Laurel Caverns & White Water Rafting at Ohiopyle

Over the weekend of May 31st to June 2nd Troop 201 went again to the foaming, churning, white water. This time, we went to Ohiopyle State Park, and stayed at the campgrounds inside the state reserve. On Friday, we all endured the long trip down past Pittsbourgh, and near to the West Virgina border. Through dark twisty roads we went with hardly a sign of civilization in sight. We finally got to the Ohiopyle State Park office, and found out that they were experiencing power difficulties. We went to our campsite, unloaded our tents and set up camp.
The next morning, we were scheduled to go to Laurel Caverns in Smithsport PA, about a half hour from Ohiopyle. As we were heading out of the park, we saw that we were not in fact in the middle of nowhere, as we had thought the last night, but in a rather populated suburbia. When we got to Smithsport, some of us went down the caves, spleunking to the bottom. The rest of the troop took the guided tour, and played some 'putt putt' in the caved golf course. When we got back, some people went around the park, and saw Cucumber Falls. After that, we cooked some chicken wings, and Mr. Young, our former Scoutmaster, nearly singed his eyebrows while preforming his near infamous "Mr. Young" fire show, including a ten foot tall fireball shooting a good twenty feet into the air. After the excitement of the night quieted down, we went to bed and got some sleep for the next day.
On Sunday, we went down to the little town of Ohiopyle to get into the rafts and head downstream. We went with an outfit called Wilderness Voyageurs. They did not provide us with guides in each raft, so we were a little aprehensive going. However, the guides did come along in kayaks, and told us how to get through the rapids, even though some of us didn't go the right way. We had a picnic lunch on the shore, and went through rapids about class III, not very rough. When we got back on dry land, we were glad to get into our cars and head for home. This trip was fun, and was almost as memorable as the trip to West Virginia, if only because of Mr. Young's fire show.

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July 2002