In November we set up our Philmont crew. It would be comprised of 12 people, 10 veterans, and 2 newbies. In March, due to injury, one member had to be pulled out, and was replaced by Adrian, our 22 year old advisor.
We arrived at Philmont one day early and decided to play a bit of Ultimate in one of the open areas. Like we were the Pied Piper, 3 or 4 staff members immediately came out to join us. One ran to get a real Ultimate Frisbee, so we started talking to the others. We find out that Ian, one of the Rangers, attends Texas A&M, like Trent. After tossing the Frisbee around for a while, another staff member walked up from the Villa, and said there was a game going on there. All the staff members left us to join the real game.
The opening ceremony would be starting in about 15 minutes. We discussed whether to go that night, or wait for the day we were supposed to attend on (the following day). We reasoned, if we go tonight, we will have tomorrow free, so we went to the opening ceremony. After learning the history of New Mexico, we went back to our tents, and went to sleep.
The next morning we awoke early to go eat the lovely Philmont base camp breakfast of what was supposed to be “chorizo and eggs.” Needless to say it was not real chorizo, or real eggs. One of our crew members asked if the food was authentic Mexican food. He received a snide reply of, “No, but its authentic New Mexican food.” I was smart enough to ask for no meat, which turned out to be hamburger meat. After choking down breakfast, we found our ranger, or should I say she found us.
Kieran, our ranger, took us around the camp to sign in at the various places, and get our necessary supplies. By the end of the day we had finished everything but our crew picture, which we would need to take in the morning. That night we went to the opening ceremony… AGAIN! Needless to say most of us were not too happy. Skip, our crew leader, did get a second American flag, so we joked about confusing the passing crews into thinking we were 2 small crews, instead of one large one. The ceremony itself was much more predictable the second time around.
We left for the backcountry the next morning, after our blinding picture and another “delicious” base camp breakfast. We were scheduled to be starting out in Sioux, a camp I had stayed in 2 years before. We got dropped off, and in our excitement to finally be on the trail, missed a turnoff, along with about 3 other crews, which took us into the company of several horses and an angry stable hand. She offered to let us pass through her gate only if we each picked up 10 stones. We decided we would just go back and find the real trail so that we would have the shade of the trees, which grow along trails, but not 4 wheel drive roads. After backtracking for about 10 minutes, we almost missed the gate, again. Alas, we found the trail, and after another 45 minutes of hiking, we were at Sioux, our first camp.
At Sioux, we went through our “ranger training,” and learned all the emergency procedures. Around 4 PM, I went down the hill which Sioux is “built” on, along with 2 other youth to get water for the crew. After making the frightenly steep climb a second time we sat down and started to cook dinner. After dinner, we put washed the dishes, put up the bear bags, and went to sleep. I knew the next day would be an easy day, because I had made the same hike 2 years before. It would be a quick hike from Sioux to Pueblano. Pueblano had been my favorite campsite the last time I was at Philmont, so I was excited to go back.
The next morning we got up, and took down camp in a somewhat slow fashion, which we later found would be an average time for us. Luis was navigator for the day, and he led us down the hill of Sioux, and through Ponil, where we stopped to eat breakfast. There I reminded him to have us take the trail, and not the 4 wheel drive road. Two year before, we had taken the 4 wheel drive road, and most of our crew got sunburn from the lack of tree cover. He remembered that day, and assured me we would take the trail, not the road. We crossed over Ponil Creek, and found our trail and started hiking. The trail was built on a ledge, so there was quite a bit more elevation change than I remembered two years previously. We would climb several hundred feet up, and the go back down the elevation we had just climbed. We then did it again, again, and again. About halfway through the trail, Daniel starting feeling sick, so we slowed down our pace. By the time we were almost at Pueblano, most of the crew was tired and bored of hiking, and it was about to start to rain. Luis was feeling slightly winded so I took the map, and with the help of Kevin motivated the crew by telling them it was just around the corner. We had to do tell them that about five times, but I was ready to get to Pueblano, so I tried to hurry everyone along. We arrived at the cabin at Pueblano just as it was starting to rain, covered up our packs, put on our rain gear and listened to the porch talk. It turns out it was just a quick shower, so Skip chose a campsite and we took our packs to the site. We took a break to eat lunch and then set up camp. That afternoon we were scheduled to do spar pole climbing, but do to the storm, only 1 person was able to climb. They told us to come back the next morning.
That night we went to the “best campfire in all of Philmont,” the Pueblano campfire. Once again the campfire was outstanding, although Luis and I were waiting for the Mountain Dew song. They did a stunning rendition of “Bermuda, Bahama,” or whatever it is called, sang many other great songs and told some hilarious stories. Remembering how cold it was in that canyon two years before, we had reminded everyone to take a jacket, or five, which proved helpful.
The next morning, we woke up and ate breakfast at the campsite, as we were going to do the spar pole climbing before setting off on the trail. Also that morning, Dr. Olivarez announced to us that his back was hurting, and he would be going back to base camp for a few days at least. We took what turned out to be our one crew photo, and set off for Ewell’s Park.
