SWC, January 2011

The Scouting Winter Campout (SWC) held on January 21-23 was a huge success for the 16 Adults who attended for our Troop. We were part of some 30+ other Troops who attended this wild, wild event, each of us given a unique Patrol Name. We were called "The Underdogs", but we were far from being an underdog, for we were able to place in 3 of the 5 activities and actually earned 6 beads and a trusted bear claw.

The weather lived up to it's billing of being a Winter Campout, nice blue sky during the day, but at night the mercury dropped into the mid teens. I really think it snowed in my tent Saturday night. But we all stayed warm and learned some secrets from the experienced SWC Campers on just how to stay warm. (Hot water in a Nalgene bottle works great.)

On Saturday night we had a very unique dining experience, for we feasted like kings, ate to our hearts content, and had a chance to show off with some very Artful table decorations. The other patrols simply went hog-wild with their table decorations with 1st place going to the the Rescue Dogs patrol who had a huge papier-mâché St. Bernard dog. The only question was, "Where did they find the time??"

We had the whole gauntlet of experience within our patrol, several being their first time, and others going for their 20th. I did have to ask them again and again, "why are we here?", but by Sunday morning it did become pretty clear as to the why. It was our one chance to be a scout again and not worry about everything else, at least for 36 hours, and it was fun, cold feet and all.

- Mr. Kolakowski