Troop 54 traveled to Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island, our first time camping there at least since 2006. We went there to participate in the Adventure at the Fort jamboree, the first Narragansett Council jamboree in over 20 years. We had 7 youth and 5 adult participants on this trip.
We arrived after 8:30 PM, close to the end of check-in. While we had to wait in a line of vehicles a while to get to the equipment drop-off location, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the organizers and park workers were running Gators with trailers to ferry the piles of gear into the camping areas. Since we were assigned to share site 31 (see maps), we left a lot of gear in the trailer (it would not fit in half a site).
Even with our reduced gear, we still didn't fit as the other troop in our site (Troop 14 Bellingham) had already occupied the whole site and only cleared out about 1/3 of it for us. Three of our leaders set up a second camp site about 75 yards away on an unused spot of lawn across the path from site 24. That is where Mr. MacNeal did the cooking for our leaders. By Saturday morning, we had lugged the rest of our gear from the trailer, about half a mile away, to our sites.
This was the largest event we have been part of since before the pandemic. The Council Executive estimated that 2,000 Scouts and Scouters from 114 troops camped out for the weekend and said that over 3,200 signed up to participate during the weekend.
There were over 60 activity stations to visit, many of which were targeted at Cub Scouts (see the program guide for a list). One popular station was a fun Coast Guard activity where participants had to plug leaks to keep a ship from sinking (they got wet). The favorite activity for our Scouts was exploring the fort, which involved climbing the earthen sides and making their way through unlit tunnels. The Coast Guard demonstrated a rescue, pulling a swimmer from the Narragansett Bay with a helicopter. Saturday evening, there was a show outside the fort; in addition to some fun, this was geared to inspiring the Scouts to live the values of Scouting.
The weather through Saturday was amazing. There was no rain, and most people wore short sleeves during the day.
We cooked a full set of meals at each of our camp sites (except lunch for the leaders). In addition, the event had a lot of food trucks on hand during the day on Saturday, and it seemed like just about every member of the Troop patronized these.
The operation to move the troops out of the fort was really amazing, again featuring the Gators. They used a different entry tunnel to the fort that led to a space where a lot of trailers could load at once. The moving started formally at 7 AM (our neighbors moved out at 5 AM), and most of the troops were out by the time we got to the trailer at about 9:30 AM.
This was our 166th consecutive month with at least one overnight camping trip.
Page updated 10/30/22
J. Froimson
