Spring 2026 Campout

On a pleasant Saturday morning, the scouts from Troop 747 gathered for a backpacking campout at Long Hunter State Park. On this trip, we had a number of scouts that had just joined the troop after crossing over from Cub Scouts, plus one boy new to scouting. In total, we had approximately 20 scouts along with 6 fathers.

Long Hunter is a park located on Percy Priest lake, about a 30 minute drive from downtown Nashville. The forecast was not excellent – heavy thunderstorms called for in the afternoon/evening. We were all eager to camp regardless, and no severe weather was expected. Armed with ponchos and meat sticks, we set out on a 6 mile hike from the parking lot to our home for the evening.

It was not a fast hike, and there were some “are we there yet” moments, but we worked together and safely made it to camp. Having so many new scouts with us made the adults pay a little more attention to fatigue, dehydration, mental fortitude, etc., but we could not be more proud of the effort put in. Arriving at camp uplifted everyones spirits. Another small victory on the way to manhood.

We had 2 campsites due to the large number of scouts and fathers that we had. One was on Percy Priest lake, the other was about 500ft away in the woods. Our main gathering area was the campfire by the lake. Most scouts were setup within 15 minutes of getting to camp, each trying to pick “the best” spot. The temp at night got into the low 50°s, so some may or may not have regretted camping close to the water. My observation is the younger they are, though, the more akin they are to space heaters. Besides, who doesn’t want to be close to the campfire in the morning.

After getting down for the night, we rekindled the campfire. Duy shared with the scouts a trick for protecting the campfire – insulate with rocks. Sure enough the trick worked, and the fire roared right up in the morning for the boys to prepare their meals. After breakfast, we broke camp and had a short prayer service before hitting the trail back to the parking lot. Especially proud of all of our new scouts – they did great! Next camping adventure…. Boxwell.