This summer, following regular requests from the scouts at our planning meetings for caving and gorge walking, 23 scouts, young leaders and leaders headed off to Thornthwaite Scout Campsite near Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire for a week of fu
n and outdoor activities – for some a chance to develop their skills further and for others an opportunity to try new activities. We had a fantastic time thanks to everyone involved – including instructors from How Stean Gorge who took us caving, gorge walking, climbing and on their via ferrata and instructors from River Mountain Experience who took our older scouts and explorers on a canoe river trip.
8th Letchworth Summer Camp Diary 2013
Saturday 27th July
On our way to the Yorkshire Dales we got to 8th Letchworth scout hut at 9.15am. I was a lucky one as I got on the bus with 2 fantastic leaders, Zeke and Claire. They are fantastic at driving minibuses. They should get an award! (no bribery involved here, honest!) We got to Yorkshire in good time. When we got there it was raining – English weather. We ate lunch then we started to unpack. My room was huge. Then we went exploring – we went down to a half empty river, after that we went off and played 50/50 and sat on huge rocks, talking. Then we had dinner – it was nice, a bit spicy but nice. Then I made tomorrows rolls and after that I went back outside. Emma called me in and asked me to do this paragraph. I’m tired so I’m going to bed.
Jay
Sunday 28th July
Crate Stacking
At 10.20 some of us went to do crate stacking. After we got to the place we got into 3 groups of 4. Jay and Mae got the highest. I kicked it over close to the top and jumped. When Mae’s tower fell she kicked one and it hit my head L
Jack & Will
Hillwalking
Today we went on a 7 mile hike on a hill, it was fun. We started off on a road and eventually made our way up the hill. At one point we got to a series of rock formations. We had fun climbing up the rocks. Finally we made our way down. We all got an ice cream and sat by the river. We were all tired and exhausted.
Tristan
Monday 30th July
Caving
On Monday we went down to How Stean Gorge to do caving. First we got into our jumpsuits (onesies) and helmet, we wore wellies on our feet.
Then we went down to the cave. It was quite wet and damp so we had to put on another fleece.
First we abseiled down 25 feet, there were two groups, they all went on different routes In my group there was me, Rachel, Molly, Mae, Lauren, Jack, Lewis, William and Brecon. Whilst we abseiled down we saw a river, stream and we walked in it until we got to the end of the cave. If you were a diver you could carry on with a mask and snorkel to the very end of the cave but we didn’t! Finally we got to the end of the cave and out safe and very wet though we had a good time and so did Brecon!
Rebecca
Malham Cove
This afternoon we went to Malham Cove. When we got there, there were people from the RSPB. They let us look at birds (peregrine falcons) on the rock using telescopes. We had to get up a lot of steps to get to the top. It was really high. We looked at the limestone pavement at the top of the cove. While we were up there it rained really heavy so we had to come down quickly and carefully.
Ryan
Tuesday 30th July
Climbing and Abseiling
Dear Camp Diary,
OMG! Blimey do I have a headache today! We went climbing today and the scouts thought it would be fun to play ‘rescuers’ and so there I was being chucked up the rocked into little cave areas so the scouts could ‘rescue’ me and to top it all I landed in a muddy puddle so now I’m all dirty! L The scouts had a wonderful time climbing and abseiling at Brimham Rocks. Tristan was kind enough to take me when he abseiled – it was high up and scary! Time to go diary – I need to have a wash and do my fur for when we go to Ilkley this afternoon for FISH & CHIPS!
Brecon
Wednesday 31st July
Tristan’s Birthday!
On Wednesday, Group 1 – me, Lewis, Shaun, Rhian, Jay and Jack went on and eight mile canoe trip. We put our life jackets on and got our paddles. We played a few games while waiting for Zeke to come back. We got our boats and set off. On our way we had to pass 4 locks. On our 3rd we helped a boat get through by opening the lock. When we got to the end we had to end with all of us jumping out of our boats. At the end of the day we had all completed our Grade 1 canoeing activity.
