My Feelings on Philmont

After my Philmont Experience, I had 11 other people who I trusted my life with.  I don’t know what it is about being in the backcountry with 11 other people for 2 weeks, but they really become your friends.  Everyone, by the end of the trek, knew exactly how much everyone could take, everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses, their “Thorns and Roses,” and what their socks smelled like.  Even though Philmont sounds like an adventure that you face on your own, (hiking for 100+ miles with everything you need on your back), it is truly a team building experience.  I wish everyone who I worked with could go through this team building exercise.  It really allows everyone to respect you much more.  No more can people call me weak.  No more can people single me out.  No more am I ashamed about Scouting.

I used to be afraid of admitting that I was a Scout.  Now I am proud.  If anyone ever asks me why I do Boy Scouts, I simply reply, “Philmont,” or “For the shear rush.”  Where else can you jump from 75 feet on a zip line?  Where else can you become best friends with a group of people who will follow you to your grave, without sending you to it?  I guess the main thing about Philmont that I have noticed is that everyone my age or older, still active in my troop, has been to Philmont.  They stay in scouting partially for the rush, and partially for the chance of going back to Philmont.  “Non-Philmont People” don’t understand how you can talk about a single experience for hours at a time, but I, and everyone else who has gone, has done it before.  They may make fun of how you say, “Oh, remember at Philmont,” but then everyone who has been to Philmont says, “When you go, you will do the same thing.”  There is a sort of brothership between Philmonters.  I feel like anyone who has been to Philmont is a friend who I can trust, and talk to.

I thought I knew my friends well, but then I saw them in true light.  I learned all their flaws, all of their personalities, and all of my strengths and weaknesses.  It’s not just a team building, but an individual building.  Counselors always say that you build your Self-Esteem by thinking happy thoughts, but I built my self esteem more in those 2 weeks than in 10 years of school counselors saying, “Don’t do Drugs.  You are special!!!”

The first time I ever truly saw people talk about Philmont was while I was taking an Art merit badge, and everything they drew was of Philmont.  I thought they were crazy.  A year later I was just as crazy. 

I am now readying myself (both physically and mentally) to go back to paradise and truly meet 11 new people.  The hardest part about it will be leaving, however, as long as the arrowhead is still there, I will still be finding my way back to New Mexico.