid again!  At the base of the last hill, near the Skyline Drive , we rested one last time.  The whole group moved out fast.  But the "old guys", Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Finkbiner were moving slowly at the end of the trail and taking and frequent breaks.  Near the end of the trail, after the rest of the group had already finished, Mr. Fulghum and some other Scouts ran down the trail and picked up Mr. Finkbiner and Mr. Sheppard's packs and ran them up the rest of the hill.  Finally we were finished! We then took showers and washed clothes.  Taking a shower after being so hot and sweaty was . . . wonderful!  We camped in the campground and went to a Ranger talk that night.

The next day we slept in a little late – we didn't get up until about 8:00.  That day we planned day hikes to two waterfalls.  We drove to the trail head for the first set of falls, hiked downhill, then back uphill.  That was pretty tough.  We ate lunch and drove to the second set of falls.  This time we would hike uphill to the falls, then down hill.  After we reached the falls, we swam in the swimming hole.  When another large youth group got there, we moved to another swimming hole.  We swam there for a long time. 

After a while Mr. Finbiner, Mr., Sheppard and Anna decided they would head back to the cars.  When they were almost at the parking lot they saw a mother bear and three cubs.  They made noise and yelled, but she did not go away.  They waited until the boys and Mr. Fulghum arrived.  Mr. Fulghum took out the "bear spray" just in case, and then we tried to move up the trail.  The bear still did not move.  At that time, another group came down the trail.  When that happened, both groups joined up and we walked back to the cars.  The bear followed us about 100 yards, until she was sure we weren't a threat to her cubs.

 The next day was pretty slow.  We saw a couple of Ranger talks, looked at movies in the Visitor Center and then, to celebrate, at dinner at a Pizza Hut.  When we got up early on Saturday morning, and got ready to leave, there was a lot of fog.  We drove slowly along the Skyline Drive , and eventually came out of the fog.  Just before we left the park, we saw another bear getting ready to cross the road.  Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Fulghum tried to get out their cameras, but the bear ran away too quickly to get a picture.  As we left the park, we took a group picture at the park entrance.

It was a great trip and we all had fun.

Trip of the Water

Quetico 2006 Crew 1

By Dave Caza

 
Well, we arrived to the meeting place around 5:30ish a.m. We ate some breakfast and then we were off to pick up Paul. The car ride was like any other car ride long and boring, but not much you can do about that. We made some stops on the way and had lunch. Well, we finally got to Paul’s house. And then we left again and had some dinner. We ate and talked and left again till we got to the campsite (in Ironwood, MI.), the lady let us camp for free which was very nice of her. So we watched some movies and then went to bed. Then it was day two and we were on the long and boring road again! Stopped a few times again had lunch in a park. Mr. Fulghum bought food to make your own subs. They were great! We got to the out fitters got our trip placed on the master map and then we got our bunks. Then it was off to dinner which was some burgers. They were good but when we found out how much a second one would cost we decided not to have seconds. Then we shmucked around for a bit before going to bed.

This was the day of the trip! Now we got our packs set up then it was time for breakfast. Which was bacon and pancakes. Then we got on the boat and headed to the first portage. Got all our stuff over and waited in line for about two hours for the customs office to open so we could continue on. But eventually we got in and started off on our trip. Then we canoed for a long time till we got to a portage and then we stopped for lunch. Which was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But here we had a little friend that wanted a sandwich too and would not leave us alone he was fun to mess with but all in all it was a good lunch. We started canoeing again did some more portages at this point everyone was getting the hang of everything. We got a quarter of the way up the Agnes Lake and found a camp sight and stopped for camp by now it was four o’clock. Went swimming and then put on the steaks for dinner, which came out a little bloody (but we were hungry) and put the really bloody pieces back on to cook more. We also had potatoes which turned out to be like a liquid.  We had some corn too. Then it was desert which was ok. We all went to sleep shortly after that.

Day two: This day was the hardest day, we got up ate our granola and left camp. The area we were headed to was burned out like 6 years ago, but we were promised campsites, NOT!  We canoed up had some tough portages. One was a mosquito heaven for us but we got through it and ate lunch. This was again peanut butter and jelly. Started to go higher up the map. We got to the top which was filled with six foot pine trees as far as we could see. So there was no campsite which for us was really bad because at the same time a huge storm came in and we were out of luck. We pulled over for a little bit and then went out again deciding to go as far as we could go that day. This got us a day ahead of ourselves. But we were pretty much dead after that but after this we would only have one hard day left, then we would only have to canoe four miles a day. So any way we got on this campsite and fell asleep because we had already ate dinner on the way to the campsite.

Day three: We ate more granola and were off again. We got to this real nice campsite and ate our burgers and then dried out our wet clothing and went to sleep.

Day four: We had a small day a head of us. We could meet the other group maybe. We got to the falls in a short time set up camp and finished drying out our clothing. Just then the other group saw us and we said hi talked the such. Then we grabbed our lunch and ate it while the other group ate their lunch. We went to the falls shortly after that and hung out in the falls. Went back to camp and had a feast because the other group had given us the food they did not want and we went to sleep.

Day five: We did not want to get behind the other group but some how they got out before us and beat us to the hard portages which we have already done once. We got over the portages and got some campsites but this camp sight was the worst one we had. It had bugs every where. But we shrugged it off and went swimming. And then we got back and found some bugs and had a bug war. But nothing happened the bugs would hit each other and run away the biggest let down in the fight though was the wolf spider we put in there it just ran away from the smallest ant. It was upsetting. We had another feast and then we burned a main ant hive and the ants were after a few of us all that day but we went to bed.

