Fun at LDS scouting winter camp

Lloyd Lybbert

Lloyd Lybbert, Student Voice

Early morning on February 18 I went with the LDS scout troop on a winter camp. This group includes Spencer, Ben, Andrew, Taite, Dylan, Jack and Braydon. Camp leaders were Mark Nelson and Robert Frost.


We started out with a 1 to 2 mile hike out to a piece of bushed-in property near Little Beaver Lake and Mountain View (between Waterton and Cardston). Once we got to the property we filled our water bottles from the nearby springs and had some snacky lunch.

After resting for a while we started to plan our shelters for the oncoming night. Most of the scouts' designs consisted of a tarp lean-to with wood poles lashed to trees. It's easier said than done. Many other shelters we upgraded with pine boughs under the ground sheets to provide comfort and also to prevent body heat from leaching out into the ground. This pretty much used up the day and then it was time for dinner! That night I got to have fire cooked steak and potatoes. The night was very cold and was not very sleep oriented, at least for me, so I just lit a fire,  grabbed my sleeping bag and sat around the fire, later being joined by others with the same problem.

The next day as others started to wake up my group went to gather firewood for the day, as we had used up our supply that night. After grabbing enough firewood we got our instructions for the day. It was a very windy day so I was wondering how ice fishing would go since the lake was on top of a hill and, as you may know, there aren't many trees covering you from the wind in the middle of a lake. It didn't go as badly as I suspected but it was still hard to ice fish, but we did it anyway.

By the time we hiked back to base camp it was mid-day and we had nothing to do, so we built an awesome sled track with the sleds we brought our gear up on. We had a lot of time on our hands so we started making it bigger with more jumps, making it faster and adding more obstacles we could catch air off of.

During the last part of the day scouts that had to rebuild their shelters did so. My group added a fire pit in front of our shelter, and pine boughs as well. We also made the sides and back closer to the ground to hold in heat and make it so the wind didn't blow the tarp off.

This night was a lot warmer so I got a lot more sleep and no one got up that night.

The next morning we started to pack up our sleeping bags, taking down the shelters so as to leave no traces behind. We had a quick non-cooked lunch and then we went for a quick hike to see the true landscape of the surrounding area. This got us to lunch time, but instead of eating we started hiking back to the cars. The hike back was a lot easier because it was mostly downhill (unlike the way up).

The camp was really beneficial to the scouts. It helped us learn may life skills for surviving and just normal camping. I hope that there will be more in the future.