PHILMONT CHRONICLES

Today we left for Philmont. We got up around five (yes, in the morning) to get to the airport. We said good-bye and went to board our flight. Everything went smoothly. We got on the plane and were all sitting next to each other (a slight miracle)! We had an, at best, uneventful flight. However, they didn't show a movie even though there was a screen. This made Matt Porwoll quiet angry. After many games of cards we arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. We had thirty minutes before we had to board our flight. We literally ran to Burger King to get something to eat. There I discovered that my wallet had slipped out of my pocket. My dad ran back, got it and we met back at the gate. We had a whopping five minutes to spare. We got on, and got situated and got ready to leave. We sat for a while and then took-off. This flight was extremely boring. We where all spread out over the plane, so no cards this flight. I had a window seat and had a great view. I saw more agricultural fields than I ever knew was possible in three hours. I sat and stared out the window in a semiconscious daze the whole way. When we were approaching Albuquerque there were lots of beautiful mountain views. It was a very pretty flight. We went to the baggage claim where we were supposed to meet the Cook's. They weren't there so we cut open the garbage bags on our packs. They still were not there so we went out to the buses and loaded ours. We got on the bus and gave them another ten minutes. They did not come so we had to leave. We were told they could catch a later bus out to Philmont. We drove for three hours. We got to drive through scenic little Cimmaron and then finally after months of preparation (drum roll please) into Philmont. (See Photo 1) We got off the buses and got our tent assignments. We dropped our bags and went to check in. Here we met our ranger. His name was Alan Burdette. Kyle then bought the necessary maps from the trading post. Matt was doing some check-in procedures at Logistics. Alan made us drink a quart of water before dinner. He said that he "couldn't stress the importance of water out here. It cures almost everything."[ Later we found this to be true]. We then went to dinner. It consisted of some meat paddy ?? , potatoes and gravy, cake, salad, and peanut butter bread (which was at every meal). Overall it was not too bad. Since after dinner all of the offices where closed we had some free time on our hands. We went to the trading post and bought a few things. For the most part however we went to the Snack Bar and played cards. We then went to the religious service. It was beautiful. The Protestant chapel was outdoors facing a beautiful mesa. Then we had a campfire put on by the staff. It was great - it told about the history of Philmont. We all had a good time. The Cooks came in right after the campfire. We were all very relieved to see them. We introduced them to Alan and then showed them around. We had a great time. Then we went back to tent city. (See Photo 2) The stars were out but there where too many lights to really stargaze. Justin and I got his weather radio out and got the forecast for tomorrow. The weather was good. We then turned in for a good nights sleep.

We woke up and had a little time to do last minute packing before breakfast. We also managed a small, cold shower before breakfast. We went to the mess hall to eat. For breakfast we had eggs (well, sort of), ham, potatoes, and juice. It was eatable, but not as good as last night. We went back and cleared our tents out so we could check out of them. We then went to services. Here we checked out our dining fly and several other pieces of gear. Then we got our food for the next four days. It was not all appetizing but didn't look too bad. We then went to lunch. It consisted of mainly a pseudo-rib sandwich. It was actually good. Then we went to the medical lodge. Everyone passed and even Ted didn't have trouble. However they did make Mitch carry an inhaler because he had bronchial problems as a child. Then we went to the museum across the road. It had a library on the area. I bought my grandfather a bolo tie there. Then we got our packs for a shakedown. We found a shady, grassy spot and ripped our packs apart. It was here that Alan made the long withstanding joke " Are you going to pack that thing over the Tooth, boy." This came around because Ted had two loadbearing carabiners to hang his stuff off his pack. They each weight quite a bit. Ted dropped one of these and several other things. There were a couple of things that Alan wanted me to drop but I didn't. Now I realize that Alan was right. Like my rain pants. If you have long pants, rain pants, and gators you need to drop something. If you drop the long pants you can still have your rain pants but not both. If you drop the rain pants you still have long pants and gators. There are ways like this that you can use one item as another and drop the other. It will lighten your load considerably and make your trip more enjoyable. After the pack check we reloaded our packs and went over to the welcome center. Our bus was waiting for us. We loaded our packs into the bus. Then we prepared to leave for the trail. Once we were all seated Alan got up front and showed us some of the things on the "bus tour". We drove for a while and got to the Cimarroncito turnaround. We jumped off and got our packs. The bus left and we where alone. Alan taught us several things about using map and compass. One that was very important and unique to the area is the declination. For all of Philmont it is 10.5 degrees East. This is critical for the pathfinder. After that we had to find the trailhead. Alan didn't know and I suspect if he did he wouldn't tell us. He just sat back and said to use the map. We found it after a little while and finally we were off. We hiked a long, hot mile on a road to Cathedral Rock. This is where the Motley Crew was staying. We turned uphill and hiked on a nice trail for two miles. On the way Alan taught us about stream crossings, fence crossings, gates, and any other crossing we might encounter. When we got to Ute springs Alan taught us about setting up the tents, clean our dishes, and throw the bear bag rope. He cooked dinner that night so Justin could see how. That night the crew next to us had seen a bear out behind camp. It was a little unnerving to be sitting around eating with a bear not too far away. After dinner we hung the bear bags, and went to sleep. Tomorrow will be a tough day.

