Priest Lake Backpacking/Canoe Trip

Wow, What a great backpacking/canoeing trip!


        Last Friday afternoon (September 22) we departed from the scout shack on a two hour drive to Priest lake, about 40 miles north of the Rathdrum Prairie, with 5 cars, 10 canoes, about 30 boys and a ton of gear. After about 2 hours of beautiful scenery we arrived at a small parking lot as the group in our car laughed about thinking of what it would be like if Mr. Whitt sounded like a Lego video game character. The leaders discussed the hike in and our meet up plans with the canoe group.
A small group of us unloaded and then prepared to take off so we could save some camping spots for the rest of the Troop. There were two groups, the first group (me, Christian, James, Mr. Whitt, and originally Kellen , but about 100 feet down the trail we looked back to make sure we had everybody and Kellen wasn't there, so we figured he had stayed back with the other group. When we rolled in to camp at about 8:00 P.M we got set up, then 10 minutes later Kellen came running into camp saying geese I’ve been trying to catch you since the beginning. I ran the whole way! After about 45 minutes the second group arrived and started setting up. After we got set up, we learned that at night at Priest Lake there are more spiders than you have ever seen.
We also learned from the pacing and murmuring that Kellen is very scared of spiders. After we killed all the spiders in our tents, we ate dinner and hit the hay by 9:00. Mr. Grimm’s dog Keizer was still very excited to be out and camping but he also hit the hay. It wasn't my best night of sleep as I learned that my tent partner Christian likes to roll over and corndog people in his sleep.


        The next morning when we woke up everyone was cold so Mr. Whitt did a demonstration on how to find DRY firewood, and how to break a big log with 4 people and a pocket saw. So after about 3 hours we had enough for about 3 bon fires. After eating breakfast, the very wet canoe group, and the very exhausted backpackers arrived. They got set up, then we all told of our adventures of water fights on the canoe trip, and funny stories told on the trail. Then at about 12:30 every body split up on canoeing trips, water fights, orienteering courses, hikes and even exploring islands. José Winton, Adam Grimm , many other scouts and I went on a canoeing trip with Mr. Whitt and Mr. Grimm to explore islands and find new camping areas. Then half way back Mr. Whitt along with me and José, realized that we were not very proficient paddlers, so there was a class conducted in the middle of the lake. But then when we got back to back to camp, Mr. Whitt realized that almost everyone needed a canoeing lesson, so everyone got pretty darn good at flipping and rescuing canoes, especially me and Dylan Emery (we flipped 6 canoes and rescued 4.When we were about to come in, Mr. Whitt yelled to Dylan and said hey are you guys going in? We replied yes, so Mr. Whitt threw us his shirt and said will you take my shirt, as he carefully threw it to Dylan so it would stay dry. Dylan Thought Mr. Whitt said; will you dip my shirt. So he did and soaked it in the water. That became the joke of the campout. After all the fun of the day we had dinner and had a great campfire with a bad ghost story, but after 2 hours around the campfire we all decided to attempt to kill the spiders and try to get some sleep for the trip out.


        We woke up the third day to crashing waves and a great sun rise, although our neighbors at plowboy woke up to this stranger named Mr. Whitt knocking on their tent and saying all right guys time to get up because he thought they were 201 scouts.


        Then everything else went as planned and then we hiked/ran out then temporarily rested and snacked on snickers and chocolate chip cookies. Once the canoe group arrived we dusted off the canoes and loaded up the trucks. On the way home we stopped at a small diner/general store/gas station for burgers, milkshakes, and candy
then to the scout shack. So over all, It was a pretty good campout.




Alex Ayers
Troop 201 Historian