Alert Cadet Father Son Winter Encampment.

Hey, this is Ben signing on to tell y'all about the Mitton boys' (Dad, Reuben, Matthew, Caleb, and myself) recent trip to Wisconsin:

Last Wednesday, we left with a car full of guys and a TON of gear. Destination: Wilderness Bible Camp Wisconsin. (About 2 hours southeast of Duluth.) We have not been to an Alert Cadet Father son camp since 2001, and all of us were looking forward to spending 4 days with each other and other likeminded fathers and sons.

The camp is nestled back in the woods, and has rustic log cabins for winter trips... no electricity or running water, but we did have some propane lights and a huge wood stove. There is a pretty good sledding hill by the main lodge, and a skating rink out on the lake the camp is situated on.

Over the 4 days we were there, we learned sawyer skills, went sledding, cut wood for the camp, played foosball, visited with the 31 other fathers and sons, and spent some quality time with Dad.

Every day started with a wake up at 5:45 in the morning, followed by a morning wisdom search. Before breakfast, we had PT led by myself and another ALERT man from Unit 39, Spc. Kilpatrick. Leading PT was a new and fun experience for me. It was a little different than the PT I'm used to... the ages of the men ranged from 8 to 55! At 9:00 Thursday morning, we started the class room part of the Cadet crisis response sawyer training. The training went from 9 till 3 when we had free time to sled, hike, ect. until we were called for supper and the evening message at the main lodge.

The saw training was actually pretty good. Lots of hands on stuff for even the little guys. Everybody took apart and adjusted the bar and chain, cleaned the air filter, learned how to adjust the idle, and the ones who were strong enough practiced actually starting and using the saw. It was obviously alot of review for those of us who have used saws, but there were some guys there who had never touched one before. We cut 5 cords of wood for the camp Friday afternoon, which they said would be enough to supply one of the larger log cabins for the rest of the winter.

On Saturday morning we had a rather unique snow PT before cleaning the cabins and heading home.

It was a profitable time with a lot of good teaching and training. We praise the Lord for the safety he gave while using the saws, chipper, and splitter!

We didn't get many good pictures, especially of sledding, PT, and cutting wood, but I'll put on what we did get along with a pic of my stitches.... no it wasn't from using a saw!