Last weekend our troop competed in the Klondike Derby for the first time in our troop's history! Taking place at Lazarus, this campout gave us a rare opportunity to show our team skills and see how we stack up against other troops in our district. Each troop brings a sled for each patrol to not only carry some of the necessary items we'll need for the stations, but to push it to victory in a special sled race. Each patrol was to rotate in stations to compete in many different scout related activities, to try and get the fastest time out of everybody that came before or after you that day, like a time trial. At each station, you are given gold nuggets based on your team's initial performance, teamworking skills, and scout spirit. These gold nuggets (they are not just spray painted rocks, why would you ask me that??) are used for spending at the auction at the end of the event, to buy tons of snacks and stuff for your troop. Before the auction, the fastest patrols are announced for each event, and extra nuggets are then given to the winning patrols. Our group of 8 scouts showed a very impressive performance for our first time there - we officially won the tripod lashing race and the official 8 knot challenge in easily record time. We also got the fastest times for the "panning for gold" event, and the fastest time in the great sled race. For the rest of the events, we got the maximum amount of nuggets for almost all of them, meaning our troop had the most nuggets in the end. Unanimously with the boys there, this event was one of the best campouts we've been on. We have another Klondike sled, so I'd love to see even more of our troop come compete with us next year, maybe we can come with two full teams for troop 84.