Rachel
On Wednesday, Group 3 – me, Rebecca, Alex, Ryan, Adam M and Tristan did three different activities such as crate stacking, geocaching and wall climbing. Our first activity was geocaching. We found two geocaches. In the first we swapped a badge for a different badge. Once we had found the first geocache we went looking for another. In the second we swapped a badge for a badge and another badge for a pack of cards. Once we had finished geocaching we came back to the house and had lunch. After lunch we went wall climbing (traversing wall) and it was really hard. There wasn’t a lot of big hand holds to hold. Alex really enjoyed the wall climbing! After everyone had finished we went back to the house and had a wait until dinner and crate stacking. The crate stacking was really good. Everyone really enjoyed the crate stacking.
Molly
Group 2, Mae, Lauren, Will and Adam T went for a walk to Pen Y Ghent. We started by walking up a little pathway onto a massive track going towards the gigantic hills, with an amazing view of the landscapes. First we climbed the biggest one of the two at a steady pace with the leaders trailing behind us! Eventually we got to the highest point of the first hill but we had another one to look forward to!
Mae
Thursday 1st August
Ingleborough Hike
Lewis, Rachel, Shaun, Jay, Rhian and Jack set out at a church at the bottom of the hill. We were set to walk or climb as it were. The route had been pre-planned with the leaders the night previously – Claire and Goodie had sat down for a few hours prior to the route planning and selected a route they thought was most challenging as we were the oldest. We got to the church at the base of Ingleborough where Claire dropped the group off – Lewis, Shaun, Rachel, Jay, Rhian and Jack to complete the daunting 10km, 480 m high climb to the peak of Ingleborough. The climb was tough with the path slowly becoming steeper and steeper and we stopped for lunch before the steepest and important part of the journey. Within 20 minutes we were at the top and we soon realised the view was masked by the cloud. We soon headed down and two and a half hours later we were down and eating ice cream like no tomorrow.
Lewis
The National Railway Museum in York
We first got in and we were surrounded by big and small trains. We got into our groups that we were put into. My group was Adam M, Will-i-am, Travis aka Tristan, Alex and Ryan. First walking into the huge hall there was a race of 3 mini build your own cars, we had many tries also there was a world record and daily record. In the races we kept beating our records but still couldn’t beat the world record. After we looked round the museum, it was very interesting. We had some time left to go back to the races. Will and me as a joke put as much as we possible could on 2 different cars. It was mine, Will’s and Alex’s cars, to see who’s the quickest. It was the last stretch that was breakingpoint. Mine beat Will’s by above half a second. I was looking at the board to see what happened. The time started to beat was 2.78 seconds. I got 2.77 seconds and I was the world record holder. Overall it was a great day.
Adam T
After the train museum we had lunch and then walked to the fudge shop to see fudge being made. The fudge they were making was chocolate and mocha. When they finished making the fudge we got to taste it. It was delicious.
Adam M
Friday 2nd August
Today was the ‘Big Four’ (via ferrata, abseiling, gorge walking and caving) at How Stean Gorge. Via Ferrata was walking along walls above a river, attached by harnesses – it was really fun. The abseiling was off a bridge into a river – that was scary yet fun. After we abseiled down into the river we made our way up rapids and pools.
We had lunch and drove to the cave. In the cave we faced tight turns and gushing waters.
Will
Saturday 3rd August
Well that’s it for another year L
We’re on the way home now – looking forward to seeing our families but it’s been an awesome week and I got to do caving which I’ve never tried before. They keep threatening me with the washing machine now but I reckon if I keep quiet and keep my head down I might just get away with it!
Thank you to all the scouts, young leaders, leaders, and instructors from How Stean Gorge and River Mountain Experience for giving us all such a fantastic week.
Time to start planning next year now…………where shall we go? Hmmmmmmm……………
Brecon
(More photos on the Album’s page)