Category: Camp News

A beautiful weekend!

Driveway cleared, firewood split and stacked, woods cleansed, watches set. The gang gets it all done, and now awaits daylight on 10-26 to begin the yearly chase. Will the Toucher finally get his own mule this season? He’s been oh-so gracious in providing mules for others, 😉 that it may be time for something bigger then a ten for the Touch. We’ll see!

Digger celebrates his TWENTIETH (20) year with the gang – so those things that were 20 years old then…..

Hobbit make his debut, and hopefully will return again. Send in those pictures so the Digger can memorialize this years efforts, including tube steaks at the Hilton and F-troop’s fine bar-b-qued smoked ribs and chicken.

See you all in a few weeks!

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The end of the month is coming fast boys, the leaves are changing, days getting shorter and colder! What wonderful woodsy related activities will our Den MaMa have in store for us this time? Will the Trailhugger make an appearance? The plan is to meet at the ‘Bow Friday night, throw our money around, let the Den MaMa do his social butterflying and then head to camp to place it in “Mule Mode”. Hopefully we won’t have the warmy-changy conditions encountered during last year’s season, so we’ll have to pray and send carbon taxes to Al Gore for relief instead of FYB winnings going to the camp!

Chicken and ribs is the main course for Saturday’s feast, let’s hope that the feathers are off the chicken….and the dirt is off the potatoes as well! We need to revive and implemet the newly tested and beloved redneck smoker from last year that worked so well….

Then there’s Probie…..

See you at the ‘Bow!!!

Post the photos – and I’ll write the post!

Pics Posted! – Write the recap!

Several F-Troopers aka: “Polecats Rangers” assembles once again to locate the remnants of where a local legendary guide-hermit-woodsman known as “Foxey Brown” once lived for over 25 years in the backwoods near the happy hunting grounds. Followers and lurkers of this site can rehash the waterlogged pictorial adventure of last year where a different route was chosen (not by choice) to take which resulted in a ten mile slog through swamps, wetlands, more swamps and even more wetlands, thoroughly missing the intended target. Told ya! 😉

The crew gets a good start, with sunny, buggy weather leading the way. A few miles of trail walking led to a predetermined spot where based on research, a GPS point was chosen due to it being the most likely spot for a hermitage. This spot once was the location of a long gone logging camp from the late 1800’s where Foxey hid in seclusion due to him thinking he was running from the law, which was not the case! On the stream is where he repurposed the foreman’s camp, built a multi level barn in the remains of a rock walled root-storage type cellar for his critters.

At this site are the remains of a dam which once held back a sizable pond, parts of woodstoves, farming equipment, and the actual plow that Foxey used to cultivate hay in the vly for his cows. Long gone is the cabin, only a small clearing is present with regrowth of the forest now taking command. No apparent road or path to this site was located, as the Troopers easily found their way through an open hardwood forest. Junior has great luck and gets the first ever “I caught a trout on a spring hike” badge! No fish were actually harmed in this expedition….

The gang performs their woodsy environmentally sound clean up of the site, getting rid of plastic and an old discarded tent that some #$%%#! left behind.

One could almost hear Foxey yell out – “Get out of here or I’ll send you lead for sinkers” as he once greeted interlopers as they trespassed on his homestead – but we imagined that he was smiling as we cleaned up the site, and found yet another “place” way far back in the woods! (Well…not THAT far!)

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Our Den Mama has sent the official email announcing the date of May 18 for this years great expedition. A redo of last years misguided tromp is in order. Picture above pretty much sums up how we all felt during last years attempt. Hopefully conditions will not push our Gore-Tex to it’s limits again. For a refresher of how much fun we had last year go here:Spring Hike 2018

Sunday 02-10-19 1030
Leaddog and Toucher have been conspiring for sometime on how and when to recover the long lost secretly placed camera that the was prevented removal by the warmy-changy events of last season. Watching the ongoing warmy-changy events unfold over the last two months, finally perfect snowshoeing conditions presented itself for the said recovery mission. Toucher has a companion with him on this adventure “Ms. Arietta” who shows great enthusiasm to begin a first backcountry bushwhacking snowshoe trip, Toucher too!. All meets at Robbas camp, packs the gear and proceeds up the driveway to Ftroop’s HQ, now a snowmosexual hangout. Polecat and Derrie gives salutations and farewell toasts to the three, and off they go for web-footed adventure. Meow…

At the 300 foot mark from camp, crossing the stream that is choked with ice, Leaddog finds the weakest part of the ice shelf and promptly cleans his snowshoe with the icy cold waters, and cools his left foot as well. Not to deter this well planned expedition, a quick drying of said paw is accomplished and off we go again. Meow….

Three feet of warmy-changy is present with more up top, a hard crust results in fine trekking through the wintry woods. Climbing through Beaver Valley and finally to the top, the area of interest is obtained,as well as the said device!

To celebrate, a tube steak lunch is devoured, with other goodies as well. Temperatures now in the low teens, if not lower at 3000′ the expeditionary force runs down the mountain in record time, back to warm vehicles and chicken wings.

All in all – five miles(or as Toucher recorded, just under 22,000 steps on his fit-bit) and 1000′ in elevation change was encountered, making this a another great workout in the Happy Hunting Grounds!

Digger – pictures please!

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