It was a fast weekend again at Powder Horn, a high adventure skills resource course or the Boy Scouts of America. The course is a six day course over two weekends and this was the second weekend. This weekend was at the Irvine Ranch Orange Education Center (OEC) we covered several more elements of the Venturing Ranger Award. Friday started with a trip to Irvine Regional Park to ride some watercraft. We then went geocaching in the park and picked up a couple of geocaches. It was then back to the OEC for lunch and then a SCUBA experience. It took a little mental work to remember to relax breath under water. It was a fun experience. Then we had first aid presentations as well some on caving, backpacking and a few others areas of outdoor activity. During a little free time a member of our crew and I took a trip to a peak in the area and signed the log book.
Saturday had a great presentation on ecology with a nature hike. We also leaned about Leave No Trace (LNT) principles and had another outdoor activity to learn about LNT. There was time for another quick hike before more classes and our preparations for our “Backpacking Adventure.” To begin our adventure we were asked to go on a hike with our backpacks and come back to camp and prepare our backpacking meals. We set off and found a garden which contained basil, marjoram, thyme, oregano, rosemary and a couple of small tomatoes. As we made out way back to camp we trekked through the dining area and pick up a container of Tapatio. We returned to camp to boil water for our backpacking meals. We were the first ones back and had four stoves to heat water. as we poured the water into the meals, which included lasagna, chicken Alfredo, chicken and rice and vegetarian lasagna we added the fresh herbs. We waited the time and ate well. The herbs made a big difference. For desert we had chocolate pudding and a raspberry cheesecake mixture, which tasted great over the chocolate pudding. Good stuff.
Today we had an interfaith service and did a couple of activities lick archery, COPE and riding down the zip line. There were more classes and presentations. Ultimately, the day ended when we got our bling.
Powder Horn Bling
