Ken Mont Camp for Boys - Golden Days Yearbook (Kent, CT)

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in the state of Massachussetts, Mt. Greylock. The high point of the trip was the 4 mile hike to the peak over a torturous mountain trail. Once up, we had a great lunch at Bascom Ski Lodge and then to the slippery descent. We, too, had a night on the town that added to the fun of the camp-out. The Condors and Eagles each had their own three day camping trip to Cape Cod. With tents pitched just behind the dunes along the Atlantic Highlands fjust below Provincetownj the trip again proved to be one of the summer's highlights. No other camp- out seems to generate quite as much excitement! Our head counselors, Jim Charlton and Ron Bouchier each headed a trip and their reports on return can be summed up in one word . . . FANTASTIC! The last big trip of the season was the Hawk's oft-delayed camp-out on the shores of Long Island Sound near Mystic. With a mile wide beach just in front of their campsite and perfect weather to com- plement the location, our boys had a great time. On the third day, arrangements were set by Lloyd for the boys to have a tour of the Coast Guard Aca- demy and a trip on a C G Cutter through New Lon don harbor' After buying out the Ships Store at the Academy we rode home in style in a pullman bus Th1S was a first time trip for Ken Mont and it will now become a fixture for future Hawks The 1969 pioneering work at Ken Mont 1n spite of the weather was varied and most successful A new pioneering area was established in the vicinity of the campfire arch This new area 1S farther from the main campus which gives the campers a greater l f .2 R 5,5 'S 'A g KEN-MONT HAWKS AT THE U. S. COAST GUARD ACADEMY. feeling of roughing it. Bill Rogers, one of two pioneering counselors with the help of MARK VERSHEL BRYAN EGGERT ROBBIE WEIS BEIN BRUCE LADEN TONY ASTMANN and SHELDON KIVELL moved the monkey bridge from behind the nature hut to its new location near the campfire Brad Hanson the other pioneering specialist with the help of DAVID GODNICK DAVID OSHIN and SCOTT ZUCKERMAN dis mantled the tree house and with the assistance of JEFF DANIELS reassembled lt approximately 200 feet south of the Indian campfire ring PIONEERING The progress of this years Pioneering program was greatly hindered by the long siege of rain However the goal of relocating the Pioneering area near the campfire circle was completed to a large extent when a new 40 foot long Monkey Bridve was successfully constructed A Monkey Bridge consists of three heavy Mi ropes suspended between two supporting A frames The climber walks across with his feet on the central rope and his hands holding on to the outer two ropes The latter ropes are suspended several feet above the central one and all three are secured together to prevent the ropes from swaying apart Whell the Bridoe 1S m use Thlg type of brid e 1S common among the Indians in South America as a means of crossing small rivers or canyons The natives often become so skilled at crossing these bridges that they can walk across balancing heavy burdens on top of their heads Work on the bridge was done by a crew of re liable and hard working boys BRYAN EGGERT MARK VERSHEL BILLY FALK STEVE FISHER BRUCE LADEN BOB PRAVDER TONY ASTMANN BOBBIE WEISBEIN LARRY COPELAND and STEVE SCHWARTZ Approximately SOO feet of rope was used in con structing the brid e Among the various knots used in the construction were the following 60 clove - 9 . . , 2 2 ' , , 1 a a , . . . . 7 ' 3 ' 7 s 9 3 ' - - 3 ' , l , . . . 7 . o ' . . . . ll - 7 7 ' CC - 37. , 7 . . 3 7 , ' ' . 9 7 , . O . l . . 0 . O l n u ' ' U n o ' D

