Nobscot Scout Reservation Camping Trip - 2011

On Nov 12-13, the troop camped at the Nobscot Scout Reservation, located in Sudbury, just over the Framingham line.  This reservation is part of the Knox Trail Council.  We had last been there in November of 2008, camping in the Peabody site, located a reasonable walk from the parking lot. 

This year we were at the Joshua Trail site, much further way, but with the advantage of being well away from other scout troops.  The site (like the one in 2008) had two lean-tos available, but this time we all slept in tents, since we had recently had lean-tos on the Nantucket trip.  We had to hike in all our gear, about 1/3 mile to the site.  This was definitely not "car camping", like we'd had at Nantucket or the Camporee.

Once we had all our gear up at the site, the tenting areas were determined and the tents were set up.  Other scouts assembled our tables and arranged the cooking stations.  And still others gathered additional wood to be used for our cook fire and evening campfire.

The adults spent the balance of the morning setting up an orienteering course for the scouts.  After lunch, each patrol was given a map & compass, and each was sent to different starting points on the course.  Using the map and compass directions, the patrols located 8 markers that had been placed in various places in the reservation.  The terrain spanned hills, trails, marshland, crossing streams, and a fair amount of bushwacking.  The course took about two hours to complete.

We then headed back to our campsite and began our dinner preparations.  Two of the scouts had brought their own individual dinners and cooked them over a campfire, as part of their Second Class cooking requirement.  Two other scouts had brought food for their entire patrols and cooked all three meals for them over the weekend, as part of either their First Class cooking or Camping merit badge requirements.  All of the cooks did very well.

Sunday morning we got up early, and had hearty breakfasts prepared by the cooks.  We then packed up all our gear, and checked the entire site to make sure we had not left any trace or our presence.  Assignments were made for cleaning all cook equipment and for drying tents at home.  We transported all our stuff back to the parking lot and returned to Medfield.

Our thanks to Mrs. Woodard for all these pictures.