The last day on the water, this was another easy day we got back and just waited for our boat to get there we waited a long time, and then when we did get there they did not bring 2 boats so a few us stayed behind and waited for the boat to come back. We showered and then we left to the campsite where we stayed there for free again. Had pizza for dinner and went to bed. We got up in the morning and we drove to Paul’s and dropped him off then we went to Mr.Fulghum's brother's cabin and watched some TV. And ate a good meal. And went to bed got up in the morning and then we went home. It was a fantastic trip all in all.

Our Quetico Trip

Quetico 2006 Crew 2

                                                 By Dave F., Zach K. and Danny A.

     There was much anticipation for this year’s High Adventure trip to Quetico.  We had spent several months preparing for our trip and it was finally here! Everyone was excited to be going.  We all had to be up and at Mr. Fulghums by 6 am. There were 12 of us going, so we had to take 2 cars.  The “Hot Box” (Mrs. Caza’s) and The “One-eyed Bandits” (Mr. Allmayer’s).

     The first day we drove for 6 hours.  We stopped just off the Mackinaw Bridge and had lunch at a park. We had subs for lunch not just any subs, these were SUPER SUBS! They were scrumdidalyumptious.  We drove farther up and picked up Paul Koning and headed for Ironwood where we set up camp at Curry Park for the night.  We ate and just chilled for the night. Got up the next morning, had donuts and a drink from the local bakery and headed on our way!

     After a long journey our convoy had cruised into the Canadian Border Outfitters. We split up into 2 groups, the first group consisted of; Mr. Fulghum, Paul Koning, Dave Piskorowski, Eric Haapanimi, Andrew Fulghum and Dave Caza. The second group;  Mrs. Caza, Mr. Finkbiner, Mr. Allmayer, Dave Finkbiner, Zach Kingdom and Dan Allmayer, We mapped out our courses, packed our gear into their bags and went into Ely, Minnesota to do some sight seeing. Were we surprised to see that there were hardly any people on the street and most of the stores were already closed and it was only 7pm!  We did find this one store opened that was selling T-shirts. The shop keeper seemed to be fine when we walked in, but when you started to browse he turned into a vulture looking for meat! He gave us a dollar off because we were scouts.

     The day was finally here! Each group had to be at the docks at different times.  Group A the “ancient people” had to be up at 6am and the Group B the “Chit lens” had to be up at 6:30 for breakfast. This consisted of bacon and pancakes. They were DELICIOUS! We loaded up our gear onto the water taxi and away we left for Prairie Portage.

      This portage was nice and sandy and short only 20 rods. Wow, we caught up with the other group. We waited 45 minutes to go through customs. We said our tearful goodbyes and went our separate ways. We did the S-Chain.  We paddled through Inlet Bay into Bayley Bay. Another portage, 84 rods and again nice and sandy. This was going to be a breezy trip if all portages were like these. We ate lunch on Burke Lake. We did the next portage 16 rods, canoed the river which lead us to a 30 rod portage into North Bay. We found a nice campsite, set up camp and went exploring on neighboring island.

     The next morning we arose ate breakfast and thought about the 8 portages we had to cross. None were over 40 rods but they proved not to be as easy as we thought. The short ones were hard because they had sharp jagged rocks. The longest provided a mud trap that only the Finkbiners managed to find. It seemed to like one leg up to the knee! We set up camp and Zach caught a 21 inch Walleye, boy was it delicious. What a way to end the day!

     The next morning we canoed in the rain into Agnes Lake.  Saw the pictographs on the walls found a campsite and set up camp.  While we were eating we looked across the lake and a rainbow appeared and we were able to see it from the beginning to the end. Then a second one appeared. This was so cool! We had a long day, time to hit the sac.

     We arose ate again and headed for Louisa Falls.  Along the way we came across a small waterfall this was really nice. We canoed on and found a nice campsite. We setup camp changed into our suit and paddled to the falls. Low and behold who do we SEE our other group!! They had done their trip (which was supposed to be an 8 day trip) in 4 days. What a NICE SURPRISE. We ate lunch together and hung out at the falls. This was a little piece of heaven having the falls beat against your back as you sat up against the rocks.

     We woke the next morning, ate, packed and canoed for 10 minutes to the next portage. This was one of the longest portage and the hardest 143 rods. It was all up and down on rocks. They called it Little Agony, yea right! We canoed for just a bit and came to the next portage which was 190 rods. They called this one Big Agony. It proved to be exactly what it was called. We canoed for about an hour ate lunch with the other group at the next portage and headed to our next campsite. The other group camped at a neighboring island. We hung out with them and the adults went to our site to play euchre.

     We arose early packed up camp and headed to the ranger’s station. We met up with the other group who had been waiting for over an hour to be taken back to the outfitters.  We finally all got back safe and sound.  All we were thinking about was a HOT SHOWER! We packed the cars and headed towards Ironwood. We ate dinner at a Bar and Grill where we paired up and split a pizza. We camped in Curry Park again.

     The following morning we headed to take Paul back to Houghton and then on our way to Mr. Fulghums brothers place in Cheboygan.  We stopped to buy food for dinner. We ate an awesome dinner watched a little TV and went to bed. Arose the following morning and loaded up and left for the final stretch home.  We were glad to be home safe and sound. 

     This was a fantastic trip I believe that everyone would be more than willing to do it again. You don’t get to see the beauty and the tranquility that we were able to enjoy for those few days.