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SPEC! l IN EREST 2 CAMPING Ken-Mont's motto is 'ckeep the camp in campingi' and 1969 saw the greatest interest in our tripping program ever. Our diverse and far ranging camping expeditions found each group in a different and exciting area. Donlt ever sell the American boy short! The spirit of adventure and adaptibility to rough environment still is part of our make up. Every boy in camp had the opportunity to pitch a tent, build a fire, cook, eat raw or burned food, clean a messkit, test his endurance on a hike, avoid C25 poison ivy, sleep in his clothes, listen to a scarry ghost story, count the billion stars at night . . . and back at camp, spend hours removing the accumu- lated dirt! A Lower camp tripping again was led by our rugged elder statesmen, that premier cook of home fries the morning after, Elderberry J ack Turek. The Bluejays had their introduction to poineer- ing by sleeping out at the Pine Point camp site, a dense hemlock forest along the lake not far from the saildock. Every little man had his chores-tent pitching, wood gathering and clean up, but it seems we spent most of our time eating Jackis delicious cooking. Campfire and story time at night were great and when we crawled into our sleeping bags. the bed of pine needles felt like a down mattress CD Jerry cooked our breakfast in the morning and we can still smell the bacon sizzling! .. ::E.'-ter.. :::..'::e:- '--'D f--f- ..........w,..... . . The Sparrows, .our eight year old boys, braved the wilds of Mohawk Forest, again with Jack blaz- ing the way. This was their first experience away from camp and Jack tells us they were the most rugged Sparrow group ever. One thing certain- they ate more food than any group of 8 year old boys ever did! - The Robins also camped at Mohawk State Forest although their trip was a far more rugged one. The highlight was a hike through famous Black Spruce Bog. One of the few specimen of its kind in the country, the Bog was gouged out by the last great glaciers, some 16,000 years ago. The soft muck is some 60 feet deep and it never com- pletely freezes in spite of 300 below zero winter tempe-ratures. There is all types of vegetation grow ing in it, even semi-tropical varieties. Although the Bog has undoubtedly claimed hundreds of animal lives over the centuries, the Rangers have laid a boardwalk over the bog and we were able to closely observe the phenomena. The Falcons, on their first three day campout ever, explored the wilds of Pittsfield State Forest in Western Massachusetts. Now for the first time, the boys put to a test the woodsmanship they had learned. Berry Pond, the climb over Berry Mountain and the evening trip to town were memorable. The old menn of lower camp, the Cardinals camped out for three days atop the highest point

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-- -- KEN-MONT'S RELOCATED MONKEY BRIDGE. H hitches, 15 half hitches, 20 overhand knots, 4 square lashings, 4 Fisher knots, 1 sheer lashing, 1 diagonal lashing, 1 Astmann knot, 1 Pravder knot and 2 Vershel splices. Before work on the bridge could be started a crew of EAGLES and DODOS had to clear an area of thickly wooded ground. Among those who worked on this clearing project were MATTHEW ROSS and RICK SATURN. During the las-t few weeks of camp the bridge provided hours of enjoyment to campers of all ages. A few campers tried their skill at crossing the bridge while being timed. Some managed to cross in less than 20 seconds Cquite a featj. Those who accomplished this were BRYAN EGGERT C16 secondsj, STEVE SABLOSKY C17 seeondsj, MIKE FEDDER C17 secondsj, SCOTT TURKEL C18 secondsj-all of these, Cardinals,-and MIKE MALAMUT C18 secondsj of the Robins. Overall, the rain did not dampen the fun that campers had this summer in Pioneering. 1 NATURAL SCIENCES Under the leadership of a man who has become a Ken-Mont institution, Jack Slim Turek, Ken- Mont's Nature and Science program continued to be a favorite activity for many boys. Jack, a biology teacher for thirty years, offered our campers the most far reaching science program in private camp- ing. In turn, this has developed a great interest and has unquestionably helped our boys in their formal education. . The Nature Building, as always, was stocked with hundreds of interesting specimen, both live and pre- served. Charts, pictures, instruments, a nature library plus Jack's wonderful manner with our boys com- pleted the picture. We had our finest zoo yet, consist- ing of some animals .T ack had kept over the winter back in Ohio, as well as some new specimen, trapped in the Berkshires. Among the inhabitants of Jack's zoo were a red fox, a fawn, a po-rcupine, a fer- ret, a great-horned owl, and amherst phe-asant and a golden pheasant, a de-scented skunk Cnamed '6My Sin J a mother opposum with five babies in her pouch, a groundhog Elmer , the talking crow Che'd call when hungry, Hey you, hey you J, a pair of raccoons, a huge 40 lb. snapping turtle, snakes, lizards, efts and a pet trained five foot black snake. JONNY ALBIN, only a Bluejay, excelled in the study of animals. RICH FEINSTEIN was Jack's right hand man in the care and feeding of the zoo denizens. Ken-Mont has gone a long way in the field of Science since the program was inaugurated many years ago. What used to be Nature Study has been organized into a real Science program includ- ing botany, zoology, ornithology, reptile study, as- tronomy, and genetics. KEITH ROSENFELD was an outstanding student in astronomy. He even took some fine pictures of the moon. Besides. astronomy, the first part of the summer was devoted to Ex- ploring Space . Jack felt that Ken-Mont Science would be remiss if he didn't emphasize 4'Space Travel and 'LEarth in Space . For three weeks the science classes learned about space and its com- plexity. The Sea of Tranquility near Moltke where our astronauts touched down on the moon and walked were studied. The boys were permitted to stay up and witness the greatest feat of man in our generation, The Walk on the Moon . A very interesting study was made to prove Gregor Mendel's law of heredity. I ack mated a male albino mouse with a wild brown deer female -mouse. Six babies were born. With further experimentation we bred a pair of second generation mice and found that W, of the babies were white and Mi, of them brown. This proves Mendel's law of heredity which states that dark is a dominant gene and white is a