The crew met up at Troop 445’s equipment shed Friday evening (January 14) at 7:30pm to split up crew gear and food. I also had to collect a few contingency payments, and Elmer collected money for our fried pie order from the Gainesville Fried Pie Restaurant. A parent asked about a medical release form for one of the Scouts, and I winced realizing that I hadn’t yet made a medical release form for the trip. We finished up at the Troop shed around 8:30pm.

Sarah and I went home and repacked our packs. When we had them put back together we weighed them. Sarah’s pack weighed 40 pounds with water and food. Mine weighed 50 pounds with water and food (I’ve got to get the weight down!). After the packing was done I sat down at the computer and built a medical release form and e-mailed it to all participants. I finished up the little things, and then hit the bed around 11pm.

We got up a little before 5am Saturday morning, made a dash for doughnuts, gas, and cash, and arrived at the Troop shed at 5:15am. Most of the participants arrived by 6am, then we had fried pie chaos. We had not collected enough money to pay for the number of pies we ordered. David ponied up $20.00 and we loaded up and left at 6:18am.

Traffic was very light and we made the 100 mile drive up to Cedar Bayou in about one hour and 45 minutes. During the drive, it was determined that SIGNIFICANT and its variations would be the word of the day. John stopped off in Gainesville to pick up the fried pies, so we had about 10 minutes to spare before he arrived. The temperature was 28 degrees with a slight north breeze when we arrived. Elmer and I walked around the cove to check on my geocache hidden near the bridge we built back in 2001. The cache was gone!

We walked back around to the group just after John arrived, so we said Philmont Grace then ate. After a few words, the crews were released to hike into their campsites at their own pace. We talked a while, and I passed out journals to each crew member. We loaded up and started hiking around 9am.

It was cold – about 30 degrees – so we began our hike with jackets, hats, and gloves on. After about 10 minutes, I was hot so I stopped and packed my fleece jacket and gloves. I caught the crew up at the hilltop campsite where they were also shedding layers. While up there, I hid another geocache. We hiked on, taking the Lost Loop trail. The trail was easy to follow for about a quarter-mile, and then we lost it. We bushwhacked up a fairly steep hill, and then got our bearings using a trail map and my GPSr. We determined that a hard right turn from our current position would take us back down to the trail. We found the trail about 5 minutes later and continued around the loop. We rejoined the Cross Timbers trail and got to our campsite at noon.

We set up camp Philmont style, then had lunch. It seemed that the peanut butter was left behind, but we had more than enough food anyway. We had jerky, Ritz crackers, two kinds of trail mix, and hot chocolate. It also seemed that we had set up camp in a refrigerator – it just got colder and colder. A north breeze coming in straight off of the lake didn’t help matters any. I got into the tent and put on my long johns while the crew was getting lunch ready. After eating lunch, I was still cold, so I put on my rain suit. That blocked the breeze and started the warming trend.

I walked over to 5 Mile Camp to check on the rest of the group and to check another cache of mine. Crew 3 was camped about 50 feet from the cache! I had never thought of camping up there, but it made a fine campsite. Up on the hill the heat was on, so I dropped all of the extra layers I had put on since finishing the hike in to camp. I stowed my layers over by Carl’s tent.

The rest of Crew 4 arrived about 20 minutes later. We spent some time talking with the other leaders and admiring a couple of new tents brought on the campout. The night before, Carl had gone to Academy and purchased a $15.00 tent that was said to be 6’x4’. Now, Carl is about 6’4” and he thought he could sleep at an angle in the tent and be alright. The tent looked like it was about 4’x3’ set up. I don’t know how he fared. Rick purchased a Mystique 1.5 from scoutdirect.com. It was impressive. The design was great and it seemed to be very well built. And then of course, Steve had his new ultra light tarp tent that could sleep 2 easily and only weighs about 2.5 pounds.