We decided to do our conservation work early so we will not have to do it on our day into Miner's Park. So, we broke camp early and headed for the Cito conservation site. It took us fifteen minutes of walking to get there. We sat at the Con. site for a little while until the conservationist arrived. She was a very interesting person. She was from Sweden and she had a tendency to say clichés such as "smooth" or "hard-core". We worked for three and a half hours. We knocked down an incredible ten trees in this time and cleared a twenty foot section of trail. (See Photo 3) To knock down a tree, there was an interesting procedure. First you would dig around the roots of the tree with a pick ax. Then you would cut all the roots in the same manner. Then, hoping that the tap root was all that was holding it up. We would push as hard as possible until the tree falls. Then the haulers came in. They would cut the tree into smaller sections and haul it into the woods out of sight of the trail. I was pretty useless because my arm was in a full cast, but I tried. When the con. worker came back she was ecstatic. She thought we had done a wonderful job. By this time we were all hungry and decided to eat lunch then and there. During lunch Alan taught us about first aid. Then we started hiking. We had seven and half miles ahead of us and it was already afternoon. It was also supposed to be very steep. We started hiking. It was going to be a long haul.

After a long hike and we were nearing Sawmill. We had been able to hear the 30-06's shooting for a while now and were pushing hard. Everyone wanted to get there and tiredness was beginning to take its effect on me and I am sure everyone else too. Then Ted had an asthma attack. This combined with the rapid elevation gain and him carrying too much weight, made Ted become quite sick. We sat down and let him rest and get his breathing back to normal while Alan sang to him. After a while we started walking and shortly arrived in Sawmill. Sawmill is a beautiful camp and it even has hot showers. (See Photo 4) The staff cabin looks down between two ridges into the flat land, quite picturesque. Ted sat down on the swing and we listened to the staff speech. His name was Nat - he was acting quite crazy. He started to show us to our campsite. When we were heading up the steep hill, Ted sat down. He said he felt faint and decided it better to sit down than to fall over. He remained with the staff while we went to camp. The mood was quite somber. Ted came up later and vomited several times on the way up. He said that made him feel better. We ate Louisiana red beans and rice (we regretted it later). Then we feel asleep.

