"False Cape"- An Intro Backpacking trip with Troop 212!

     Hello fellow hikers! My name is Evan Smith and today I am going to talk about my two-day intro to backpacking trip with my troop. This was on the dates of December 11th, 2015 through December 13, 2015.

Saturday

Picture taken by my dad.

     We started off the hike at about 9:00 AM. We hiked on the road for a little bit and took a very brief break at the visitors center. After that we went onto a gravel road and (Not giving any names here!) almost stepped on a snake! While he backed away from the snake other members from the troop went closer to take a picture of it with its fangs open. What was hilarious to me about the snake is that it did a 90 degree turn of its head and kept its fangs open the whole time. It was like saying "Take your silly pictures now!".

     After that we weren't allowed to tread on the grass. We passed by a trailer park only to find out that we couldn't enter a bird refuge (Which was inconveniently placed on the East Dike trail. So we went back and went up an observation deck that we thought would take us to the beach but it didn't. So we went all the way back and then made it to the beach to hike on. 2 hours WASTED.

     Then we started hiking on the beach. I enjoyed walking dangerously close to the shore line and enjoyed the dolphins and the waves. I ended up getting one boot and a sock completely soaked. we saw a dead shark, a few dead jellyfish, and some scouts found a few sand dollars.

   

  

Picture taken by our SPL, Ben Shearer.

     We finished up on the beach, and refilled on water. The sign said that our campsite was only .5 miles away. After hiking ~2 miles we finally get to the campsites, AFTER reaching the sign. I had to share my small one person tent with (Not giving any names here!). We put up the "Pig" bags and played mafia, I didn't stay up to play Rich Man Poor Man. I also had to share my one person tent with someone else.

Sunday

  Picture taken by our SPL, Ben Shearer.

     When I was ready to drain out my cooking water, I walked out into the field, and heard our Scoutmaster yelling at me "Get back to the table!" I looked around and saw a wild pig (The one in the picture) hiding in the trees. I was scared to death so I walked (If I had ran it would have most likely chased me) back to the table. The pig came in and out repeatedly. The furthest it ever went out was in the middle of the field, where it turned back around and ran quickly.

     The complaint rock, AKA trash bag, was passed on many times. Shout out to Joey for taking it from me when Sean gave me it on purpose! Nothing else really happened other than the adults walking ahead and saving us ~1.5 more miles of walking. Shout out to our Scoutmaster for the idea!

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Thanks for reading, and until next time, hike on!