After the conversations, the Crew 4 adults along with Rhys went on a little hike up to Eagle’s Roost. Sofie wanted to stay back and talk, and Sarah wanted to stay back and draw a bit. We made it up onto the Eagle’s Roost path, along the way stopping to find a couple of caches placed since the last time I was up there. At 3:00pm, we decided it was time to turn around. Hampton and Chris had joined our little group by then (Crew 2 was out in front of us on this side hike). We started back on the trail, and then bushwhacked an old road into Crew 3’s campsite from the backside. We talked a little about turkey bag cooking there, then went on down and gathered the rest of Crew 4 for the hike back to camp.

As we neared our campsite, we noticed another small group had set up camp right next to us (about 100 feet away). Howdy neighbors. While I got in the tent to re-layer, the Crew got a fire going. It was nice to sit around the fire and talk. Around this time, a second, larger group of Scouts came down the trail hoping for 5 Mile. I told the group that 5 Mile was full, but that a really nice campsite could be had between here and there. They camped right where I sent them.

We started dinner around 4:30pm: chicken ramen with chunked chicken, the rest of the Ritz crackers, some good chocolate chip cookies, and hot chocolate or hot apple cider. We tried the “turkey bag” method and it worked well. We boiled our water in the 4qt pot. While the water was boiling, we put our 8qt pot in its cozy, then lined the pot with a small turkey bag. We crushed the ramen and put it in the bag, added the flavor packets and chicken, then added the required boiling water when it was ready. After we added the boiling water, Sarah gave the soup a stir, then we let it do its thing in the nice insulated pot. This method of cooking worked perfectly, and left us with only personal gear to clean along with a quick rinse of the 8qt pot.

We continued to enjoy our time around the fire, letting in burn to coals. At about 6pm we geared up and walked back to 5 Mile for a small campfire with the rest of the group. Roger told a great long story about three lost Scouts (one was "Kevin Kelley"), then Johnny led a short devotional. He talked about a plumb-bob – how it was used for building in the ancient times, and about how we should use the bible as our own plumb-bob (Amos 7:7-8).

We walked back to camp via flashlight, re-kindled the fire, and had our thorns, buds, and roses (TBR). No one listed the cold as their thorn, so I thought the campout was fine so far. The main thorn was that our entire crew was not on the campout. After we talked about Philmont and what was to be expected for a while, we all hit the sack in hopes of a warm bed. I think I got in the tent at 8:40pm. The Kelty had plenty of room for the three of us and the gear we needed in the tent. We talked for a few minutes, but Elmer was snoring away by 9pm. I got out of my day layers, put on fresh wools, and got in the bag. I never had a moment of feeling cold all night.

I woke up the first time at 5:32am, and then woke up for good at 7am. I got up, woke up the guys, then got out and woke up everyone else. While the guys were putting their gear together in the tent, I started the stove and a new fire – no coals remained from the night before. My pack thermometer read a little less that 20 degrees, but I didn’t have any frozen water. The Crew was a little less than enthusiastic about breaking camp. The cold got to fingers so fast that it made hard sledding of doing anything requiring dexterity. Stuff your sleeping bag, warm your fingers by the fire, roll up your pad, warm your fingers, stuff your clothes, warm…. You get the idea. We had 95% of camp broken at 8:20am and stopped down for a breakfast of oatmeal, pop-tarts, left-over jerky, and hot chocolate. Somewhere along here Sarah came up with the word LITERALLY as our new word of the day.

After eating, we finished the little bit of breaking camp that was left and began hiking out of camp around 8:50am. Again, everyone was layered up, but this time no one wanted to stop to un-layer on the trip out. I think it was colder this morning than yesterday. We caterpillared up the 3 big hills going out, but took no other rests, and made it back to the vehicles at 9:50am – a VERY good pace! We may have pushed a few crewmates a little, but that is what shakedowns are for.

Things to cover on the next shakedown: trash compaction, camp setup and break down, and duty roster job descriptions.

(Journal of Shane Hoffman)