Boy Scout Troop 68, Melrose, MN


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BSA Troop 68, Melrose, MN
High Knoll Trail Adventure 1995

Welcome to the High Knoll Trail Reviews.
Page 6
  On the way home from the trip many of the crew members completed a questionnaire about what they would remember best about each day of the trip. Here are the answers, as each person wrote their relies.

Name -
a) Arrival - 
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days -
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch -
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living -
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes -
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing -
g) Closing campfire -
h) White water rafting -
i) Most memorable -



Name  -  Nathan Christenson
a) Arrival - The planes rides were fun. We lost the luggage and made a big deal out of 78. We went out to eat in our uniforms and many looks and a few comments.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - Our worst hike, man, it was long. Activities were fun. The knife throwing I took second in, and Jason and I sawed a log in 1:06 minutes.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - It rained a little when we rode the horses. My horse’s name was Sherrie. She bit my foot once. We had a competition with another troop, riding Cannibal. Jason and I did it. Steve hurt his arm on it.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - Nice campsites. Little rain. Bill, the guy who ran the thing, was awesome. Nice resting area. Bill had many stories to tell. He was fun to listen to.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - The biker chicks were cool. The guy who worked there was in a bad mood. The ride was fun. We spent a lot of time at the trading post, about 1 mile away.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - Our last day, 1 mile with the packs and about 3 miles without. Well, the 1 mile went fast but the three miles we didn’t know went up and down. It took us 2 hours to get there. We took a different was back and made it in a half hour.
g) Closing campfire - I liked it. We all got our patches saying that we made it through the High Knoll Trail
h) White water rafting - Was awesome. The boat had eight people from our troop and 1 guide. Going down the rapids was fun and doing different things with the raft, like flipping it, running it up on the rock. Jumping off the rock was cool also. It was a ways off the water and I jumped as high as I could.
i) Most memorable - Jumping off the rock white water rafting.


Name  -  Paul Melling
a) Arrival -  It was boring. We had to wait for our stuff.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - I liked spiking up the tree and throwing the knives. The sawing was okay.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - I liked my horse. I had lots of fun on the bronco and I couldn’t lasso at all.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - It was the best campsite. The program was the best.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - It was okay. I had fun but I was still tired from the hike that day.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - Was fun but we had to hike through Bear Hollow and we only got to climb once.
g) Closing campfire - It was fun. I like the patch. The fiddler story was really good.
h) White water rafting - Was the best part of the whole trip. We got to flip the raft and swim down rapids.
i) Most memorable - Rafting was the best over all.


Name - Brad Hundt
a) Arrival -  We didn’t get our luggage when we got at the airport. Went to mall after we landed and ate pizza. Got a lot of attention with uniforms on.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - Spiking and climbing the tree was the most fun. Making shingles was also pretty fun. We also got to use a 2 man crosscut saw. The sawdust stew was really good. First time we did Star Trekking at Virginia.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - It was fun riding horses, riding Cannibal, but I didn't like the campsite. It was on a big hill and it was rocky. Also, Steve got 3 stitches when he fell off Cannibal.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - This was my favorite camp. It had an awesome campsite. It was the best one of the whole camp. I think Bill the ranger guy at the camp was cool. Bill knew a lot of stuff when it came to surviving in the wilderness if you got lost or something with no food. There was a lot of plants that I didn’t even know were edible or tasted or smelled the way they did. The blow guns there were cool too. I think and hoped we killed number 78, our unlucky number. I think this was everybody favorite camp. It was very interesting.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - This was fun except the biker babes were too hyper had too much caffeine in them or something. I also remember the wake up call by Wren (one of the biker babes).
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - It was pretty fun. The repelling was more fun then the climbing. The climbing was pretty easy though. I don’t think it was worth it though cause we hiked over the mountain get there instead of around it and it was hard.  But we went around it on the way back and was a lot easier.
g) Closing campfire - Was fun and interesting but we didn’t to do Star Trekking for the whole group, but we did it for the staff afterwards.
h) White water rafting - This is what made the trip all worthwhile. I loved it. It was so awesome. We got to swim down rapids, jump off a rock into the water, tip our boat. Jumping the waves was the best. Ride our raft up onto a rock while everybody was sitting on the back and made the front pop up. Too bad you had to miss it Steve.
i) Most memorable - White water rafting, and Bill and the rough living camp.