We got up and Ted went down to the staff with some of the adults to decide if he should go on. Now, back in camp Justin, Phil, and I were trying to drown our fears. We sat down at the spigot next to the water tank and drank for the hour and a half Ted was gone. I drank in the range of two gallons. Now, that might seem very hard, but if you drink a quart every ten minutes or so you will clean out your system. Then you can drink a lot and it just keeps coming out. Alan gave us the Wilderness Pledge and left. (See Photo 5) Ted decided to go on, but dropped his tent, and at 9:30 we got back on the trail. We hiked down the hill about to the staff cabin and then we got on a four wheel drive road. This road was probably the hardest thing we saw. It was very steep, no downhill or flat, and very hot and sunny (this is the road that spawned my famous saying "contour lines bite"). This road would have probably killed us, or at least me, if we had not seen a group of con. workers. They told us about a trail that was not on the map. This let us walk on a contour around the mountain instead of climbing up it. We stopped for lunch. We were all dragging pretty badly. We finally reached the point where we were supposed to bush wack several hundred yards to a trail. The con. workers truck was there also. We walked off the trail ten feet or so in the correct direction and a small trail went up the hill. We were about to go up it when Phil had a massive nose bleed. We could not get it to stop for about twenty minutes. When we were about to get it stopped the con. workers came by. They told us that we were on the wrong trail and the one they told us about was farther down. That trail we almost went up was supposed to be very steep. It went for two miles up the mountain. Phil and his nose bleed saved the day. We dropped down and low and behold there was a trail. It was flat and just skirted around the mountain we had been trying to climb up. This brought us in to Thunderhead gap, the same place the other trail brought us but without the steep uphill and then the downhill. Then we started to climb Commanche. It was a bear. Here my dad started to feel rather sick. He had been carrying in excess of sixty and was getting altitude sickness. This was very unnerving for me because I knew my dad had been higher than this without any problems. So I took his tent. This put me at one full tent, the poles and stakes of another, plus extra water and three meals. Which put me carrying over half my body weight (the only way I made it was the extra energy bars that no one else wanted, so I ate them). It was a very long hike. There were four or five switch-backs to the top. The switch-backs out west are very different than the ones we were used to. They are about a half mile to a mile in length before you switched the other way. We got to the top of Commanche and ate dinner because it was pretty late and we did not want to have to cook when we got to camp. There was a great view, but it was hard to enjoy. We got going and dropped off the top to the gap and started climbing up Mt. Phillips. It was only a half mile, but it was very steep. I just plodded along looking down and finally we reached the top. Now it was 8:30 and getting dark. After 10 hours of strenuous hiking we were exhausted. We found a campsite and dropped our packs. We got all the smellables and went to hang the bear bags. I said that I would scout out and find the bear cable. I was shining my flashlight around looking for the cable when suddenly down the hill about fifty yards something reflected back. I shined my light on it for about a minute wondering what it could be. I thought it might be a lost flashlight that someone found and put in the crook of a tree or something like that when suddenly it moved. I remembered that Alan said never to shine a light in a bear's eyes. I didn't really think it was a bear, but I stopped and turned off my light anyway. I waited several minutes until I turned it back on and the thing was gone. We then found the bear cable and hung up the bear bag. We then turned in for a good night's sleep.

We woke up after a little longer sleep than normal and ate breakfast. My dad was still feeling weak. We divvied up our food and loaded our packs before breakfast. The main course for breakfast were Stoker Bars. I had two and felt great. We strapped on our packs. My dad said he felt better when he got his pack on, something was a little wrong there. We started to hike the one hundred yards up to the top of Mt. Phillips. (See Photo 6) There were incredible views off the summit we could see Baldy and Wheeler. The wind was quite fierce and the flags at the top were fluttering like crazy. We stayed as long as we could and then got moving. We hiked down the incredibly steep trail. (See Photo 7) We were so glad we did not have to come up it. We soon reached Clear Creek where our activity was. We saw the Motley Crew there and then went up the hill to do some black powder shooting. My dad snored through the instructors safety talk which was quite funny. We each got to shoot twice before we had to go. It was a lot of fun. When we were heading out we talked to one of the instructors at the mountain man program. We told him what another staffer thought of him and almost did not come out alive. We hiked down the dead flat trail and reached camp in no time. It looked like it was going to rain, but it was nothing. We washed off the trail dust and sat around camp before going to bed.

