R-C Cub Adventure Camp Hammock Camping

Last weekend (Father's Day Weekend) was the annual Pack 653 trip to Cub Adventure camp, the overnight cub scout camp for the Grand Canyon Council.  This was John's last year as a camper, he will be crossing over to Boy Scouts in the spring.  This was Kyle's second year on staff as a Den Chief, helping out the campers in getting around and helping the program staff with activities.   Next year maybe John will join as a Den Chief, and it will be Kyle's last year as a Den Chief before he can be "unpaid staff" at the camp (we have to pay for Kyle to be a Den Chief, and pay for an adult to go along and help out also, so unpaid staff will be an improvement money-wise...).

I did take a lot of pictures, of scouts doing activities, some are posted below.  This year our unit had 2 scouts along without parents, so we setup a tent with just 4 scouts in it (since boys can only share a tent with their own parents).  John joined in that tent, so I didn't have to share with anybody - which made a great opportunity to try out my new hammock.  I picked up an Eagle's Nest Outfitters DoubleNest Hammock for $16 at the REI Garage Sale.  The damage tag said there was a small rip in the hammock, but I couldn't see anything but a snag in one spot.  I wanted to try out the hammock for backpacking, since the hammock parts are easier to pack (and pack around) than a tent - this was a great opportunity since I didn't need to setup a tent for John and myself.  The weather was clear all weekend, with highs in the low 90s and lows around 50.  I had the hammock along for free time napping, with John in another tent I could use it to sleep in.

Sleeping in the hammock worked well after I figured out a few things.  I did bring my sleeping pad in and slept on that in the hammock - quite important since colder air circulating under me caused my back to get cold when I slipped off the pad (and I slipped off the pad a few times the first night.  For the second and third nights I adjusted the tension on the hammock, bringing in more of a sag, and that worked well to help keep me centered and on the pad.  50 degrees did feel pretty chilly in the middle of the night - but the sleeping bad kept me plenty warm as long as I stayed on the sleeping pad.  Since the weather was going to be clear, I didn't setup a tarp over the hammock - which meant that I was up with the sun rise around 5:30 - but I will also say that I had a fantastic view of the stars in the night, through the trees.

The only real fun was on day 3 when I got back to camp to find a stream of ants walking down the suspension lines and through the sleeping bag and everything in the hammock.  They seemed to have taken offense to my setup on one of the trees, so I moved to another pair of trees and shook them out of everything...  I will probably invest in a bug net - there isn't a great need here in Arizona (I didn't notice any bugs at all) other than to catch the little twigs and needles falling off the trees.

The hammock won't work on all trips - winter trips in the desert don't often have suitable trees for hanging from - but I was able to see that it works out.  I didn't have any trouble sleeping, and didn't wake up with any stiff or sore joints like I often do sleeping on the ground.

Christopher Cree runs through the scout camp

John ready for Archery

John on a horse!

Feed Me!!!

Cow skull or tree?

Black River fishing May 2015

Over Memorial day the boys and I joined Troop 653 on the annual fishing trip to the Black River.  The site that they visit (and have visited for the last 15 or so years) is on the White Mountain Apache reservation, about a 4 hour drive from Mesa, with the last 12 miles and 1 hour of that drive being on an unpaved 'road' that would be the first road I've driven that actually requires a high clearance vehicle.  The Suburban ('El Carro Grande') handled the trip to the river just fine, though the last 3 miles involved a 1000 foot ascent and descent and speeds no higher than 5 MPH, with > 10% grade up and down.

The last 12 miles to the campsite

Elevation profile from the highway, crossing the White River then to the Black River

The White River and Black River join up to form the Salt River a little down stream of where we camped.  The main draw of the Black River is great smallmouth bass fishing - and from the number of fish that came back to camp it looks like people had a good time fishing.  I caught 2 small bluegills and one small smallmouth, John caught a small smallmouth - none worth keeping, but enough for us to get invited into the Benevolent Protective Order of the Fish Head.  On the elevation profile, the dip in the middle is the White River, the left side is the Black River and the right side is the highway.  Quite an exciting drive, with big rocks, bumps, and things that would rip parts of smaller cars off...

It was a little chilly over the weekend, especially considering that getting anywhere on the river involved walking in the river.  Highs in the 70s, lows around 40 at night.  Most of the weekend did involve fishing and cooking fish, or playing games in camp.  I don't have a lot of pictures from fishing - not wanting to bring along the big camera and risk it getting wet (something which would have happened).  In the course of fishing I slipped twice and sat down right in the river (generally less than 3 feet deep), and got plenty wet.  The mornings were beautiful, calm air, calm river and bird song to listen to.  No electronic distractions (we were quite a ways out of cell-phone range).  Some wildflowers in bloom in the meadows and along the river.  This being Arizona, even though we were high enough for trees to grow there are still a good number of cactus growing as well, and the prickly-pear were also in bloom.

Looking upriver from camp

Looking downriver from camp

 The camp site (Tick Flat) was right near a fork in the river where there was an island.  The following pictures were taken in the early morning looking down the smaller leg of the fork, where there were more rapids.  One interesting thing to note - the island rose up about 8 feet above the river, yet shows signs that it gets submerged...

Evening looking across the river

Flowers on the hill

The trip was great for being able to just relax.  We didn't have any real wildlife encounters - other than a really annoying bird that perched in the top of a tree near the camp and was calling all night long, making it a little hard to sleep.