Club 4565
Camps and Caches

This year our Cadet club again attended the four-day campout with the Eastern Council of the Calvinist Cadet Corps. Some folks have stopped to ask me, “How was the campout?” Here is a brief look at what happened.
Friday, June 29 was arrival and set-up at Camp Yaw Paw. Camp Yaw Paw is a little used Boy Scout Camp that the Eastern Council has rented the past few years. The road into camp is one lane wide and crosses two wooden plank bridges. This is a “carry in/carry out” campground, which means all vehicles must remain in a parking area, and all camping gear must be carried in to the camp sites and trash must be carried out.
Eastern council makes a point of doing camp activities that will help the boys complete merit badges. At our club’s campsite we taught camp cooking, axemanship, and fire building. The whole camp participated in archery and marksmanship training.
It’s not all “work” at camp. During free time we headed to the lake for swimming and fishing. In years past we’ve run a fishing contest during the entire four days of camp.
This year each club was required to build a rocket using a two-liter beverage bottle. The rockets were propelled by water and compressed air. The rockets were partially filled with water and set on the launcher. A counselor pumped air into the rocket using a bicycle tire pump. After a short countdown, the rocket was released and, on average, they rose a little higher than the surrounding trees.
Our club enjoyed hikes in the woods and wondered at God’s creation. The hikes were also used to teach navigation skills such as map reading and compass reading. This year we added a new element to hiking — geocaching. This activity ties in nicely to the new GPS merit badge. GPS was developed for the US military and is now available for the public. Hand-held GPS receivers tell you the longitude, latitude, elevation, traveling speed, as well as the distance and direction to final coordinates
Geocaching is locating hidden caches using clues about their location and the longitude/latitude coordinates. When you hike with a group of boys and tell them that they will be looking for a cache or “hidden treasure,” it makes the hike more interesting.
We hiked along a portion of the Cannonball Trail. I was told that this trail was used during the revolutionary war as a route to transport munitions for George Washington’s Continental Army. The Cadets were shown the trail map we would be using and what trail markers to look for. A co-worker of mine, Rich Neely, and fellow counselor, Randy Hagedoorn, each had a GPS receiver that they let the Cadets use. The GPS receiver displayed the straight-line direction and distance to the cache, but the trail map told us that a straight line would have taken us across Bear Swamp Lake. Using both GPS and map we were able to negotiate our way around lakes, hills, valleys, and streams to find the cache. We looked for and located two caches during our hike. A cache is typically a box or jar that has been placed there by other hikers who then posted it’s coordinates on the internet so that others can find it. Each hiker who finds the cache can take something from the cache but in-turn leaves something for the next group who locates it. We left a Cadet carabiner in the cache. We plan to use the GPS merit badge in urban locations as well as in the woods, since geocaches are hidden in cities, towns, parks, and forests all over the world. In New Jersey alone, there are more than 3300 hidden caches, with more being added every day. We used this new technology to help the boys experience the beauty and wisdom of God’s creation. The boys also learned how new technology (GPS) can work with old technology (maps) to help you reach your goal. For other counselors who want to work on the GPS merit badge, membership in Geocaching.com is free and very helpful.
The Calvinist Cadet Corps is a living organization, and this is one way that it has adapted with the changing times.
Bill Boonstra
Cadet Club 4565 (North Haledon, NJ)