Cedarlands 2000

Location:

Cedarlands, NY (Just north of Long Lake)
(Click here for map; the lake appears yellow on the map for some reason, and is the larger one in the center of the window)

Dates:

July 16 - July 22

Who:

16 Scouts, four adults, and one dog stayed the full week. In alphabetical order, we have...

Dan Adsit
Dave Astafan
Jake Astafan
Matt Astafan
Matt Bauer
Chris Budlong
Bob Byrnes
Brian Byrnes
John DelMonte

Justin DelMonte
Brian Fitzsimmons
Goose (the dog)
Chris Ivory
John Ivory
Matt Ivory
George Jwied
Dan Koslosky
John Koslosky

Dean Prichard
Matt Rivkin
Paul Rivkin
Casey Russo
Sam Russo
Matt Trudeau
John Zegarelli
Rick Zegarelli

(Names in bold are adults.
Names in bold and underlined are adults who stayed the full week)

Notes:

I apologize if I wasn't able to get a photo of everybody that came along. I'll try harder next time. Separately, if you've got a photo from this trip that you'd like posted here, just let me know.

Cedarlands' 5,500 acres of mountains, lakes and wilderness make it the largest Scout camp in the Adirondacks. There are already other fine sites on the web which describe Cedarlands, so I won't try to repeat their efforts here, but you are encouraged to check them out. (The best I've found is the one done by our own Land of the Oneidas. It has lots of text descriptions, and many beautiful ground and aerial photos taken on days with good weather.)

The Campsite

Once everyone figured out where they wanted to stay, setting up was easy and straight forward. We were able to spread ourselves out fairly well across numerous tent sites. You'll notice in the first photo our new silver tarp.

Swimming

The weather wasn't really the best for swimming, but everyone ended up getting in the water for the swim test. If you jumped in on the deep side of the dock, it consisted of 4 ½ laps with a normal stroke, then 1 ½ laps with a backstroke, then floating motionless for a short while. We're proud to say that everyone passed!

Better still, 4 of our scouts did a one-mile swim, which consisted of swimming from the dock to the island five times. These brave souls were Matt Rivkin, John Zegarelli, George Jwied, and (XXX? Help! I can't remember!).

Critters

The turtle shown here at the fishing dock was the quietest of what we encountered. Unfortunately, we don't have any photos of the bear(s) that stopped by our campsite a few of the nights. We also saw and/or heard loons, deer, coyotes, and owls.

"The Wall"

Weather caused us to reschedule our rock climbing and rappelling excursion a couple of times, which allowed us to log a lot of time on "the wall". There were two sides, and nearly everyone was able to kiss the pulley on one side or the other.

Climbing and Rappelling

For many, this was the most exciting and challenging part of the week. A one hour hike brought us to Watch Point on Long Lake where we harnessed up. There were two sections next to each other. One was for rappelling, the other was for rock climbing. Only two of our scouts were able to kiss the pulley on the climb; Jake and Matt Astafan.

On Friday, five of our supreme climbers and one adult went on a special excursion to a much larger cliff (~80 feet); Matt and Jake Astafan, Sam and Casey Russo, Brian Byrnes, and Chris Budlong

Hikes, History,
and Scenery

We went across the lake to visit the original site where Troop 14 would camp a number of years ago, and heard the legends of yore. We also visited the old lean-to for Troop 88 (built in '74), and scaled OA, and went back to try and scale Masters on a rainy Friday. Note that all the land you see here is part of Cedarlands. The lake, it's islands, and the mountains on the other shore!

The Food

The scouts cooked everything themselves! For breakfast we had pancakes, omelets, and French toast. The dinner menus included spaghetti, beef stew, chicken, and beef stroganoff. The only exception was the amazing steak dinner that Bob Byrnes came and made for the adults one of the nights. It was deeply appreciated, and perfect right down to the sautéed mushrooms!

Canoeing

For many scouts, this was their first real time at the oars, and in general, they did quite well. The lake is a good size, and we covered most of it. Even Goose did fine, coaching John and Dan on where he wanted to go.

Mountain Biking

While half of the troop practiced on "The Wall", the other half spent an hour or so on mountain bikes. At least the downhill part was easy. :-)

Competition

On one of the nights, we formed two teams for a competition with simple rules...

	No single piece of wood could be longer than the tallest scout on the team.
	No piece of twice could be longer than 6 feet.

The goal was to see which team could build a structure that would hold their flag higher off the ground in 45 minutes. They displayed marvelous ingenuity, teamwork, and good sportsmanship.