Troop 844 Annual Bushwack Hike

I joined the some of the scouts from Troop 844 for their annual Bushwack Hike at John Bryan State Park and Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve in Yellow Springs, Ohio (not too far from the Dayton area).  We hiked 6.5 miles in about 10 inches of snowing, at 17 degrees and the snow continued to fall on us.  It was BEAUTIFUL and not as cold as expected! 

A mile in our hike, we were beginning to sweat and our hand and feet warmers were coming off.  The boys were even taking layers of clothing off. 

Along the hike, the boys found a sled (which had a crack in it).  They thought they would try it out....but then they were stuck with it, until they found a trashcan to dispose of it.....LEAVE NO TRACE! 

Notice one of the boys in the background in ONLY his shirt!  Crazy kid...doesn't he know he can still get frostbite even though he is sweating?  We made him put at least a sweatshirt on.

Watch out Señora Jackson (a lot of these kids are / were my students)

If there were only rocks to throw overboard....just snowballs this time.

Brady ran out of water pretty quick.  So he decided to try a trick he learned from Man vs. Wild.  Snow in his water bottle...and then keep the bottle close to his body to melt the snow to water...we'll see if it works.....

Look at how close we are to the edge!  No messing around on this hike!

Yikes!

Water break-but we can't stand still for too long because our sweat starts to cool and then we get cold again.

Awesome frozen water fall!

A frozen river below:

Can you see the waterfall below falling into an almost frozen river?

Yep, Brady's idea worked.  The snow melted against his warm body.  The water is still cold with some ice chunks in it and it doesn't taste too bad...as long as you don't mind a few floaters...which of course Brady did, so his friend gave him one of his water bottles.

Notice more layers coming off...

Great hike boys!  It took us about 4 hours, but that's including several stops for resting, potty breaks, water breaks, posing for pictures, complaining and enjoying the wonderful views Mother Nature has to offer during this frigid month of January.