We got up ate breakfast and broke down camp. We got off about 8:00 and then we headed for Phillips Junction. We ate lunch at Phillips Junction. We raided the commissary and bought Cheetos and Skittles. We picked up our food and had to sneak the spreadables back into the box. We then headed out to go into Apache Camp. The hike to Apache was a very interesting one. There were lots of stream crossings and it was very flat. It was very hot and I had to run cold water through my cast to keep it cool. We saw a cross on the other side of the bank. The rangers say there are many unmarked graves in the back country. I think this was one of them. The last part of the hike was a little uphill, but we took it in stride. We then strolled into to Apache. Apache camp is a huge camp with two interconnected meadows making it up. The meadows were huge it took five minutes to walk from our camp to the staff cabin, even though it was in sight of our camp. We set up camp and cooked dinner. The advisors got to go to advisors coffee. The staff had made chili and other things for them. This made us a little mad. We ate dinner and then went out into the field to stargaze once it got dark enough. It was amazing! There were lots of stars, satellites, and shooting stars. We saw nine shooting stars. We then went to bed.

Today is layover day! We slept late and ate a leisurely breakfast. We then went to flint knapping. Flint knapping is when you use bits of antlers to make arrowheads. It was great fun. I made an arrowhead that slightly resembles the Philmont one. We then got to go into their teepee. They had lots of Indian artifacts and skins. They even had an albino buffalo skin. Then we washed our clothes on a washboard. We then ate lunch and started to collect wood for our sweat lodge. We collected a huge stack of wood. Then I got to dig out the fire pit and build the fire. We put volcanic rocks in the fire so that they would heat up. Then we got to run around with fire buckets and put out any fires the sparks created. After an hour or so we took out the rocks and put them in buckets. Then we took the bucket of rocks and another bucket with water in it into the sweat lodge. The scout lodge was about nine feet across and we had fourteen scouts in it. It is made of canvas on a frame and anchored around the edges. Then we proceeded to sprinkle water on the rocks to give off steam. We stayed in for fifteen minutes or so. Then we came out and dumped a bucket of cold water on ourselves. It felt great. Then we ate dinner and without knowing it the Great Bear Bag Fiasco was about to begin. Another rope had gotten tangled with ours and we had to rethrow it. It took an hour and a half to get it rethrown. In the dark Kyle stubbed his toe on a root and it was pretty bad. Then a staffer came around and saw a peach can on the ground. It was not ours, but he made us take down the bags and put it with our stuff. Then we went to sleep.

6/27 Day 8 - Go into Fish Camp elevation 8900. Learn to fly fish; several have to go back to Phillips Junction for food.

We had a very easy hike to Fish Camp. It was only two miles and all flat or down hill. Upon arriving we took the lodge tour. The lodge was really neat - it had all sorts of taxidermy and other interesting things. It was very nice. We set up camp and then did fly tying. First you started with a hook and then by wrapping things to it you got a fly. It was very fun, but hard in a cast. Then we went to eat lunch. During lunch we had a discussion about who would go back to get food at Phillips Junction. Kyle and Ted declined to go after saying they would. Kyle had hurt his toe the night before and Ted did not want to hike that fast. Justin said he was not getting enough free time to write in his journal. I just laid low. I figured since I was not going to be able to rock climb that I would fly fish. In retrospect I realize that I should have gone, but it did not seem like the thing to do at the time. So my dad, Matt P., Mitch, and Mr. Porwoll set out for Phillips Junction. I went fly fishing, but I really was pretty down. All I did was lose my fly that I was going to give to my grandfather. They came back and seemed pretty mad. My dad and I went fishing. He had a big bite, but lost the leader trying to set the hook. I let him use mine and just hung around. Ted caught a small rainbow. My dad and I got it off the hook and it eventually swam off. Mr. Wright had caught three this afternoon. We cooked dinner and the advisors went to there coffee. Then we turned in.

6/28 Day 9 - Into Abreu elevation 7200 - Mexican cantina, burro racing, and buffalo meat dinner.

