Klondike Derby, January 24, 2015

We spent Friday night before the derby at Ensign Ranch in the comfort of a bunkhouse.  This year there was a little snow around the edge of the field.  Temperature was in the 40s and it was wet. The boys had a great time and won several ribbons. More details with pictures below.

Piling on Bro Hull to test the limits of the chair

More piling on (not an official Klondike Derby event)

Nice quarters

Slippery floors are fun to slide on

Breakfast of champions

Lined up in the middle of the masses

Plan B. Lined up at the edge to avoid getting trampled

Waiting to start

New and unadvertised event - tie specified knots on sled, and then pick up sled by the ropes

Moving to starting line

Carrying the sled - easy.

Be Prepared event - getting the rules

Rules for the game

Everybody puts one foot on the wood and picks up the other foot

Ice Rescue. Tie short ropes together, throw to victim on sled, and pull to safety

Tying short ropes together

More

Almost done

Getting ready to throw

Victim's perspective

Almost made it

Excellent throw, but if you look carefully, you can see that the rope just above the tan pants is no longer connected to the rope above it

So our victim got one end of the rope, but it was no longer connected to his rescuers. Bummer.

Compass course. We did great and got second place.

Mail delivery. Deliver mail bag and pick up new one

and get back as quickly as possible. We did great, and got second place.

Egg fry.  We did amazingly well. Started our fire with no matches - just a spark on a cotton ball, with birch bark and cedar shavings

Cooked the egg in the thinnest metal possible

The fire provided some welcome heat in the cold mist

Cooked and flipped expertly

The rules said our Patrol Leader had to eat the egg, but other guys were envious

We forgot to bring a fork, but that didn't slow us down. Unfortunately, the judge was a bit of a grinch, so we didn't get a ribbon here.

First aid. Victim was trampled by a moose, and had a broken arm and broken leg

No problem

We know just what to do

Let's get that arm immobilized

Now let's get ready to transport him

Everybody lift on 3

Cover the victim to keep him warm

Great job! We got third place.

Flagpole raising

We had to lash two poles and our patrol flag together

to make one really tall flagpole

then raise it up

and tie it to stakes. We pre-tied the guy lines and drove in the stakes

so had to make some adjustments after we got the pole up

The end result was perfect!

Attempting to go back to our bunkhouse for lunch, but we got bullied into participating in the meaningless race when everybody else finished the events

so we showed them!

We won their meaningless race!

We also got FIRST PLACE in Knot Tying - my favorite event to win, but I got no pictures of it.

M&Ms after a trip through the washing machine.  They were our "gold nuggets" we won, and the bag was in my coat pocket when someone who loves me was being helpful and washed my coat.  They still tasted the same.