Saturday, February 4, 2012
OKPIK Video Presentation - Produced by Ryan Meier
Troop 225 Crew at OKPIK - January 2012
Seven scouts and 3 adult leaders attended a cold weather training outing at OKPIK at Northern Tier High Adventure north of Ely, MN. The crew left on 2 January, 2012 from Olathe and returned home on 8 January.
We traveled as far as Minneapolis on our first night where the boys had a chance to shop and tour Mall of America. We stayed overnight at Grace Nazarene Church. The next morning we continued on to our final destination.
Once we arrived at OKPIK around 4:30 on the 3rd, we were greeted by our camp hosts and instructors. We got settled in to our cabins, met for dinner and started our cold weather training. We spent the entire day on 4 Jan. for additional training trying to learn on to stay warm, cook in cold weather, how to camp, etc. It was a full day of training.
At the end of the day, to boys had a chance to sled on the snow...something we haven't seen yet in Kansas.
We were instructed to get up early on the 5th to get our camp gear, clothing, food and start packing for our outing. After lunch, we headed out to a frozen lake to set up camp.
Once we arrived, the boys wanted to make snow shelters by packing snow in a polar dome. The two domes were about 8 ft in diameter and 6 ft. high. When the snow was packed, the boys went to work to start carving out and entrance and snow leaving the walls of the dome about 1 ft. thick. With all the snow removed, it left a cozy room of 6 ft. with a ceiling height of 5 ft. A constant inside temperature of 32 degrees was maintained even when temps reached 17 degrees at night.
We had to drill through 18 inches of ice to get our drinking and cooking water. We made a snow kitchen to store our water and a place to cook. You can see pictures of the kitchen. The snow refrigerator would not allow the water to freeze.
The next day consisted of dog sledding, hiking 6 miles, and learning how to walk in snowshoes.
After spending 2 nights out, we got up early cooked our breakfast, broke down camp, and headed back to camp around noon on the 7th. We returned all the equipment, took warm showers and got on the road around 2:30 that afternoon.
We arrived back at Grace Nazarene Church that evening for our overnight stay. We found a diner that was featured on Dives and Diners where we eat Juicy Lucys...a hamburger that was filled with cheese. When you took a bite, the cheese would drip out from your sandwich. They were very tasty.
On Sunday the 8th, we left early to get back on the road. We arrived safely in Olathe around 4:30 that afternoon.
It was an awesome experience and the boys indicated they would like to do it again sometime. These scouts encourage any scout to be able to attend such an outing.
The crew who attended the OKPIK outing was Braden Anderson, Matt Blades, Justin James, Nathan Meier, Ryan Meier, Drew Mitchell, Josiah Murphy, Ed Davey, Stan Mitchell and Dean Meier.
We traveled as far as Minneapolis on our first night where the boys had a chance to shop and tour Mall of America. We stayed overnight at Grace Nazarene Church. The next morning we continued on to our final destination.
Once we arrived at OKPIK around 4:30 on the 3rd, we were greeted by our camp hosts and instructors. We got settled in to our cabins, met for dinner and started our cold weather training. We spent the entire day on 4 Jan. for additional training trying to learn on to stay warm, cook in cold weather, how to camp, etc. It was a full day of training.
At the end of the day, to boys had a chance to sled on the snow...something we haven't seen yet in Kansas.
We were instructed to get up early on the 5th to get our camp gear, clothing, food and start packing for our outing. After lunch, we headed out to a frozen lake to set up camp.
Once we arrived, the boys wanted to make snow shelters by packing snow in a polar dome. The two domes were about 8 ft in diameter and 6 ft. high. When the snow was packed, the boys went to work to start carving out and entrance and snow leaving the walls of the dome about 1 ft. thick. With all the snow removed, it left a cozy room of 6 ft. with a ceiling height of 5 ft. A constant inside temperature of 32 degrees was maintained even when temps reached 17 degrees at night.
We had to drill through 18 inches of ice to get our drinking and cooking water. We made a snow kitchen to store our water and a place to cook. You can see pictures of the kitchen. The snow refrigerator would not allow the water to freeze.
The next day consisted of dog sledding, hiking 6 miles, and learning how to walk in snowshoes.
After spending 2 nights out, we got up early cooked our breakfast, broke down camp, and headed back to camp around noon on the 7th. We returned all the equipment, took warm showers and got on the road around 2:30 that afternoon.
We arrived back at Grace Nazarene Church that evening for our overnight stay. We found a diner that was featured on Dives and Diners where we eat Juicy Lucys...a hamburger that was filled with cheese. When you took a bite, the cheese would drip out from your sandwich. They were very tasty.
On Sunday the 8th, we left early to get back on the road. We arrived safely in Olathe around 4:30 that afternoon.
It was an awesome experience and the boys indicated they would like to do it again sometime. These scouts encourage any scout to be able to attend such an outing.
The crew who attended the OKPIK outing was Braden Anderson, Matt Blades, Justin James, Nathan Meier, Ryan Meier, Drew Mitchell, Josiah Murphy, Ed Davey, Stan Mitchell and Dean Meier.
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