We climbed out of Fish Camp and followed the Rayado Creek. We were a lot higher than it and it was gorgeous. In one spot we took off our packs and headed onto a rock off the trail a little ways. There was a beautiful view of the Rayado Creek. It was a long ways down, but would have been a nice swimming hole. We continued on and burned through the 8 miles to Old Abreu. We stopped here and had lunch. I was feeling pretty lousy because of the heat. Mr. Porwoll, my dad, Matt, and I went down to the creek to see the fossil beds. While the adults were looking for them Matt and I got in. It was great! They found the fossil beds and we searched through them for a couple of minutes. We found some neat fossils. We then headed out to New Abreu where we were camping. We got there shortly because it was only a half mile. Matt, Mitch, Ted, and I got showers. They felt great. Then we went to the cantina and hung out. The root beer at the cantina was great, it was even cold! We were all excited about getting to eat the Mexican cantina dinner. We sent Justin up to help cook it, but we were sorely disappointed when he came trudging back with some ground buffalo, taco shells, and sopapilla mix. It turned out that we were wrong in thinking we got to be served by the staff. So we started to cook our buffalo. Pretty soon we had real tacos. We decided that the sopapillas were going to be too messy to cook. Kyle and I were on clean up that night. It was a mess! I think I can still smell buffalo in my bowl now. We went to the burro racing. It was going to be a brutal race, and the winner got a free pitcher of root beer! We picked out our burro, his name was Boy George because he had pink medicine around his eye. Phil loved him greatly and gave him a lot of hugs. (See Photo 8) The course went down a 4-wheel drive road and then back up it. We got off to a good start and were in the lead for a while. The Motley's ran into the ditch and would not get out. We were nosed out by the Sandy Springs Crew. It was a great race and lots of fun. After that we went to the cantina where we got root beer and played cards. My dad was playing dice. We had a great time and returned to the campsite to get some sleep around 9:45. The staff at base camp told us that tomorrow was going to be a hard day, we wanted to be ready for it.

6/29 Day 10 - Into Aguila and then on to Bear Caves elevation 8400- Bouldering!

We got up early and ate a hot breakfast - that is a rarity. We got on the trail by 7:30, after meeting a very angry CD. Four crews had left trash on her porch and she was angry! We started our hike up to Aguila. It was two and a half miles, but the steepness we were expecting never materialized. We rolled into Aguila before lunch so we decided to press on another mile or so to Bear Caves camp. The hike to Bear Caves was a little harder than we expected, but we made it in time for lunch anyway. (See Photo 9) We ate a nice relaxed lunch while Matt P. tried to stalk mini-bears. We sat around and talked. It felt great to just be able to take it easy. Then I gave my dad the idea that we should try to get a group together to go up to the top of the mesa that we were camped on. We stuck around for another hour before we decided to head up the mesa. Mr. Porwoll, Matt, Ted, Phil, my dad, and I went. It took about an hour to get up the mesa. We first started out by climbing up a ridge. Then we encountered our first boulders. We then started up the real boulder field. It was great. There were huge boulders and magnificent views. (See Photo 10) It was my favorite part of the entire trip. When we got to the top we yelled down to the meadow. We saw Justin and everyone else come out in to the meadow. They were tiny! We then cut across the mesa in a straight North line. When we got to the other side, there were equally impressive views of Uracca mesa and the flat land. To get back all we had to do was walk in a straight South line. This method put us within ten feet of where we had started to cut across the mesa. We then hopped down the boulders. We decided to drop off the ridge and run in to camp to scare the people there. When we were getting close to camp we came across some very large droppings. We studied them for a while and determined them to be bear droppings. We came in to camp, but they saw us before we could scare them. We ate a great dinner. I remembered a tiny thing of Tabasco sauce that I brought. Along with Phil's cayan pepper it really spiced up the meal. After dinner we went to play some football in the meadow. For a ball we used a pack cover that was stuffed into its sack. It worked pretty good. Once it got dark we all turned in.

6/30 Day 11 - To Miner's Park and on to Shaefers Pass elevation 8787 - Rock Climbing and Pemican Bar Challenge.

