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FORT HUACHUCA — Cub Scouts braved the cold weather Thursday and Friday at the lower Garden Canyon picnic area for winter day camp.
Eleven packs of Cub Scouts from throughout the Catalina Council’s Cochise District participated. Activities and workshops included first aid training, color guard/flag-handling training, astronomy, sports, crafts, hiking, outdoor lore and a BB-gun shooting range.
A first aid station staffed by a U.S. Army medic was available, just in case.
“We’re very fortunate to have this facility,” said day camp director Ken Robinson. “We use this area quite a bit in Scouting. It’s really a good place to have it.”
 Steven Wilson of Cub Scout Pack 445 steadies himself before firing a BB at a target during the Cochise District Cub Scout Winter Day Camp on Friday in Garden Canyon on Fort Huachuca. Cub Scout packs from throughout the area enjoyed a cold day of fun and adventure. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review) |
The Garden Canyon picnic area is administrated by Fort Huachuca’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation office.
The winter day camp this season was a success despite the cold, but the weather was arguably worse last year, Robinson said.
“It’s been chilly out here,” he said. “What you’re going to get from the kids is that they were cold. But it is winter. Last year it snowed on us.”
Wolf-ranked Cub Scout Aydan Allred of Pack 437 said the weather taught him a lesson in preparedness — which is appropriate since the motto of the Boy Scouts is “Be Prepared.”
“Yesterday I wasn’t prepared,” Allred said. “Today is good, I’m just missing my hat.”
The Scout said his favorite day camp event was the “space derby,” which is a kind of local spin-off from the worldwide scouting tradition of the “Pinewood Derby.”
His friend, Rikor Bartlett, of the Pack 455 Webelos, said he was prepared for the cold Thursday, and even more so prepared for it Friday.
“Yeah, I was prepared. And today I’m pretty much more prepared. I have a third shirt,” Bartlett said.
Bartlett said his favorite activity at winter camp was the shooting range, and said his marksmanship is getting better.
Their wolf-ranked buddy Aaron Wallace of Pack 437 also preferred the shooting activity, as well as the first aid training. Some first aid he learned included cold-weather survival.
“About how to keep your body warm when you don’t have the right clothes,” Wallace said.
The winter camp range master was Boy Scout Troop 408 Scoutmaster John Tooley, who, like all Scouting range masters, is trained to do so in compliance with national Scouting standards.
He minded the boys to make sure their muzzles were not pointed anywhere except down range.
There is an annual summer day camp as well for the Cochise District.
The next Scouting event to be held in Garden Canyon picnic area will be the district Rendezvous in April, at which the Order of the Arrow call-out will occur.
REPORTER Gentry Braswell can be reached at 515-4680.
to SVLib wrote on Dec 31, 2007 4:59 PM: