Lone Star Trail (a.k.a. Iwo Jima)

This was our second campout/hike to prepare us for the Buffalo River Trail hike that was coming up in March. This was a good hike to prepare the scouts for rainy weather and wet feet. We hiked about 10 miles, and 1 mile of that was through a swampy mess with poor trail markers. Combine that with low quality maps and you get a very long hike that doubles back on itself a couple times....but we were never lost. We were however mislead by the faulty maps which led us to believe that we had just one more mile to go several times along the way. We started out with a 1 mile night hike into camp then woke up and filled our water bottles with water from a stagnate orange colored stream and filtered it. it turned out to be delicous and cold! (and no one got sick) Unfortunately, the co-navigator/photographer was busy co-navigating and didn't really bother to take many pictures of this one (that would be me).

I'll have to say that this one built a lot of character.

Getting ready for the hike in the morning

Taking pictures before moving out

Almost ready to get on the trail

Huntsville Hike

This was our first campout to get the scouts ready for the week long Buffalo River Trail hike in March. This was an overnight campout/hike on Jan 31, 2009 in the Huntsville State park.

We arrived after the sun had gone down so everyone had to set up camp in the dark. The boys must have been tired because they went to bed soon after dinner. We woke up early, but didn't start hiking until about 10:00 am. We hiked about 10 miles total.

Some of the boys sitting around the fire after dinner burning marshmallows

Mike putting away his "back packing" stove

Beautiful Huntsville Lake with the morning mist.....and a small warning

One of the beautiful scenes along the trail

A quick break for lunch and relaxation at a small stream