Yosemite Recap

Posted by robert_fox on October 22nd, 2007 filed in Outings, 2007 Fall

By Ryan Vertelney, Patrol 4 Scribe
 
            This year at Yosemite, we had a great turn out. Fifty eight kids and seventeen adults showed up for the kickoff Scouting event of the year. Everyone arrived at the Scout House at 4:30, and we started to head \ to Yosemite shortly after that. In my car was Walker Mees, Sam Moses, and myself. My driver was my dad, Harry Vertelney. About a 1/3 of the way up, many scouts and their drivers stopped at an In-n-Out Burger in Manteca. After we ate, we continued our trip up to Yosemite. Once we arrived, we had to set up our tents in the cold, dark campground. Once our tents were set up, most of us went straight to sleep. The next morning we got up at 7:00 am and started to make breakfast in the freezing cold. To make matters worse, our fire did not want to start, but thankfully we had hot chocolate to warm us up. A little bit later, the leaders had a  meeting to decide which hike each patrol was going to go on. My patrol (patrol 4) got North Dome. Our hike started out great and everyone liked it, but then it started to get up hill. Many of our scouts did not like how it was so hilly. Finally after 4 hard miles, we stopped for lunch. After a short break, the adults on our hike (Harry Vertelney and Tom Haverstock) decided that we should go to the point of north dome. It was a mile out and a mile back out of our way. It was a very downhill slope on the way there, and an uphill climb on the way back. Once we got to the point, we looked of a cliff to see a great view. While we were there, a Spanish speaking lady talked to us, and our patrol leader Joey translated for us. When we started to head back up, everyone’s feet hurt really bad. When we hit the very uphill part, they were really stinging. The hike finally ended at 4:45 pm. Aside from our feet hurting, (especially mine because I had bad shoes and they gave me quarter sized blisters) and some of the scouts were angry that we had to go an extra two miles with hurting feet, we had a very good time. When we got back to camp, we made dinner. My patrol made hobo stew. Everyone thought it was very good. Following dinner were troop skits. Patrol 4’s skit was J.C. Penny. Then everyone went to sleep. When we woke up in the morning, we packed everything up and ate breakfast. We headed out by 9:30 to take pictures on Olmstead point. At 10:15, we went to a campground and did an hour of community service, cleaning up campgrounds. After that, we drove back to Palo Alto. It was a very fun trip for all.

Pictures from the trip:
Troop 57 Pictures from Olmstead Point
Patrol 3 hike pictures
Patrol 4 hike pictures