The trail to Ewell’s Park was relatively flat, but it looked as though a tornado had just passed through. There were fallen trees all over the place which we had to climb over. Consequently, the trail was considerably harder than it should have been. We arrived at Ewell’s Park at about lunch time. While Skip, Kevin, and myself went off to find a campsite, the rest of the crew played “war games” with pine cones in the huge meadow. It turns out that Ewell’s Park only has 3 campsites. One of the campsites, the one we wanted to stay in, had a broken bear cable. Our next choice had an unlocatable bear cable. So, we stayed in the 3rd campsite, which turned out to be quite nice, and made a mental note to tell the staff at Baldy Town about the broken bear cable.
We ate lunch, set up camp, and then rested for a while. Luis and I found the well, and hand-purified some water for the crew. Then, a few of us had an idea to go and hike over to Baldy Town to see how far we were. We were about to leave when Mr. Meadows noticed that it was already 4 PM, and realized we probably would barely make it back before nightfall, so our plan was vetoed. We awoke the next morning at about 4 AM, and set off on our path to Baldy, the tallest mountain in the camp. We came to a seemingly large 4x4 road, and had that been the 4x4 road, the map instructed us to turn to the right. To the right was the steepest incline I had ever seen. We climbed up, and it was the correct path. A short while later, we were at Baldy Town, where we ate breakfast, and left Mr. Meadows, who decided he wouldn’t go up Baldy. He gave us instructions to make sure Trenton led us down Baldy, because Trent had hurt his knee, and he didn’t want him to go too fast and re-injure it.
About halfway up Baldy, we decided to “caterpillar,” a term used to describe a type of hiking in which two people climb 10 steps, then 2 follow them and go 10 steps farther, and so on and so forth. To keep up morale, we started singing songs. Unfortunately, since few of use knew how to keep time in music, each group of 2 was at a different part of the song. We finally made it up to the saddle of Baldy, where there were huge mounds of snow. Being from South Texas where a majority of our crew members had only seen snow once or twice before, we all ran up and started jumping in the snow, much to the surprise of the crews from Michigan. We then walked over to the huge meadow, at the base of the summit where we played a few games of mafia. After that, we got our strength up and climbed the final portion of Baldy, which is incredibly steep, and made of entirely loose shale. Kevin, Mango, and myself were in the front, but I ended up pulling ahead at the last minute.
We were on top of Baldy for about an hour, and were the only crew left when we decided it was time to go back down. By this time it was about noon. Trenton led us down the mountain, as he was instructed to do, and all of a sudden disaster struck. Danny, as he was climbing down the loose shale, slipped and hit the back of his knee on a rock. He told us that it hurt, and so I dropped my camelbak, and a few of us ran up to where he was. We helped him up, but he could not put pressure on his leg, so through the use of trekking poles, and slow steps, we helped him down the steepest part of the mountain. At this point a few of us discretely discussed at a whisper, as to not scare anyone, what we should do. Our ranger had instructed us to send 4 guys down to the nearest staff camp with the appropriate information, which is what we did. In the mean time, the rest of us got Danny down beneath the tree line, as it looked like a storm was coming. We then sat down and ate lunch, realizing there was nothing more for us to do, other than keep spirits up and keep an eye on Danny.
As our four guys climbed down the mountain, they met 2 rangers climbing up. They told them what had happened, and one of them, a trained EMT reassured them that he would have a look at Danny as soon as he got up there. Well, when the two rangers arrived where we were, we immediately recognized the two of them. One was Ian, who we met on the first day, and the second was Sean, his friend. Talk about foreshadowing.
Ian looked at Danny’s leg, but more importantly stayed there and talked to us. Danny told us all the ghost stories he knew about Philmont, and about an hour and a half later, 2 staff member came running up the mountain. They introduced themselves staff from Baldy Town, and immediately got to work. They contacted Base Camp, where Health Lodge walked them through what to do. After about 45 minutes of this, the staff member recognized some of us starting to get signs of hypothermia, and decided it would be best if we were to go back down to Baldy Town. The rangers took us back down, and left Danny up there with the Baldy staff.
We finally made it back down to Baldy Town at about 4:30, when we realized that we would not have time to cook dinner. The staff at Baldy Town was EXTREMELY nice, and gave us hot chocolate, and apple cider, and allowed us to exchange a dinner, which required cooking, for a lunch, which didn’t require cooking. We then ate inside the warm museum, and headed back to Ewell’s Park, with one less than we had arrived with. It turns out that the path we had taken earlier was a fire line, and was very dangerous to climb on. Oh well.
Once we got back to Ewell’s Park, we met a few advisors from another crew, which was on the same itinerary as we were. One of the advisors was talking about how cool he was saying that he though this itinerary was the hardest, and he had done it three times. He asked us why we were arriving back so late, since it was about 6:30 at this time, and did not understand our story.
