Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:07 pm
I'll have to try that. Most all my shooting has been standard range stuff with some SD stuff tossed in here and there. Would love to go thru a tactical course some day...
QUOTE(deepdiver32073)... I was wilderness camping by myself before I was 10... Damn, man, that takes me back...
I'm not ashamed to admit that I was big into boy scouts. We had a cool troop. At 12 and 13 you knew your were going on a 50 mile wilderness backpack hike. Pack had to be 25 pounds or less at weigh in. No tents were allowed. You had a piece of visqueen and a partner who had one as well. Every night you used it and some rope and a little imagination to build your own tent. ....and the locations...OMFG.... My first year was high in the wind river mtn range in wyoming... Gods Country... It still raises the hair on my neck thinking about it. The next year was in the high country wilderness area of yellowstone. Sleeping on the ground with nothing but a thin piece of plastic between you and the bears... except at your head and your feet were it was wide open... lol now THAT is camping! I had great experiences on both of these trips and learned many valuable "Life Lessons". At 14 and 15, we built our own kayaks and paddled 50 miles on flaming gorge reservoir (Utah/Wyoming border). Again, great times that challenged us as individuals and as a team of scouts.
Fast Forward...
So now as an adult with children, I have stayed active in the scouting program. I was a scout master while my oldest boy was a scout and am the packmaster now for my youngest son's cubscout pack. As a scout master, I arranged a canoe trip on one of the east texas reservoirs (Sam Rayburn for those of you familiar with Texas). The intent was to paddle 30 miles over the course of a week, moving base camp from location to location. We had two power boats incase of emergency and to provide some extra diversions during the week (water skiing, fishing, etc.) As happens when you are in nature, it rained the first day. The second day started out clear as we began to canoe to our next camp. However, before we could get there, all hell broke loose... A little depression that had been hanging out in the gulf blossomed into tropical storm allison http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sto ... 30916.html . Nothing quite like being in the middle of a lake and having the wind suddenly wip up into a frenzy and get hit full on with hail and lightening... We delt with it as leaders... made sure we got everyone safely off the lake and to the camp... had only a few scary moments caused by pure lack of common sense (had to save a boy who jumped out of his canoe to swim to the motor boat in the middle of all of this...with his life jacket improperly fastened...such that it impeeded his ability to swim... moron) ... Camp was wet...camp was cold... but we were safe and prepared to deal or so I thought.... I underestimated the spinelessness of the kids today. Many of these boys hiked to the park rangers station, used the payphone, and called home to whine to their mommies "'cause they were all wet."
We set up camp and allison continued to swing rain bands are way all week. Using the supplies that I brought (which were on the list provided to all of the boys and their parents), my son and i had a dry camp all week... as did those camped immediately adjacent to me who followed my lead. The whiner group, set up their tents in the bottom of a gully, against my advise, warnings, and direction. Every morning when the rain would clear, I would see them drain their tents and hang out their wet sleeping bags, and every afternoon, those bags were still out hanging after it had been raining for 2 hours... and then they would call home and blame me for the rain....
Inspite of the whiners, camp allison (as we have come to refer to it around the house), was one of my favorite campouts as a scout or scout leader because of the challenges that it presented. My son (who went to Philmont - a premier scout camp experience) agrees. Canoing, Pioneering, and Wilderness survival were his next three meritbadges that he earned on his way to becoming an eagle scout...