Last weekend, Troop 139 traveled east of Charlotte to Morrow Mountain State Park. On Saturday, we hiked the Fall Mountain Trail which is a loop trail that goes to the top of Fall Mountain and has a 500 foot elevation change. We had to cross a creek and stopped for lunch at the top of the mountain, overlooking the Yadkin River and Uwharrie forest. The weather was beautiful, a little chilly in the morning, but just right in the afternoon.

The original plan was just to do a 3 mile out and back to the peak, but once we got up there the scouts decided to do the full loop for a total of 4.5 miles (including the hike to and from the trail to our campsite). We even stopped for ice cream at the Boat House along the hike.

This past weekend Mecklenburg County Council hosted the March 2022 Scouts Excited About Leadership Skills (S.E.A.L.S.) course at Belk Scout Camp. Troop 139 had two scouts participate along with one scout and two adults serve on staff.

The S.E.A.L.S. course teaches leadership skills to younger scouts and then challenges them to apply the skills they have learned back in their home unit by writing up a goal and then following through. Once completed, they can wear their S.E.A.L.S. strip on their uniform.

Participating scouts were Maeve G. and Catherine R.

Staff members were Life Scout Rachel K. serving as a Troop Guide, ASM Mr. Kauffman serving as ASM - Troop Guides, and Scoutmaster Zoutewelle serving as ASM - Program. It was also announced that Scoutmaster Zoutewelle will be serving as the Course Director / Scoutmaster for the next S.E.A.L.S. course in November.

Troop 139 just returned from Santee State Park in South Carolina, where we had a wonderful weekend of camping and hiking on the shores of Lake Marion. Saturday morning we set out on a loop hike from the group camping site at the southern end of the park and stopped for lunch at the north end of the park. The full loop was a bit over 9 miles long... the longest hike our troop has taken since forming.

The White Tiger Patrol and the adults cooked their meals separately, but together we made banana boats for dessert and cooked them over our evening campfire. All the scouts agreed it was delicious and we'll need to do that again.