Around Hopewell
HW Boyscouts Troop 435 in Gettysburg
Not all Summer Trips are about beaches and theme parks, the Hopewell BoyScouts took an educational journey as they went camping in Gettysburg last week.
The reason for the trip was to gain specific skills, knowledge and badges of course through a typical Summer camping trip. Every year the Scouts take at least one Summer camping trip to sharpen the wilderness skills, this year the boys decided they wanted to go to historic Gettysburg. This was the troop’s second trip to Gettysburg and while they did spend time camping it also turned into a highly educational trip, canvasing the battle ground of Gettysburg and learning all about history in the process.
Head Troop Leader Steve Fritz was kind enough to recap the trip for HSN and take us along on their journey. “In all there were 16 scouts and 11 adults that attended the 5 day, 4 night adventure. On the way to Gettysburg we stopped at the Col Dening State Park and completed a 5 mile hike with over a 1,000 foot elevation change to the Flat Rock Vista. We stayed at the Daniel Lady farm just outside of Gettysburg proper. We stayed in a field that was a muster point for one of the Gettysburg battles. We set up our tent camp on Wednesday evening.
On Thursday we completed another 5 mile hike, the Johnny Reb trail, in the morning and toured the Gettysburg museum in the afternoon.
On Friday morning we visited the Dwight D Eisenhower Farm then another hike on the Historic Gettysburg trail, then spent the afternoon at another local state park, swimming, and playing on the beach. After returning from the beach we attended the “100 Nights of Taps” at the national cemetery.
On Saturday we had a 10 mile hike on the Billy Yank trail. That took most of the day.
On Sunday, due to projected very bad weather we packed up camp a day early and went back to the state park for more swimming and beach activities before the rains came.
We worked on merit badges for hiking, geocaching, and wilderness survival. We certainly put the hiking skills to the test as we hiked 25 miles in 4 days. The scouts improved their camping skills, including setting up camp, tearing down camp, fire building, and some cooking skills.
Our older scouts are always instrumental in our camping trips. They keep the younger scouts focused on tasks and help teach them the proper way to execute activities. – Said Fritz”
While we are a sports page here at HSN you will often find us going outside of that demographic to bring our viewers updates on all happenings in Hopewell like this one from the BoyScout Troop, even though its not technically a sport the amount of miles these troops logged in just four days puts some sport teams workouts to shame! Way to get at it boys!