SCOUTS COUNTY LIGHTWEIGHT CAMPING EXPEDITION 2022 ….

Following a few weeks of training for a lightweight camping expedition a team from 1st Knaphill entered the Surrey County Lightweight Camping Challenge.  Hannah, Luke, George & Toby represented 1st Knaphill plotting their route & hiking as a team over 2 days carrying all their kit  & food for the weekend.

Cooking food on the expedition camp was fun but hard as we had to carry lightweight food, as other types of food would be too heavy, and we only had a Trangia to cook on. We also had to take food that didn’t need to be refrigerated so that it wouldn’t become uneatable by the time we cooked it. To overcome these we had to get tasty dehydrated food that we all liked because it was lightweight and could be cooked on a Trangia. For dinner we had dehydrated pasta that we had to add milk and water to (we brought powdered milk and we could fill up on water at the camp) and also rocky road and brownies for dessert (these were precooked). The next day we had porridge for breakfast and most of us liked it, then for lunch we had tuna and mayo wraps (this wasn’t a very good choice as most of our group didn’t want tuna and mayo). If I did this again I would want to bring more interesting food as, although the food filled us up, it wasn’t very tasty. All of us were 1-2kg under the weight limit for our bags, so we could have carried tins or other heavier foods that we didn’t bring because we wanted it to be lightweight. When the food came out it was ok and we enjoyed breakfast and dinner. If this is a scout reading this then you should go as it was really fun.

Report by George, Scout

I took part in the County lightweight expedition challenge including two days of hiking and navigation.  We started on the first day by doing 15 kilometres of walking which really wore us out by the end of it.  To be honest if you get lost everything is a lot less fun.  It’s better to know where you are going than to be lost for almost 5 hours.  However, the second day which was 9 kilometres was a lot better since we didn’t get lost anywhere.  If I was to say what the hardest part of the hike was it would be the rucksacks.  You really want to be lightweight because your shoulders will be killing you.  Your feet don’t hurt as much as you might think so try and make your shoulders hurt less.

Now the navigation—we had to completely plan our own routes going to every single checkpoint on the map.  Also try to do compass degrees using the compass like a protractor so when you get to a turn you know roughly what direction you need to go because if you think of the route as a maze you will find it easier.  This is so that you know everywhere you are going is on a path and it is just a matter of knowing which direction or path to go down.  Personally I extremely enjoyed the experience and I hope that more of the younger Scouts can come next year as I will probably do it next year as well.  Also it gets you a challenge badge ewhich puts you towards the chief Scout Gold Award which is one of, if not the most, impressive achievement of your childhood.

Report by Toby,  Scout

We had to carry all our camping kit including the tent, sleeping bags, Trangias, food, water and first aid kits on our back the whole time.  It was a relief when we finally saw Birchmere after our 9 mile hike.  After checking in we pitched our two tents on the left hand side of the field.  Fortunately it was extremely warm so it was easy to pitch the tents and we all slept well.  However, the next morning was wet so we decided to leave our tents and strike camp after our next 6 mile hike.  Our bags were a bit lighter!  Because it was wet when we took down the tents we had to take them home to dry.

Report by Luke M, Scout