We got to sleep in all the way to 6:30. The hike to Miner's was very nice. It was scenic and pretty easy. We walked into Miner's around 9:45. The staff was crazy! Noya, the assistant CD, loved chocolate. She was pretty strange. They were telling us the rules for their camp when she asked if anyone would like to take the Pemican Bar Challenge. I foolishly volunteered. The object of the Pemican Bar Challenge is to see how quickly you can choke down a Pemican Bar. You are allowed to use water, because they want to keep the deaths to a minimum. I got it down in around 2 minutes. The camp record was 1 minute and 15 seconds. We went to our camp and were lounging around when the news came that Michael Lockhart had broken the record. In fact he shamed it. He ate it in 45 seconds. We sat around and played some hearts while others slept. We also got an itinerary change, so we could go farther on up to Shaefer's Pass. (See Photo 11) When the time came we went to the rock climbing program. Mr. Porwoll, Matt, Mitch, Ted, my dad, and I went. Mr. Porwoll and I decided not to climb. We watched Mr. Owens and Scott climb at the same time. They were trying to push each other off! When we were done climbing we headed off to Shaefer's Pass. It was pretty steep. We saw a couple of deer on the way up. It was about an hour up. Mrs. Cook and Justin made a great dinner of turkey and noodles. My dad and I crawled into our tent just as the wind was picking up.

7/1 Day 12 - To Base Camp! - We hike the Tooth, eat at Base Camp and the Villa Philamonte, campfire ceremony.

We were up at 4 in the morning to get an early start. We managed to get on the trail by 5:00. We hiked up Shaefer's Peak and on to the Tooth Ridge. We ate breakfast at a break in the trail with a great view. We then got back on the trail. We passed several things that looked like the Tooth, but were not. (See Photo 12) We then hiked about another hour on to the real Tooth. The Motley's hiked right on down the trail. They apparently missed the turn off. When we got there they were coming back up the trail to find the Tooth side trail. They claimed they never missed it. We hiked about 400 yards up to the top. It was very steep. There were incredible views from the top. We could see the Cimarroncito Turnaround were we started. We could even see a tiny yellow speck, a school bus full of scouts about to start hiking, moving along the road. We went down and found out that Ted had a summer sausage. We threatened to throw him off the Tooth if he did not split it with us. We each got 2 pieces and then moved on. It was only 2 hours of hiking to Base Camp, but I think it was one of the longest 2 hours of my life. We were all expecting go to the snack bar and gorge ourselves. The expectation of showers also made the hike longer. We hiked through scrub oak on the very bottom of the Tooth ridge for what seemed like hours. It was hot and we could actually see the people in base camp. We finally made it to the "You Made It' gate. It was great. We all dropped our packs in a pack line and headed for the cafeteria. We had corndogs. I normally cannot stand corndogs, but these were the best corndogs I ever had. We got to our assigned tents and dropped our gear in them. After staying around base camp for a while we went to see the Villa Philamonte. It was incredible! The house was chock full of art. We then went to the Trading Post and the Snack Bar. After that we had a religious service and then the campfire program. The campfire program was great. The staff started playing "Freebird" we promptly took off the heads to our mag-lites and waved them in the air. They also gave us our Arrowhead Patches. We were very careful with these because you can only get one if you have hiked Philmont. We joked that if you lost the patch you had to hike it again to get another patch. It was great fun. We went to sleep in our tents. It would be the last night we spent in Philmont.

7/2 Day 13 - Pack up and go home.

We had to get up around 4:00 again. We had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. We packed up, ate breakfast, wrapped our packs in trash bags and duct tape, and were ready to go at 7:00. We got on the bus and watched the movie "City Slickers". Matt was very relieved to see a movie. We got to the airport around 10:30 and went through the lines to get on-board. We managed to get something to eat before we had to get on the plane. The flight was rather boring. We did not watch a movie and Ted fell asleep next to me. I looked out the window the whole way and dozed. We finally were home, and it was great. My dad and I got a ride home from the Porwoll's and then went out to eat. On the way we dropped our film to be developed. I ate a huge bacon cheeseburger and my dad had a steak. We went home and I slept for 14 hours. It felt wonderful.

Photographs

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