Name - Tim Williams
a) Arrival -  Getting to Roanoke I was all pumped up to go and get on the trails, but to my dismay we couldn’t sleep on the ground that night. We had to sleep in a motel! Darn.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - Logging days, the hike there I’ll explain in one word - hard, boring, tiring. Well maybe 3 words. Logging days was fun. The ground was hard.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - I thought, King Ranch, oh great, a bunch of hicks, but it was fun. The horses kinda scared me. The head guy really didn’t help. He whacked my horse and it jumped.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - Rough living was the best camp. Bill, the head guy there was cool, he had a lot of interesting stories. The camp was nice and grasses and flat. I slept outside that night.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - The hike to mountain bikes was hard, the hardest. When we got there we were all tired and we really didn’t want to bike but we did. Corey got a flat tire and the kid put me in charge of the group.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - The hike was supposed to be easy but it was hard. Everyone was mad about something or another. I don’t know if the hike was worth it or not but I climbed the rock and cut my arm.
g) Closing campfire - The closing campfire had another long walk to it. When we got there a very good speaker told us a story. The staff had a few skits and stuff. We did Star Trekking I and II for the staff.
h) White water rafting - Rafting was the funnest part of the whole trip. It was a long wait but it was worth it. Midway through we stopped and got to jump off a rock in the water. Cool. Big rapids. A great time.
i) Most memorable - My main memory of the trip was meeting Travis and his troop, the trading post midway through the week, and Wren’s waking up song.


Name - Waylon Spoden
a) Arrival -  The arrival was good except for, of course, the luggage displacement. Other then that the staff treated us very nicely and I appreciated that.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - The logging camp was fun. I liked the counselors and thought they did a good job. I also liked the pole climbing.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - The King Ranch had a cruddy camp site, and I didn’t like C.J., but the rest of the counselors were pretty cool. I enjoyed the horseback riding. It was too bad Steve had to cut his arm.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - The rough living was the best camp there. I loved the campsite, and the main counselor Bill. I also learned a lot about different edible plants, and how to make root beer.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - The mountain bike camp was pretty fun. I thought the mountain biking was pretty enjoyable. I also liked the location of the campsite, right by Camp Ottari.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - I didn’t especially like this camp, or the trail to get to it. The counselors weren’t very pleasant, and they weren’t very personal with the scouts. I did however like the climbing itself.
g) Closing campfire - The closing campfire got a little ‘draggy’ at times, but it was pretty fun. I wish we could have done Star Trekking in front of the whole audience instead of just the counselors.
h) White water rafting - Rafting was the funnest thing I’ve done in a long time. It was the ultimate rush. I just wish Steve could have made it.
i) Most memorable - The main memory of my experience at the High Knoll Trail was probably the white water rafting. Going over those big waves will stay in my head for a long time.
    Things I would change: I would have liked to have had more time to rest. There always seemed to be something to do. That was in some ways good and in some ways bad.
    I liked the hiking. It wasn’t to hard and it was actually pretty fun. I also liked the staff. They were all, for the most part, a very fun staff.


Name - Jason Christenson
a) Arrival -  The arrival was not very fun. We arrived in Roanoke and were waiting for our bags but they never came. We came to camp and at 1:00 am we got to a hotel.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - The best thing about logging days was spiking up a tree. Another thing I’ll remember is how Nathan and I won the log sawing contest.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - I’ll remember how my horse ‘Whiskey’ was one of the most feisty and biggest horses and the bull riding were Steve hurt his arm.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - I won’t forget Bill and his stories. I also learned a lot of cool things about plants.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - I’ll remember Corey’s tire popping. I will also remember how crazy the counselors were and also “It ain’t gonna rain no more.”
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - The walk out there was unforgettable. The trail was slanted and Corey fell twice pretty bad. And how Leroy fell in the river.
g) Closing campfire - I won’t forget the story of the jumping mouse and also doing Star Trekking for the staff afterwards.
h) White water rafting - I had the most fun rafting. The rapids were awesome. Hitting the waves and having the boat fly was awesome. The bad though is to poked me in the eye and I lost my contact.
i) Most memorable - The main memory I have is all the great times and fun things we did and I try to forget the bad things that happened. But even though everything seemed to go wrong we could always stick together and count on each other to pull together.


