Bumping Lake 2008

We met at the church on August 2nd at 8am and got our things in the trailer behind a van. We all piled into the van and drove off to Bumping Lake. The drive was 3 hours long, and we stopped at Camp Fife to rent our canoes and paddles. When we got to the lake, we were all glad to get out of the car. We unpacked our things from the trailer and put them into the canoes. We saw a beetle with gihuganormous feelers and a teensy body. It jumped off of a post and flew away. After that we started to tie our things down when we noticed a snake which slid into the water and swam under the dock.

We got on the water and started paddling when the wind picked up. We canoed for three miles before we finally got there two hours and fifteen minutes later. We started setting up camp as soon as we found a good spot. After we had set up camp, we had some time to kill, so we started exploring. A few of us found an ant-hill that was two feet tall. We had to go back to camp and we noticed some seagulls, which was odd because we were far from the Puget Sound and ocean. Later in the day, we noticed a large flock of geese land in the marsh. There were also several goslings with them so we took some pictures.

We went to the creek after that to get some water for dinner and were amazed on the way by ant-hills that were bigger than anyone there!!! We got the water from the creek and gave it to the adults to bring back while we walked on top of the ant-hills.

When we got back to camp we noticed a strange bird that had a large greenish beak and cool feathers. The bird would fly right next to us and stop on a rock or stick inches away. We weren't aloud to have a fire so we were relatively cold at night and there were no bathrooms or even a kaibo, so most of us held it in. There were chipmunks everywhere and so we got a good look at some of them up-close. After a great dinner of chicken quesadillas, We paddled to the other side of the lake to warm up in the last of the day's sun. We climbed on the rocks and sat there before we paddled back to the campgrounds. We then got in our tents and played cards for a while until we all went to bed. The night was cold but our sleeping bags were fine and the stars were like the frosting bits on half of an Oreo cookie.

When we woke up in the morning we packed up our gear, put it in the canoes, and tied it down. We had great pancakes for breakfast and there were chocolate and butterscotch chips in there too. We started cleaning up and relaxing for a while and we looked at the robins all around. We paddled away from our camp site at 11:20 a.m. We stopped at an island with a wooden alligator on it and took some pictures. It was sunny and there was little wind which made for a speedy arrival at the other side of the lake at 12:20 p.m. We put the canoes away, unpacked our things, put them in the trailer, and left. We had a great view of Mt. Rainier on the way back, so we stopped for pictures along the way. We finally got back to the church and put the troop gear away after having a great time at Bumping Lake. - AMG

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