Activities

On Saturday, we canoed several miles on Falls Lake.

We saw two eagles while we were canoeing.

We stopped on a small island to eat lunch before heading back to the dock.

This campout was lots of fun and we hope to go canoeing again sometime soon.

Since March when the stay-at-home orders went into place, Troop 58 has cancelled all of our in person events. Currently we are having weekly meetings online on Zoom. We have been able to have online campfire building competitions, online campouts and even online games of catch! Some of our scouts have signed up for online merit badge programs where they can finish a badge in a week’s work. The troop as a whole has also used some of our meetings to work on merit badges such as Cooking and Genealogy. We were planning to attend summer camp this year, but our local council closed camp due to health concerns. Hopefully we should be able to attend next summer.

Many of our scouts have taken this break from school as an opportunity to work on their rank advancements and we have had some advance several ranks. Whenever we are all able to get together again and have a Court of Honor, we’ll have a lot of awards to hand out! May 31st we were able to get together for a short hike at a local forest. Hopefully we’ll have more opportunities to meet and get back to our regular schedule shortly. Until then, scout on!

This Spring because of the COVID-19, Troop 58 couldn’t have any in person campouts. So, we had a back yard campout instead. Everybody called onto Zoom and cooked their dinners over the fire. Then there were skits and songs and lots of laughter.

This January, Troop 58 also went orienteering. We brought the Webelos, 5th grade girls who are still in Cub Scouts but are going to be joining the troop in the spring. Orienteering involves navigation along a course, using a map and compass. The course we took was at William B. Umstead State Park. Since Orienteering involves going off of the marked hiking trails, one of the patrols got lost and the Scoutmaster had to go and rescue them.

For our first campout this year, we went out to Pilot Mountain and hiked up. We then camped at Hanging Rock State Park.

The next morning half the troop hiked up to see Hanging Rock while the others checked out the Visitor Center

This year, Troop 58, along with Troop 57, assisted at Pack 57’s annual Pinewood Derby. The Pack is co-ed and most scouts from the Pack join one of the two Troops when they graduate from Cub Scouts. We performed skits and songs and helped out at the concessions stand.

This December, we had a lock-in at the church that we usually meet at. Everyone stayed up laughing and snacking until 2 am.We played card games and watched movies for hours. We then played a great game that involved whacking each other with a rolled up magazine.

In March we went on a mini backpacking trip at Eno River State Park. We had some new scouts come with us for the first time. We did all the cooking on backpacking stoves.

There was a rather solid rope bridge over the river, but several of the scouts were still concerned.

In November, we went to the Jamboree at Camp Tuscarora. This was our first car camping trip with two patrols. It was cold all weekend, but luckily it didn’t rain on us.

One patrol went and did the activities scheduled for the morning such as a first aid competition, hanging a bear bag and making coffee on the fire. The other patrol stayed at the site and worked on scout skills.

Everyone came back to the site for lunch and then hung out for the rest of the afternoon. They made dinner and went to the closing campfire before heading to bed.

This October, we went on a 5-mile backpacking trip. We carried lunch and cooked on the trail. The hike took most of Saturday and when we reached our campsite at Falls Lake, we set up and work on requirements. Despite this being the first backpacking trip for over half the troop, everyone did very well. Everyone who carried all their stuff in finished some of the requirements for the Camping Merit Badge and the new scouts completed the 5 mile hike requirement.