Name - Corey Spoden (assistant crew leader)
a) Arrival - The arrival was great except for our packs. I was worried that we wouldn’t get them in time so we would have to go home early.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - The staff at logging days was cool. I thought the program was kind of boring because I had already done most of them.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - I had a great time with the horseshoes because I was undefeated. The programs were fun too, but the campsite itself was nothing to brag about. The chili and the cornbread was the greatest.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - Bill was awesome. I learned a lot. That campsite was one of the best because it was nice to lay around and have time to rest.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - The activity was pretty fun except for my back tire. It was nice knowing that night that we would have a chance at performing at the campfire. That means we might have some talent.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - It was not worth it hiking that far on that crappy trail. I’m just glad now that I have both of my testicles.
g) Closing campfire - It was nice. I liked the poet’s speech. It was really enthusiastic. I liked doing Star Trekking for the last time with all of the Chuck Taylor Patrol together.
h) White water rafting - Rafting was awesome. It was worth the wait. It was my best birthday out of 17. I loved everything we did with the ride, the rapids, the jumping, and the swimming.
i) Most memorable - My main memory was the white water rafting. It put everything in the trip together and included a wonderful adventure. I will never forget that birthday.


Name - Tom Hanson  (crew leader)
a) Arrival -  I will never forget how worried Steve was about crew morale, when everyone was actually enjoying our first adventure.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - Throwing 3 of 6 and 4 of 6 in knife throwing and defeating Nathan in the face off to become champion knife thrower = even if I was a bit side arm. Sawdust stew, our “introduction” (as Denny put it) to mountain hiking, and our ‘jungle’ and tunnels through it.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - Steve’s injury, of course. But also the great meal - chili and cornbread - the branding and our ‘rodeo’.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - Bill and his stories - I could have listened to him for hours. Tasting the plants was neat too. Sheep sorrel was the best!
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - How boring the ride was! They had the best campfire (probably because we performed). Our obnoxious wake up call - when did obnoxious become a verb? as in “I’ll obnoxious you into awakeness!” (and when did awakeness become a word?) What a weirdo!
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - Our awful 1/2 hour hike over a mountain and through both rivers. My headache, and anxiousness to leave for Melrose!
g) Closing campfire - Our guest story teller - I want that speech! Decent staff skits. We got to perform Star Trekking again - hopefully somebody noticed my finger thing at the end. It was nice to see Laura and Wren notice at Mt. Bike Camp too!
h) White water rafting - Being sucked down through ‘Swimmers Rapids’. Jumping off the rock - what a rush! Just the thrill of bouncing through the water!
i) Most memorable - Playing cards - a lot! But, seriously, I think I will remember the great crew spirit we had and how well we worked together as a team (most of the time). I will also remember what a great last outing it was for Jason, Nathan, Corey, and me to attend as a group. It’s sad to see our patrol start to break up after all the things we’ve done together and how we’ve grown closer, but what a way to spend our last scouting activity together!


Name - Leroy Spoden (crew advisor)
a) Arrival - Surprised and disappointed about backpacks not showing up. I was impressed by the way the staff help us. Enjoyed hotel much.
b) Trek Day #1, Logging days - The hike at the beginning was very hard. I thought if the whole trek was like that it would be very hard work. Thought the coffee was great.
c) Trek Day #2, King Ranch - It was the most relaxing camp where you could just sit and let the horse do work. I didn’t like the campsite. I kept sliding downhill in sleeping bag.
d) Trek Day #3, Rough Living - I will always remember Bill. He was smart and fun to listen to. He had lots of stories and he seemed to really enjoy having us there.
e) Trek Day #4, Mountain bikes - This was a hard hike again and the worse thing was that after the long you jumped on bikes and got more wore out. The wake up call I will never forget.
f) Trek Day #5, Rock climbing - This had the most challenging trail, even without packs. I was afraid of repelling the rock but felt great after I made it. I fell in a creek for the first time.
g) Closing campfire - Enjoyed the first story teller a lot.
h) White water rafting - Experience of a lifetime. It was the most fun especially after I hit the first rapids and got comfortable.
i) Most memorable - Going through the Class 5 rapids and staying in the raft. Was impressed and happy with Troop 68. Had best vacation ever. Will never forget it.