Much to our surprise, we departed Hockinson middle school in light snow, after all it was the middle of March. We drove into Rock Creek Campground on Saturday morning to about three inches of snow, dropped off some gear and then drove up to the Tarbell trailhead where there was about 6 inches of snow. There we learned about the famous hermit, Mr. George Tarbell, who lived in this remote Yacolt forest near the trail now named after him. George was a gold miner and lived off the land by farming and died there in 1932, never having found gold.
Next we set off for our three mile hike, mostly down hill, to where we reached Rock Creek and the zip line that Joe and Jack Masic had set up for us while the rest of the Troop was hiking. All of the Scouts and all of the adults and our backpacks were “zipped” across Rock Creek. During the hike, we had got snowed on, hailed on, rained on and later had thunder and lightning. Later that afternoon, we invited another Troop that was also camping at Rock Creek to come over and have some fun on the zip line. Everyone had a blast going back and forth across Rock Creek. (Except Joe Masic and Jason Meengs who were doing all the pushing and pulling work). Next the Scouts settled down for a Dutch oven pizza dinner and the adults ate Jack’s famous beef stew and dumplings. And for dessert, the other Troop at the campground came over and treated us to some of their Dutch oven peach cobbler and we traded some of our Dutch oven apple cobbler to them. After a short campfire, everyone turned in for the night because we knew we had a three-mile UPHILL hike awaiting us in the morning. We awoke Sunday to about another two inches of fresh snow on the ground. After a Hungry Man breakfast…..um I mean Mountain Man breakfast, the Troop set out for the grueling uphill hike out of Rock Creek. Of course, first thing we had to do was “zip” our backpacks and ourselves across Rock Creek again. The hike out took us 2 ¼ hours compared to the 1½ hours to hike down the hill the day before. Hans Vierck got some sign offs in his book for Tenderfoot and Brandon Hamilton got some items signed off for First Class. Everyone had a great time!
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