I hosted the troop's first TLT at Land Park. It was a five-hour course where the troop leadership and patrol leaders gathered together to learn how the troop worked, what was expected of them and how they could work as a team. At the time it was an experiment, something new to try with the scouts and see if it would develop into something more. Six months later we held another TLT course, again in Land Park. Some of the lessons had been shortened, some of the games were new, and some of the focus had been shifted but the experiment started to evolve and take on a life of its own.
Three years ago the venue changed from a six hour course in Land Park to a weekend campout at New Hogan Lake. Every six months the course is offered, once in October and once in April, and each time it is different, always evolving, until the scouts themselves began directing the training and refocusing the lessons on what they need, not what the original training module says they need.
This October the venue was changed again. The main requirement was that the scouts be isolated, somewhere where there were no distractions and they could concentrate on bonding and sharing experiences as they developed a plan to guide the troop through the next six months. The place was found at the environmental camp at Indian Grinding Rock State Historical Park.
To be honest, I had no intention of going. I had attended every TLT since its inception and was looking forward to a another day hike in Tahoe and checking off another Tahoe Rim Trail Challenge. But that was before my son came to me and asked that I be there. So instead of hiking, I did the next best thing, I volunteered to do all the cooking for everyone attending the campout. Next to hiking, cooking, especially camp cooking, relaxes me and lets me unwind and feel at peace. I wasn't able to take as many pictures this trip because I was , well, cooking for 15 people, but I still was able to take quite a few.
The trailhead to camp. It was about 100 yards up this hill. We had to hand-carry all of our gear up this trail, including all of our water. U' Macha' Tam' Ma' literally means, "barkhouses to the north."
The parking lot. This is also where our bathrooms were located.
A view of the Museum and Visitor Center from the trail.
The trail up to camp. It wasn't steep, or long, just up.
We reach camp. You can see the first of the barkhouses just ahead.
Camp. There is another barkhouse just to the left. There were 7 bark-houses total. The scouts shared two, and each of the adults had their own.
A close up. The entrance is just to the right.
My son Gavin posing in the doorway of a bark house.
My hotel room for the weekend. A full half-star accommodation, but certainly comfy enough. A bed of pine needles inside made it so soft that air mattresses were not needed. I wish I had one for every campout! Sure beats having to set up and take down a tent.
A closer look inside. It is larger than it looks.
My camp kitchen. Remember, we had to carry everything up by hand. We had two more 10-gallon water jugs that we decided to leave down in the parking lot.
Another view of my kitchen. My bark house is the far distance. I cooked two breakfasts, two different types of lunches and one massive dinner plus dessert in this kitchen.
One of the scout bark houses. Six scouts slept very comfortably in here.
We go on a hike!
Though the park is great for its historical value, it is not a place with a lot of mileage. The trail markers are marked in feet, not miles. Even though, the two trails, the North Loop and the South Loop, do take you through a wide area of ecological mini-environments.
The trail marker near our camp.
At the reconstructed village. Gavin goes over some of the Miwok history.
A acorn granary.
The TLT class of October, 2014.
Gavin stuffs all the scouts into the bark house.
Inside the bark house. I took this photo around my son's leg.
A California Valley Oak. The source of the acorns the Miwoks used as their main staple.
Another trail marker.
The Museum and Visitor Center. It is modeled after a Miwok Hun'ge, or roundhouse.
Outside the museum. Gavin goes over job descriptions with his staff. The trailhead behind him is the start of the North Loop Trail and comes out near our campsite. Just a little over 3 miles long it is the longest trail in the park.
A view of the Grinding Rock from the museum.
A closer look at the rock.
A memorial to the Miwok people and other California Native Americans.
The Grinding Rock, from the north end looking south. The viewing platform is in the center of the photo.
A view from the platform looking south. The rock has 1,185 mortar holes, known as Chaw-se. This is the largest collection of bedrock mortars in North America.
The faded design in the center is a petroglyph. This is only one of two sites in North America where petroglyphs were carved into the grinding rock. There are 363 petroglyphs on the rock, some between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.
Another view looking south.
At the south end looking north.
One of the oldest Valley Oaks in the park. Miwoks were living here and gathering acorns from this very tree before the onset of the Gold Rush. It is estimated that this tree is over 300 years old.
Wild turkeys.
Milkweed.
In TLT everything is considered a learning opportunity, even lunch. In this leadership exercise the scouts had 30 seconds to memorize where everything on the table was located, then they were blindfolded and presented with a problem solving exercise to make their own lunch based on their memories.
The scouts had everything they needed for lunch: napkins, bread, plastic knives and spoons, turkey, ham, cheese slices, mayo and mustard, and even ice cold water (a trick I learned many moons ago -- fill one water jug with three or four bags of ice; just add your drinks into the cooler and let sit in there for 30-45 minutes and you have ice cold drinks!) Of course, the adults ate a little differently: I grilled Jack sausage links with Caribbean flavored potato fries and iced root beer.
The scouts start to figure it out. After lunch the scouts went through a start/stop exercise where they discussed the issues presented and what they would have done differently.
A new section for this TLT was sewing. Here a scout learns to sew on his new leadership patch. Each of the scouts were required to sew on their new patch to their uniforms before completing TLT. Though not always pretty, each scout sewed on his own patch.
ASM Steve Wells leads the scouts in a game exercise before taking them down the hill to play a game of capture the flag.
Dinner. I am making one of my dutch oven favorites: Mountain Dew Chicken. This was the first time I had made it in three different dutch ovens and the first time I had made it on a campout.
Gavin snaps a photo while I check my chicken. He was too tired to even move his feet.
The chicken turned out perfect. I just had to add my last ingredient and let it cook another 15 minutes.
Mountain Dew Chicken. I was told it was the worst steak they had ever eaten but the best chicken to touch their plates. Typically on campouts steak or other types of beef are the star ingredient. This was the first time chicken had been offered up in mass. The scouts ate up all of it. After they finished dinner the scouts made banana boats with chocolate chips and marshmallows wrapped up in aluminum foil on the remains of the charcoal. Then they put together a small fire for the remaining of the evening.
**A quick note on dutch oven cooking. A lot of dutch oven websites swear by their calculations of so many coals equaling so many degrees and using such and such a number of coals on the bottom versus the top. I have tried so many variations that I have come to the conclusion that it is all hogwash. My solution is simple: I fill up my chimney with charcoal. When it is good and white I dump into the fire pit. I add three handfuls of fresh charcoal. I spread it out, place the dutch oven on the coals and do whatever early prep work I need to do. When it is ready to close I shovel out half the coals on the bottom to the side, place 10-12 coals on top and let it go for 20 minutes. I check the food and adjust coals accordingly for the rest of the cooking time. It is not quite science, but it works everytime...
Indian Grinding Rock SHP:
Mountain Dew Chicken:
Troop 136:
New Hogan Lake:
Not mentioned in the article, but nearby and a shame to miss if you visit the area:
Black Chasm Cavern:
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