Had an adventurous weekend biking on the Lake Moultrie passage of the Palmetto Trail. Unfortunately, Mr. Scholtens had a flat tire on the way to camp Friday, which made our evening a little interesting. Friday night was the night of the whippoorwill (and a few owls) and multiple scouts and some adults were ready to begin whippoorwill hunting...but it was a little dark. For the scouts who miss the sound, click this Whippoorwill sound.
Up bright and early Mr. Smith and Mr. Scholtens were into Moncks Corner to check on his van. After their return and breakfast the troop was ready to cycle. Here we see our scouts ready to accelerate down the dike.
We headed towards the Cross power station on our first leg and saw an otter, an alligator, large garter snake and several deer. I was glad we did this section first, because after we left the dike we travelled through a wet, woody area similar to the Swamp Fox trail we travelled on over 2.5 years ago. If the entire trail was like this, we wouldn't make 50 miles in our timeframe. Returning through the same terrain on the way back to our campsite, Mr. Scholtens took a hit in his rear tire and had to swap out inner tubes (flat tire #2!).
To the right at one of our rest and navigation stops, we asked our scout navigator where we were...his reply was "I have no idea, but we are making good time!" Our first leg netted 16.9 miles, we had 33.1 miles to go.
After a return to camp and lunch, we were ready to tackle the remaining miles in the warm sun, but on the dike and stops at water pumps every 8 miles.
Alongside the dike for its entire length (except right on the lake south of Bonneau Beach) is a canal (where the material for building the dike came from). In the canal are beautiful water lillies and spatterdocks, along with a multitude of fish, alligators and turtles. Along the canal in the air were many osprey and great blue herons and on the dike multiple snakes and a few turtle bones...I saw a beautiful Eastern Racer and an Eastern Rat snake as he ran in front of me...I ran over him, but he never slowed down.I'm very proud of our scouts as they never slowed down on this longest section until near the very end. Below are pictures of us at our southern most point on the dam south of Bonneau Beach, the next is our final dike mileage before camp and last, but not least all of us back in camp...glad not to be on our bikes and ready for a great meal prepared by Mr. Brooks and Eagle scout James Brooks! The scouts slept sounder on Saturday night (all in tents by 8:40 PM), more owls and the same whippoorwills...
Many thanks to our cooks and to ASM Brian "Flats" Scholtens (New callsign as his second bike tire and third overall for the weekend went flat upon entering camp!!!) for doing such a great job in planning, selecting the trail and leading our scouts on one of the most difficult physical challenges a scout or scoutmaster will meet in his scouting career...See all our picture on my Flickr site, if you need help viewing it...let me know...
