The Lake District is a brilliant place to be. One of the UK's most adventure rich zones and packed with stunning scenery. It was also home to Troop B's Summer Camp for 2002.


The Venues
Great Tower Campsite - an excellent wooded and rocky site above Windermere. We really liked it, and there's a great view from Tower Rock. Shame you trip over in the dark a bit. Ennerdale - stunning valley lakeside location. Got boggy when it rained. Nice and quiet though

Wide Games
We got up to all sorts of wide games during the week. Storm the Hill on the first night, Hunt the Barrel on a couple of other occasions. Special mention to Robert for the headband thing after he had taken Martin's life.

Sailing
All the scouts got an excellent sailing session on Windermere. Sailing Toppers or Picos, we lapped up the sunshine on the hottest day in weeks and managed to sail across the lake and back a few times. James C, and James R. get the award for best capsize.

Kayaking
Again on the hot day, a top way to cool off on the lake. A session playing in the boats, going for a bit of a paddle and capsizing. Nice.

Mountain walking and scrambling
We took advantage of a nice sunny day to get everybody out on the hill. Three groups hiked to the top of Wansfell Pike, for a breathtaking view of Windermere and surrounding fells. Two groups scrambled along Striding Edge to the top of Helvellyn - a really good day out in an airy location. The cloud lifted to give superb views, whilst the scrambling provided much interest.


Shooting
A morning in the shooting gallery allowed the scouts to practice their target shooting. Well done David I for destroying the range, twice!

Aerial Runway
This had to be out best ever runway. The steepest and fastest thing we'd ever done. Even the scouts who have built and been on about five of them before were nervous before getting on the seat. Very thrilling and a really group effort to put up and use. Hold on tight, it's gotta be turbo powered.

Horses
Younger scouts went for a morning horse riding from Troutbeck. Through fields, rivers and tracks, we enjoyed a quality ride on some obedient and disobedient steeds.

Argocats
Everybody went for a ride in these wicked amphibious off-road vehicles. Down big drops, through mud, water, ruts and over rocks, we've got to get ourselves one of these!


Rally Karts
Older scouts spent a morning racing on the Lake District's only indoor rally cross circuit. The faster they went, the slippier the dirt track got. Once again, Jasper proved the most devious driver.

National Mountaineering Exhibition
We spent an afternoon at the Helly Hansen National Mountaineering Exhibiiton. First up was a scintillating film about an ascent of Everest on a giant cinema screen. The was followed by the exhibition itself - a tribute to mountaineering past and present and with lots of exclusive artifacts such as the kit and clothing from the original Everest expedition. It was really good and the scouts completed quizzes in order to win a flashy pen knife we'd bought.

Scafell scramble
We went scrambling in the mist to the top of Scafell Pike, England's highest peak. Lots of scrambling, some of it roped, across Broad Crag and Mickledore, before arriving at the summit in time for tea. The route up was definitely better than the horrible descent on the tourist path, but this was a great day out for all involved.

Climbing and abseiling
We rigged up loads of climbs on Brown Slabs on Shepherd's Crag in Borrowdale. Scouts really achieve something as they climbed as hard as they could before abseiling back down to terra firma. Some quite interesting situations were achieved and innovative climbing was the order of the day.

Multi-pitch climbing
Our more experienced mountaineers team up with mountain instructors for an entire day of the much hyped multi-pitch climbing (going up longer rock climbs in several pitches putting in and taking our protection as you go). It didn't disappoint and the scouts got several climbs under their belts including such classics as Little Chamonix, Fisherman's Folly and Ardus.

Swimming
We went swimming to warm up on a very wet day. And for a shower. Taking over Whitehaven pool - don't know if this impressed the local length swimmers. David took his fake dog poo with him to scare people.


Mountain biking
We split into two groups for this, riding out of Keswick, where we had hired top of the range bikes from. The younger group set out along the old railway line before hurtling themselves along some hilly bits and down a brilliant long and fast off-road descent back to town. The older group road out round the Back O Skiddaw to Skiddaw House Youth Hostel, then rode the mammoth descent back to Keswick. All off road and all very exciting. Brilliant sunshine too.

Blackpool
The journey home included a stop off at Blackpool, All scouts, unsurprisingly, headed for the Pleasure Beach and The Big One - the fastest, tallest roller coaster going. We rode all of the best rides that got the adrenaline going. The Pleasure Beach is a theme park we really like - some of the rides like Irn Bru Revolution, Grand National, Valhalla and Ice Blast are really impressive. Would have liked more time, but we had to get home. And apart from breaking down on the M6, it was relatively easy going and we all went home happy and tired.

All in all we reckon Summer Camp 2002 was our favourite so far. Great atmosphere and brilliant activities make it a winner. Rest assured, we're already making plan to better it in 2003 - check out the SC2003 page for the latest news!

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