Last Saturday, several dozens members of Boy Scouts Troop 33 packed up their trailer in the parking lot of Fanwood Presbyterian Church and caravanned six hours north to the heart of the Adirondack Forest Preserve in Long Lake, New York. They left as inexperienced scouts, but returned a week later as seasoned wilderness campers.

Owned and operated by the Patriots Path Council, Boy Scouts of America, the Sabattis campsite is situated on 1,250 acres of wilderness and a 150-acre lake. The annual trip promotes teamwork, personal responsibility, and leadership skills, and is an opportunity for scouts to earn merit badges and personal, Patrol, and Troop advancements, some of which are difficult to achieve at home.

According to local scouts, the Sabattis Adventure Camp is hard-core camping. The boys started their day with a 7 a.m. “Reveille” bugle call, cooked for themselves on open fires or camping stoves, learned about wilderness survival, emergency preparedness, and other nature subjects, as well as participated in a number of outdoor activities, including mountain boarding, climbing towers, mountain biking, shooting (archery, rifles, and shotguns), boating (canoeing, sailing, and kayaking), swimming, hiking, climbing and rappelling. The scouts went to the bathroom in out-house style latrines. There was no cell phone service, video games, or TV, and “lights out” was at 11 p.m. The boys slept in pairs in tents.

Aside from the planned events, Troop 33 also experienced a number of unexpected visitors. The campers had two nights of rain and a few run-ins with bears and leeches, none of which resulted in injury.

“We had a few bears that came near the food and tables,” Kavi Nigam, 12, of Edison, explained excitedly. “We were 5 to 10 feet away from two cubs and one mother. We stayed inside our tents, and the adults banged pots and pans to scare them away. It also rained overnight so we had muddy grounds and our tents got wet. We got wet, but it was okay, not horrible. The trip was a lot of fun. I earned my life saving and first aid merit badges.”

Scotch Plains Boy Scout Ricky Abichandani, 14, agreed.

“It was interesting and different," he said. "It was a good experience to have under your belt. I got four merit badges: emergency preparedness, camping, mammal study, and weather. C.O.P.E. (Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience) was a challenging outdoor experience. We did teambuilding activities. You had to trust your teammates and jump off high places and rappel. It was pretty cool!”

The Boy Scouts caravanned back to the Fanwood Presbyterian Church parking lot this past Saturday tired, happy, and healthy—albeit with backpacks and duffle bags full of dirty, muddy, stinky laundry.

“Everybody hold your nose!” Gary McDermott, assistant scoutmaster, warned as he pulled down the door and unloaded the sleeping bags and camping supplies from Troop 33’s trailer.

McDermott looked on as the scouts grabbed their gear and were welcomed back with giant family hugs.

“It was a good week,” he said. “It rained less up there than here. A lot of the guys achieved a lot of advancements. They got to see some bears and everyone had fun.”