Bear Lake Scout Camp

Ah, Bear Lake. It's beautiful. Always the perfect shade of sky blue. Perfect in nearly every way. It's inviting—enchanting even. It beckons you, come—frolic in the ever-lapping ebb and flow of liquid perfection. But don't be fooled. With that alarming beauty comes an unexpected fiendish side. Bear lake is COLD! It's frosty, frigid and almost glacial this time of year. It's conceivable that the runoff from the melting snow caps of the arctic are flowing, unrestrained into Bear Lake. The camp's trading post sells snow cones and I've heard on good authority that they scoop them right out of the lake.

Conner's Scout Troop had a camp this past week along the shores of this hydrous ice box. I went along to act in the role of chaperon and "frostbite specialist." We stayed at Camp Hunt on the West side of the Lake. We have a great group of Scouts and it's always a lot of fun to go camping with them.

Here they are in the parking lot of the church just before we started the drive to Camp Hunt.

Fortunately, no toes had to be removed after this photo.

Here's Conner working on the Geology merit badge.

Here are Conner and Michael at the "Bird Studies" merit badge class.

Before the Scouts are allowed to do any water activities, they're required to complete a "swim check." The swim check consists of wading, chest deep out to the dock you can see there in the distance. You then hoist yourself onto the dock and wait (shivering) for your turn to prove that you can swim to the buoys and back before either your muscles seize up or the ice starts forming on your back. Here we see a few Scouts deciding that they won't be participating in any water activities during the week.

On Tuesday morning, we had a great opportunity. We awoke before daylight and watched the sunrise from canoes on the lake. It was a really cool experience.

Here's one of the morning flag ceremonies.

After we arrived at camp and were unloading our gear, Conner and I noticed that (name-dropper ALERT) Jon Schmidt (the pianist who wrote "Waterfall" and "Tribute" among many others) had just pulled into the parking area. He was acting as "frostbite specialist" for another group of Scouts. When I pointed him out, Conner walked up to him and had a conversation with him. Jon Schmidt is one of the reasons that Conner loves playing the piano. His music is a lot of fun to play. Anyway, I tell you that story because, if you look in the above photo just to the left of the guy in the white T-shirt in the foreground, you can see Jon Schmidt just to the left of him wearing a navy blue sweat shirt, jeans and a baseball hat.

Cooking dinner on the first night of camp.

Here's Conner fishing for carp. You could see them everywhere among the reeds, but they were very elusive.

The Scouts caught this snake in a little stream that ran through our camp.

No trip to Bear Lake is complete without a Bear Lake raspberry milkshake.

On our way home, we stopped at Rick Springs in Logan Canyon to explore the cave and rock outcroppings.

We had a great time at the camp. Unfortunately, we had to come home several days early. Conner had a youth conference on the same week as Scout camp so rather than choose one or the other, he chose both. Youth conference is being held in Ephraim, Utah at Snow College. During the week they were able to see the Manti Miracle Pageant as one of their many activities. I'm sure he's having a great time.