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Your Overnight Adventure Starts Here!
As a member of Scouting, Nobscot is your hiking and camping destination. Camping is a great way for Scouts to learn to appreciate and respect for nature, develop confidence, explore new skills, and learn independence, empowerment and leadership. Outdoors, in the woods, scouts learn to “Be Prepared”.
Here’s what Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting had to say about camping:
“The open-air is the real objective of Scouting and the key to its success.”
“The man who is blind to the beauties of nature has missed half the pleasure of life.”
“Camp is what the boy looks forward to in Scouting.”
View from Tipling Rock.
Nobscot includes many large campsite areas devoted to tenting, 12 Adirondack shelters, 14 Cabins/Lodges, and plenty of space for Wilderness tenting within over 450 acres of beautiful forested land with a varied topology. All sites Cabin and Lean-Tos have suitable flat ground for some amount of tenting nearby. Listed tenting capacity estimates are approximates, since actual capacity depends heavily on unit characteristics, preferences, and activities. It’s a good practice to scope out any planned site ahead of time whenever possible.
Wherever you decide to overnight – Nobscot is a place for scouts to learn and practice Leave No Trace™ principles! While we enjoy the natural world, Leave No Trace™, low-impact and dispersed camping teaches us how to minimize our impact on the land.
Check out the descriptions for each location to more fully understand a particular site’s features, tenting capacity, and level of “wilderness” experience that each provides.
Nobscot puts the OUTING in ScOUTING!
If you have not been to Nobscot recently, you will notice ongoing substantial improvements made since 2019 by the Nobscot Hammer Crew and the Nobscot Alumni Association. Click here for more information.
🏁 Start Here
🏁 Start Here
❓ First, answer these questions:
❓ First, answer these questions:
Do you want to stay in a cabin or lodge, camp at a site with an Adirondack/LeanTo, tent in a designated tenting site, or discover your own Leave-No-trace tenting site?
How many youth? How many adults? How many of each are male or female?
What’s the experience level of your unit’s members?
What are your goals? A trip for novices? A backpacking experience? Remote Wilderness Tenting? Leave No Trace™ training? Advancement? Leadership development? Or just a fun time?
Do you want to give some service hours to the Camp?
Once you have a good idea about your plans, this guide will step you through the decision-making process.
Be sure and check out the information on the Plan your Visit menu and familiarize yourself with our Rules, Policies and Tips.
Is a need-based grant needed by your Mayflower Council unit to cover the cost of reserving a cabin or lean-to at Nobscot Scout Reservation? If so, click here.
When you’re ready you can easily go to Making Reservations!
📣 Male/Female and Youth Protection
📣 Male/Female and Youth Protection
Safe scouting and youth protection are a critical part of Scouting. See https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/gss/ Please contact Mayflower Council or your unit leader for additional information.
Where separate accommodations cannot be provided due to group size or limited availability, modifications must be in accordance with BSA’s Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse Policies: https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/gss/gss01/#a
Here is some Nobscot-specific information which may be helpful:
Most Cabins and Lodges have a separate “adult room” with 2-4 bunks.
All Cabins and Lodges allow for some tenting outside the cabin.
Some Cabins and Lodges are sufficiently large to allow for partitioning to be setup by the unit.
Some Cabins, LeanTos and Tentsites are in sufficiently close proximity to one another to provide a group experience while allowing for separate sleeping accommodations for male and female adults as well as for male and female youth.
Please refer to the Mayflower Council and Boy Scouts of America websites for authoritative information on Male/Female and Youth Protection.
⚜️ Leave No Trace
⚜️ Leave No Trace
All scout visits to Nobscot are expected to follow the principles of Leave No Trace ™ (LNT).
LNT reference informaation:
🔥 Tips for outdoor fires
🔥 Tips for outdoor fires
FireRings and FirePits
FireRings and FirePits
A FireRing is an outdoor location for building a fire within a metal ring to contain the fire and a surrounding circle of large rocks. Most FireRings have a cooking grate that flips over to use on half of the fire.
A FirePit is an outdoor location for building a fire within a circle of large rocks.
An outdoor free-standing Chimney is a chimney with a fireplace within it for cooking and small fires.
If you take a few minutes to look under the leaves and pine needles, you will find dozens and dozens of existing FireRings and FirePits all over Nobscot. Principle 5 of Leave-No-Trace camping is to “Minimize Campfire Impacts”. If you are tempted to create a fire outside of an existing FireRing, FirePit, or Fireplace, please do not.
