Jamboree is over…Scouts return home

Late on Wednesday night (24 July), the 260 Scouts from the Northeast Illinois Council’s Jamboree Contingent (including 17 Scouts from Troop 96) returned home from ten fantastic days at the Summit in West Virginia.  This was the first ever Jamboree at the Bechtel Summit Reserve and what an event it was.  Almost 40,000 Scouts, leaders and staff enjoyed this new premiere Scouting base.  We couldn’t do all the activities, but we sampled a lot:  the archery course, the stand-up paddleboards, the waterfront obstacle course, rock climbing, scuba diving, pioneering, service project, ropes course, a rock concert, fireworks, patch trading, world record-breaking, meeting and patch trading with Scouts from all across the U.S. and foreign countries, mud slides…

Did Scouts stand in long lines? Yes. Did they get dirty? Yes. Did some miss out on doing things they had hoped to do? Yes. Did they dislike some of the food? Yes. Are their hiking boots so mud saturated they are unusable now? Yes. Did they have the best time of their short lives, and accumulate a ton of memories and skills that will stay with them forever? YES.

Check out the pictures on the BSA’s Flickr site to get some idea of all that happened.