This past weekend, I escorted our young scouts to their first official Cub Scout overnight campout in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was held at the gorgeous Camp Campbell, which is deep in the redwoods and offers tons of activities, amazing and modern cabins (hot showers! electricity! heat! bunk beds!), and a really fantastic staff. This ranks as my favorite kid-related camping trip ever! All we had to do was bring ourselves, our sleeping bags, and some clothes. Everything else was taken care of!
We arrived Saturday after lunch, and immediately the boys started their activity rotation: Rock climbing, arts and crafts, archery, the Mole Hole, and the Nature Lab. The Mole Hole is an extremely large corrugated tube that runs down a hillside. You grab a plastic toboggan, strap on a helmet and elbow pads, then shoot yourself down at high speed. It’s completely dark in there until just before you hit the end, so it’s a pretty thrilling ride. Henry went down five times, Finn twice, and I went once. The Nature Lab was full of both live and taxidermied native animals, fossils, rock, and plant specimens to examine. We saw live snakes, birds, and salamanders, and taxidermied Horned Owls, bobcats, and other creatures.
After activities, the lads had some time to horse around with their friends (instinctual prime directive: find the biggest stick you can and start swinging it around) before we ate dinner. After dinner, more horseandalo, then a campfire with skits, songs, and s’mores. Henry was pooped out after all that action, so he and I went back to our cabin to sleep. Finn stayed up super-late with his den buddies in a separate cabin, telling ghost stories, playing games, and goofing off. Here is a gallery of their exploits. (That’s a banana slug-crossing sign to the left, by the way!)
Sunday, after we ate breakfast and packed up, we went on a 1.5 hour hike around the campground, high up into the forest. The kids got to take a nice long break to play amongst giant redwood stumps and Redwood fairy rings. It was a blast. Then we hiked out and headed for home after pit-stopping for a quick lunch in mountain town Ben Lomond. They boys were completely exhausted and barely made it until bedtime last night! They were thrilled to come home, sit still and veg out in front of a movie for awhile before dinner. Our young lads are excited for many many more campouts, sleepovers, and adventures in scouting!