Follow all BSA Camp Fire Safety training, including:
Check for overhanging tree limbs above your planned campfire location.
Never start a campfire near anything that can burn.
Note: The existence of a FirePit built 60 years ago does not make it safe to use today if nature has grown in around it. Please use common sense and your Fire Safety training.
Forest Management
Forest Management
“Green” wood: “Green” means wood that has not had the time (months) to dry thoroughly. If a piece of wood is heavy, it is probably still “green”. If a length of wood has a large diameter and no cracks, it is probably green.
Using green wood is a poor choice for both outdoor fires or indoor wood stoves and fireplaces. Green wood is hard to start, smokes, and spits.
If wood is wet, but not green, split it. The inside sections will probably be dry.
The forest floor provides a wealth of fuel for campfires. Gathering and burning dry, dead wood is an important part of forest management. “Slash piles” found along the trails may be taken for burning. Many sites have split and stacked wood from forest management activities that are available for use in stoves and campfires. Please allow split wood to dry thoroughly before burning. If wood is “rotted”, don’t burn it either indoors or outdoors. “Rotted wood” can give off contaminants when burned.
📍Nobscot Maps
📍Nobscot Maps
This map has higher resolution and is better for printing or when you have a higher bandwidth connection.
🏕️ Your Choice: Lodge/Cabin/Lean-to/Tent - Your Experience
🏕️ Your Choice: Lodge/Cabin/Lean-to/Tent - Your Experience
1. Cabins & Lodges
1. Cabins & Lodges
There are 14 Cabins and Lodges that are described in detail in the Guide. The Cabin and Lodge capacity ranges from 10 to about 40 bunks. All cabins have surrounding areas suitable for some Scouts in tents. The tenting capacity of the cabin sites ranges from a few to tenting for 20+ Scouts.
See Definitions of Nobscot Sites and Structures for the distinction between Cabins and Lodges.
Some cabins are easy walks over predominantly flat terrain while others are good hikes over steep trails.
→ Learn more about Cabins /Lodge and capacity
2. Lean-to Sites
2. Lean-to Sites
A Nobscot lean-to shelter has a wooden floor, a roof and three enclosed sides with the front open. There are 12 lean-to shelters across 7 Sites – most have excellent tenting in the area as well. Units can combine sleeping in the shelter while others tent in the adjacent area.
3. Designated Tenting Sites
3. Designated Tenting Sites
Nobscot has 12 designated tenting sites where your unit can enjoy a broad range of tenting experiences.
Distances to tenting sites range from a flat walk of 1/4 mile to a serious hike for over a half mile up some pretty steep terrain.
Site capacities range from tenting for a single unit of 8-12 to hundreds of scouts in tents.
The wilderness experience ranges from relatively close to the parking lot to deep in the woods.
It’s all here for you to explore and enjoy.
4. Wilderness Tenting
4. Wilderness Tenting
Nobscot Scout Reservation offers many excellent designated tenting areas, but some of the most memorable camping experiences come from Wilderness Tenting. This style of camping allows your unit to select its own campsite in the forest, far from developed areas, while practicing the principles of Leave No Trace™
All Wilderness Tenting at Nobscot MUST follow specific Wilderness Tenting and Leave No Trace™ requirements for Nobscot and include an LNT-trained adult or youth.
🍳 Wood Stove and Cook Stove
🍳 Wood Stove and Cook Stove
Woodstoves and Cookstoves (Differences)
Woodstoves and Cookstoves (Differences)
Differences
Differences
Wood Stove generally, has one door in the front that opens into a large firebox, where medium-sized logs of wood are burned. Provides heat for a good portion of the night due to its much bigger firebox. The top of a Wood Stove generally has little or no space for safe cooking
Cook Stove has a large top surface meant for cooking. Generally, has two front doors. The little door opens into a small firebox, where small-sized pieces of wood are burned. The big door on a Cook Stove is THE OVEN!
When your cabin has both a Wood Stove and a Cook Stove, you will be happier using them each for their specific function. Many people will find value by looking at a YouTube video. Search YouTube for:
Wood Stove
Wood Stove
Wood Stove is an indoor wood burning stove to provide heat within a cabin. A wood stove typically has a firebox that can hold enough wood fuel to last a good part of the night.
Cook Stove
Cook Stove
Cook Stove is an indoor wood burning stove to provide cooking facilities within a cabin. A cook stove has a small firebox that does not hold much and needs to be regularly fed.
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