Troop 56 Finds Its Way To West Point

The Super Team

During the weekend of April 11 through April 18 Troop 56 participated in West Point's Boy Scout orienteering weekend. The event is held at West Point's Camp Buckner and is run by West Point Cadets who are members of their Orienteering Club. Just minutes from the main West Point campus and Harriman State Park, Camp Buckner is where the cadets spend their summer between freshman and sophomore years, and is dotted by all sort of obstacle courses and equipment. The picturesque setting is surrounded by mountains and lakes and was enhanced by the beautiful spring weather. The scouts slept in barracks and cooked all of their own meals.

Training was received from the cadets on Friday night and Saturday morning on how to orienteer using maps and compasses. On Saturday afternoon the scouts ran two practice orienteering courses, a white and a yellow course, allowing them to put their skills to use and become familiar with the terrain.

The big event was Sunday morning when a competitive race was run on a more challenging orange course. Troop 56 broke into four groups. The "New Guys" Patrol included Troop 56 new scouts who were participating in their first trip with the troop. The team included Michael Crapotta, Connor Brown, Andrew Mohacsi, Jimmy Searson, and Jake Altabef, and were guided by older scout Matt Storz. They worked terrific as a team and are looking forward to many more events. The "Old Reliable" Patrol included Alonzo Africa, Stefan Gerek, Richard Masters, Brandon McDonough, Andrew Petersen, and Jason Rocha. All of these boys pushed themselves to the limit in conquering the course. The "Super Team" included Kyle Altabef, James Amato, Paul Amato, Aaron Miner, Zachary Miner, Joseph Torres, and Jon Toto, and these boys came closing to winning the top prize as they finished the tough course in less than one hour and fifteen minutes. The fourth group, "The old Guys" was made up of adults, led by Charlie "Crazy Legs" Mohacsi, and Docs King and Crapotta. Though they were the last group of the four to report in, such can be blamed on their good deeds of helping out wayward scouts along the way.

The New Guys

All in all everyone had a great weekend and as they headed out everyone was talking about improving their skills for next year in hopes of taking home the gold.

Jake Rides in the Humvee

West Point Team Reliable Briefing