Took the Boy Scouts backpacking at Table Rock State Park in the north-west corner of South Carolina. We have a bunch of youngsters that were Cub Scouts a month ago, so the intent of this trip was to introduce them to backpacking. For that reason, we picked the Bobcat Creek primitive group site. It was a short 15 minute hike from the cars, but long enough that they had to carry their gear.
We got there with about an hour of daylight left, got setup and went to sleep beneath a beautiful black, star-filled sky. Temperature in the morning was 39 degrees. I had the Mt Washington 4 on the bottom and Old Rag mountain on top. Had to vent some during the night because I was too hot.
I'm way back in the back, behind the groundlings.
The plan for breakfast was a breakfast casserole, made with dehydrated shredded potatoes, dehydrated sausage, cheddar cheese, and scrambled eggs frozen in a Nalgene. With the temp at 39, the eggs were still a brick when we got up, but we heated some water, set the bottles in it and in just a few minutes, they were liquid enough to pour. Fixed it all up and not a morsel was left.
The plan for the day was to split into two groups for hikes. The new scouts would do a 5 mile hike and another dad and I would take the older boys and do 10 miles.
Here is the elevation chart for the Foothills Trail. We started on the right hand side at Table Rock and hiked 4 miles to the top of Pinnacle Mountain, then back down via the Ridge Trail for another 6 miles.
We were rewarded with a spectacular view just before reaching the top.
It took 4 hours to do the 4 miles up and 2 hours to do the 6 miles down. Got back to camp at 5:00 and this old scouter went straight to the Blackbird. Hot-a mighty, did it feel good!
Here are the mandatory hammock pictures. Two of the adults had never seen anything like this and were very interested. They were in awe of the work done on the doors by the Zipper Queen. Could not believe that they were not original, colors matched perfect, seams were ... well, just perfect.
Supper was Burritos. I had dehydrated the burrito mix and salsa. All we had to do was rehydrate them, put them on a tortilla with some cheese and eat. One young man was a vegetarian, so we fixed up a bean and rice mixture for him. At our last troop meeting, we made pepsi can alcohol stoves. Some of the boys brought theirs to try so we used it to make the bean mixture, made from Knorr's Cajun Red Beans and Rice and Old El Paso Mexican Black Beans.
There was more than one vegetarian could eat, so once he had his fill, it was offered to the carnivores in the group. Again, not a morsel left.
While everyone was sitting around the campfire, I started the dessert. Banana Pudding.
For each large box of Instant Vanilla Pudding, use 3/4 cup of powdered milk, 20 oz. of water, mini vanilla wafers, and banana chips.
Mix the milk first, add the pudding, when it starts to set, add the cookies and chips. Eat.
I tripled the recipe and used a whole box of wafers. The recipe I found called for warming the banana chips in water over the stove. I did it that way last weekend and did NOT like warmed banana chips. I recommend just dumping the chips in. I will definitely do that again.
Another beautiful, cold night and it was time to eat again.
Oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, sliced almonds, walnuts, powdered milk, and dried blueberries.
It was another beautiful weekend in the great outdoors.
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Originally Posted by swampfox
'Nanner pudding ON THE TRAIL!!! Wowser! He'll be a happy camper with this!!
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