National Duty to God Banquet Recognizes Mitch Mobile

This was really neat!  The LDS Church came to us and asked if they could do a video about our scouts and their experience with the Mitch Mobile, and how it has affected them and helped them to do their Duty to God.  Of course we said that'd be great!

Elder Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints spoke at a national Duty to God Banquet to a group of 1,500 professional scouters in San Diego on May 26, 2016.  He spoke about how scouting helps young men (and older men) to do their duty to God.  He then presented the video they made about the Mitch Mobile, then invited Mitch and a couple others onto the stage.

It was an amazing event, and my wife and I were so blessed to be able to be there for it!  Watch the whole talk below, or you can skip forward to about 7:20 to where he starts talking about the Mitch Mobile and then shows the video and interviews the boys.

I'm proud of our scouts!  Of who they were while we were experiencing it all, and who they are now!  Of the boys in the group, all 12 have or are serving missions for the LDS Church!  They have or are serving in places like: Russia, Belgium, San Diego, Oregon, Alabama, England, Chile, and tons of other places teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in many languages!

To learn more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, go to:
www.lds.org or
www.mormons.org

Backpacking Overnighter to Rudy's Flat

We went on a backpacking overnighter this last weekend to give our younger scouts the experience.  None of them had ever gone backpacking before.  This was an easy 8 mile round trip up a canyon to a meadow where we camped for the night.  It reminded me of when I went on backpacking trips as a scout, you know, when the pack was much larger than me?

Ahh, the memories. . .  Of course when I went I had an old army pack that had a hard belt on it that didn't stay tight so I had to either hold it cinched down tight till my hips felt like they were rubbed so badly they would bleed, or let go of the belt and just hike with all the weight on my shoulders.  

Packs are a lot more comfortable now, which makes the hiking more enjoyable.  In fact, I decided I would try adding weight to my pack to give myself more exercise!  I took a couple backpacking stoves (one MSR Butane/Propane stove, and one Coleman white gas stove), and took a bottle of denatured alcohol because one of the boys wanted to try out their pop can stove.   Then I was still glutten for punishment, so I added 1.5 gallons of water.  That did it, got me up to an even 50 pounds.  That ought to give me some exercise!

Then once I got my pack out of the car at the trailhead, I noticed that my pack was missing the plastic latch that holds the belt together - must have come off sometime!  So I ended up doing the 8 miles either without my belt support, or with me trying to hold the belt strap together - just like when I was a kid!

Oh well, it was good that I did bring the extra stoves and water, as the two water filters I brought didn't work - one was clogged, and one was missing parts!  So the extra water I brought up was what kept us going!  We did get some water from a stream, then filter it through a cloth and boil it for 10 minutes though, so that was a good experience.

Another unfortunate experience was that one of the stoves - the coleman white gas one - didn't work.  We were able to pressurize it, but nothing would come out!  So the MSR stove did all the water boiling.

Unfortunately, my son and I needed to be back in town around 6:00 AM so we got up at 4:30 AM and packed up and hiked back down to our cars.  I hear the rest of the boys and leaders made it out ok.

Here's a shot of the sunrise about 30 minutes into our hike in the morning:

What did I learn?  Check and recheck everything before a trip.  I had used both the filters and the stoves in the last year or so, but I should have checked both right before going up.  Even then the Coleman white gas stove could have clogged while we were up there, so an extra on hand is always a good idea.

The boys did good with the setbacks and I detected a hint of excitement as one thing after another didn't work - this was going to be a trip to remember!

Fairview Snowcave Campout 2016

It has been a few years since we've been able to do a snowcave campout because of lack of snow, and lack of a good location to go. We used to go up Farmington Canyon, but now they have a gate at the base that only allows snowmobiles through all winter.  So we had to search and find a new location this year.  Everywhere we checked out we were told we couldn't camp there, or there wasn't enough snow.  Finally we decided to drive 2 hours south to the location my dad's scout troop had just gone the weekend before for their camporee.

Unfortunately when we got there, the parking area was very muddy, and there wasn't much room left to dig caves.  We walked around and checked it out anyway, and were told by a guy there that they were going to have a vintage snowmobile race (with 90 vintage snowmobiles) there the next day, starting at 6 AM.  We decided that wasn't where we wanted to be, so asked if he had any other ideas.  He pointed us to a parking area down the road a bit and suggested we try there.  We checked it out and decided to go for it.

We ended up digging 7 caves right into the snow pile along the edge of the pavement parking lot.  (we had 8 boys and 8 adults)  The digging actually went really well, there was a small section of ice, but other than that, the snow was perfect for digging.

Some things we found useful were:

• to slide a sled into the cave and have the person digging fill up the sled with snow then push it back out when done.  The person on the outside dumps the sled over and slides it back in.  Then he shovels the snow that came out up on top of the cave.
• To use hand saws to cut out blocks of snow that were easy to throw out the cave opening.
• Inflatable, solar powered LED lanterns work great to lighten up the entire cave.

We did stew for dinner, and then ziplock omelets for breakfast.  You make an omelet in a ziplock baggie and then drop that into boiling water to cook.  Then you eat it out of the bag.  I tried a different recipe this time, and used my dad's Apple Omelet recipe.  It was really good!  Here's the recipe:

Apple Omelet:

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 apple diced
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• Salt
• Sprinkle some Cinnamon & Sugar in there too

It was a great location for the 8 young boys who were all on their first snow cave campout because they could get off the snow, and the cars were right there (though we never needed to allow anyone inside the vehicles to warm up, they did great!).  Maybe next time we'll find a place to go where we can hike in a bit and really survive.  I enjoy doing that and the boys feel quite the accomplishment from it.