To all Troop 256 members, family, & friends,

This year the troop took 25 scouts to camp, the largest number in at least 3 years. We were also in camp a couple of weeks early, session 4 rather than session 6. No rain except for 5 minutes one morning and a few more drops that fell in the middle of one night. Camp was a bit dustier and the mornings were cooler (it felt good).

The scouts earned another Big G Gold award under the leadership of Troop SPL Alejandro and his 1st assistant, Jeremy. The adults leaders in camp noticed that the scout leaders and scouts were particularly effective this year. Some of the tasks needed to get Big G Gold were having "excellent" inspection scores (tents cleaned and in order every morning before 8 AM). Your sons would get up at 4:45 AM, go swimming or run 1.6 miles, have breakfast, and clean the campsite to do this. They received scores of 24, 25, 25, 25, 25 from Mon. - Fri. (a perfect score is 25). They also worked KP on the busiest night, Thursday dinner, when ice cream is served as a special treat to the entire camp (3 shifts). For our camp service project, the troop finished the East Webber Creek footbridge located near site 19. The material needed to finish the bridge was funded by some of the troop's families.

The forest around the camp was closed due to fire danger so for our Rainbow trail we hiked a new in-camp trail named the "Wet Webber" which involved hiking in the creek bed from site 26 (East Webber Ck.) to site 13 (West Webber Ck.). The scouts earned 65 of 75 merit badges attempted and Alejandro had the fastest time overall in camp for climbing the tower, 31 seconds! During the Mighty Mogi games, all four patrols, Bear, Star, Blu Lobster, and Raven earned a blue ribbon for completing 11 of 13 events in 90 minutes. And one of the events was the a mud crawl though 20 feet of Geronimo's dirtiest.