Philmont 2002 (1/8)

Philmont 2002

In July 2002, a group of 24 people from Troop 212 went to Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico. The group consisted of 2 crews of 12, each with 2 adult "advisors" and 10 scouts:

Crew 704-O1	Crew 704-O2
Advisors Nelson Wilkerson Andy Bang Scouts Brian Attiyeh Michael Bang Jason Banister Matthew Breismeister Joey Carson Chris Mahoney Matt Pfohl Matt Smith Scott Wilkerson Reed Whittaker	Advisors Tony McKenzie Bill Magdoff Scouts Matt Costa Brian Fukuhara Mike Gregory Matt Kimball David Lippman Jono Lippman Dan Magdoff Kyle McKenzie Dan Roth Kyle Schlinkert

Our itinerary (#14) was as follows:

Day	Location	Distance	Elevation
1	Base Camp	N/A	7,100 feet
2	Lover's Leap	2.9 miles	7,350 feet
3	Uracca	4.3 miles	8,000 feet
4	Crater Lake	6.5 miles	8,400 feet
5	Agua Fria	4.5 miles	8.700 feet
6	Beaubien	5.4 miles	9,300 feet
7	Beaubien	7.7 miles	9,300 feet
8	Crooked Creek	3.3 miles	9,350 feet
9	Clear Creek	5.1 miles	10,200 feet
10	Red Hills	4.6 miles	10,200 feet
11	North Fork Uracca	7.6 miles	8,000 feet
12	Base Camp	10.1 miles	7,100 feet
	Total	62.0 miles

A few notes and observations:

There are bears at Phillmont, so everything "smellable" must be hung in a bear bag. In addition to food, that includes sunscreen, lip balm, first aid kits, film, etc. One of the first things you do when you arrive at each camp is put all your smellables in some bear bags, toss a rope over pre-set cables strung between two trees, then tie the bags to the end of the rope and pull them up. This is a bit of a pain and often inconvenient when you need something that's up in a bear bag, but with so many scouts hiking through the area each summer it's very important.
Garbage is another hassle, but one you can make a game out of. There are no garbage cans out in the woods, only at staffed camps, and because of the drought you can't have campfires, so you can't burn your garbage. This means you must carry it with you until you get to a staffed camp where they will grudgingly take it, but only if it's tightly compacted. So the "game" is to see how much you can cram into the cracker boxes that accompany almost every meal. It's amazing how much you can get into a Ritz cracker box if you try (and if you have the time because there's nothing else to do). In crew O1, Chris and Jason were our "master compactors".
As Nellie pointed out in his speech on our last evening at North Fork Uracca, Philmont is meant to be a challenge: physically, mentally, and emotionally. It's not a simple walk in the woods. Don't go there if you're not ready for a challenge.
New Mexico is experiencing a drought, so there's not much water in the backcountry. There's enough to drink and cook with, but not to wash or shower with. We went 11 days/10 nights without a shower and were only able to rinse out socks and things a few times. There are several staffed camps that have showers, and under normal circumstances you can use them, so every 3-5 days you can get a shower, but not when there's a drought of this magnitude.
We met crews from the following states: Arizona, California (2), Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia (2), Illinois (4), Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas (3), Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, and Wisconsin.