Timberline: A new campsite

Timberline: A new campsite

(Timberline part 25)

The next few years we started holding our Timberline courses at a new area that had been donated to the scouts near Mt Pleasant. I had loved this place for several years after we had first tried to decide if it was a good place to hold our course.  We had hiked in to see it since we couldn’t drive the van and trucks in any further than below the hill due to muddy roads. As we went through the area I spotted to elk of pretty good size in one area and thought it would make a great site for the staff to put up their camp. I admit the fact that we saw the elk was one reason I liked it so well. We didn’t use it that year and for a few years after since the road into it was a bit of a challenge if it got wet at all. Finally the council cut a new road into it from the front and getting in and out was not as much of a challenge. One year before the road was completed we did hold camp there and as I went to visit it to take in some supplies I had to drive up the road next to power lines that crossed over the mountain near the camp. The gates were all locked except for the one leading over to the power lines so I drove up past them until they intersected the road leading to camp. A couple years later as I was there during the week as the Course Director for a district from Delta I got to see some more of the wildlife that had endeared that camp to me so many years earlier. I had taken a walking tour of the camp before the rest of the staff had gotten up and of course had my camera with me. As I was walking down a road about a half mile from the camp I spotted a large four point buck looking through the trees at me. I raised my camera and was able to get one click before it turned to run and two other large bucks that had also been there by it. I didn’t even know they were there until I counted them as they ran from me through the trees. When I got the film back after camp I looked closely at the image and could see the antlers from one of the other bucks also in the picture. Through the several years that I attended camps in that site I not only saw elk and deer, but also skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, hawks and a ferrot. It has since been converted into a full sized scout camp for the council with another area being dedicated for Timberline courses below the camp. I am sure that not nearly as much of the wildlife can be seen now.