2015 & prior
When the weather is more mild everyone likes to hit the trail
The "Russian Bear" in Harriman Park is a rappelling challenge
Sometimes in the back woods there are decades old settlements which our Scoutmaster leads us to
Here we are several hundred feet up on a Harriman mountain top & our Scoutmaster leads us to a few abandoned 1950's car remains ! No one can imagine how they carried these up this escarpement !!
Our Alumni teach the Scouts the safe methods of rappelling
Eagle Scout Peter M. from Harriso brought a friend to our meeting to socialize
After canoeing down these rapids on the Penobscot River in Maine it was time for "rump bumping" === where you beach your canoe & ride the rapids feet forward & up .....AWESOME!
On a mountain top lake in Maine there was a burned out wooden railroad trestle . So our
adventuresome Scouts would canoe underneath, one Scout would grab the rail & hang on
until another canoe came underneath & he dropped into the second canoe ----OR fell into
the water !!
In Rockland County on a mountain top is " Claudius Smith's Den " where a 19th century gang of horse thieves hung out in the caves under the natural rock faces--- until they were caught & hung in Goshen. But now we get to explore these tunnels & rooms.
After a few rainy days this waterfall was flowing enough that it created a "hiding place" underneath just like the one that concealed Uncas & Hawkeye in the "Last of the Mohicans"
Thanks to our Scoutmaster hiking "off trail" for 50+ years he knows of hidden man-made "shelters" in the back woods of Rockland County.
One of 3 canoe trips to Maine ( to now closed National BSA canoe bases) were fantastic !
On a sunny winter hike it is always fun to create a game of hockey with branches & a pringle lid for as a puck. ( We do this on large frozen, shallow puddles so no-one falls through the ice)
This is one part of the remains of a 19th Century inclined railroad that was built on the slopes of Dunberg Mt. in Rockland County meant as a paddle-wheel destination when the World's Fair was in NYC in the 1800's. When the Fair went bankrupt the railway was abandoned --- but we can still explore it in the 21st Century.
Another "unknown" ruin in the back woods that our Scoutmaster showed us... then we came down the inside of the chimney like a present day Santa Claus
At Camp Waubeeka we spent post-lunch siesta relaxing (?) with our buddies
In Maine after a wicked portage up an entire mountain our guide led us to a early 20th Century logging camp including an entire logging train ---all long abandoned to decay here.