The next morning we woke up, and divided Danny’s stuff up among the remaining crew members. I was starting to notice a trend in the people who had left the trail: both of them had started out with trekking poles. This meant that Mr. Meadows would be next. We were on our way to Santa Claus that day, but first we would have to stop in Head of Dean, where we did our conservation project. For breakfast, us veterans insisted that we eat at Baldy Skyline, because of the amazing view, but when we arrived at Baldy Skyline, there was no view of Baldy. Apparently the fire line now blocked the view of Baldy. We continued on to Head of Dean, where we ate lunch. Because it looked like it was going to rain, we had a one hour conservation talk, instead of a three hour conservation project. This allowed us to get to Santa Claus at about 4. On the way to Santa Claus, we passed through the burnt section of the forest. It was such a sad sight, because two years before I had been on the same trail, and it was covered in trees, but now it was completely burnt down.
When we finally arrived at Santa Claus, we looked at the maps and decided we wanted either campsite 1 or 3, but not 2. We walked towards campsite 1, when I noticed a picnic table, and announced that we were staying at the campsite with the picnic table. Everyone agreed and we ended up staying at campsite 2, because it had a picnic table. Being able to sit on a picnic table after a week of the ground was very nice. This was the first day that I felt our crew really bond. Up till then, it had seemed we were companions, but after that day, we were close friends, and I felt ready to trust my in any of their hands.
The next morning, we hiked what we thought would be the longest day. We left Santa Claus, and said goodbye to our beloved picnic table. We ate breakfast at a fork in the road about 2 clicks away, and then continued, crossing the Cimarron River, and the highway. We came into Cimarron River Camp, and then passed into Visto Grande, where we had a long discussion about how it was improper Spanish. Visto Grande means something like “I see big.” We determined that they meant to say “Viste Grande,” which means “big view.” We ate lunch at Visto Grande, and then continued on the final leg of our journey. When we finally got to Deer Lake Mesa, which we came to call the DLM, thanks to Kevin, we were very disappointed. We were expecting deer, a lake, and a mesa. Well, there were a few deer (like 2), a relatively small mesa, and no lake, rather a small, mosquito infested reservoir.
The next morning we went on one of our shorter days in the second half of our trip (the first half of our trip had quite short hikes, while the second half had incredibly long hikes), or so we thought. In actuality, this hike was as long as our previous day’s hike. On that day, our packs would start off really light, and end up very heavy, as we were stopping at Ute Gulch Commissary. Here, we ate breakfast, restocked our food, and sand “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” for cookies. As we were leaving, we were talking about how our ranger had prepared us, when we turned around and found out that Kieran was right there, with a new crew. Since we had already been at the commissary for a long time, we said thanks for preparing us so well, told her new crew that she was the best ranger, and went on our way. We continued on our way, and ended up at Clark’s Fork in time to eat lunch. After getting the “porch talk” we found our campsite, and ate lunch. We then set up our campsite, and went off to take showers, and brand our boots, sandals, and various other items. While taking a shower, I washed some of my clothes, including my only pair of wool socks. I hung them out to dry, and of course, it started to rain, and rained for a few hours and then again that night. Consequently, in the morning I had a pair of wet socks. That evening, we ate the delicious chuck wagon dinner, which is the only non-backpacking food we got for the 2 weeks. Most of it was great, but apparently the people in charge of making the biscuits, decided that they would cook just as well if they simply tossed the water and the mix into a Dutch oven, as if they actually made them correctly. Consequently, we had powder biscuits. That evening we met all of the crews which would be returning to base camp the next morning, and we realized that we had another 4 days of hiking before we would be back in base camp. We felt proud that we were on the hardest trek. That evening we went to the worst campfire in all of Philmont. Since it was raining, they had it under the porch. The staff, which was quite possibly the largest staff I had ever seen at a single camp (there were about 12 of them) sand a few bad songs, and tried to play good music. We were all disappointed, because it was nothing compared to Pueblano’s. We voted the Clark’s Fork staff to have the worst campfire, and be the rudest staff overall.
The next morning, we were signed up to ride horses. Skip and I decided not to ride horses, and relaxed at the campsite drinking Gatorade, eating left over trail mix, and talking about our lives. The horse rides began at 8 AM, and were supposed to last 2 hours. The people riding horses did not get back until 11, and we were not on the trail until 12 o’clock. That day we traveled about halfway across Philmont, all the way to Cypher’s Mine. Along the way, we decided to take a trail that was on the map, and looked like a good trail at the beginning. After about 15 minutes of hiking, we were met by some conservation staff members, who told us that that trail was still under construction, and they strongly suggested that we go back. We followed their advice, and hiked another 15 minutes back. We took the second trail, which was considerably longer, and had more elevation change. About 2 hours later it started raining, and we were still a good distance from our campsite. We kept on hiking, in our rain gear, and I learned why the staff recommended rain pants in addition to a rain jacket. After about 45 minutes of hiking in the rain, we decided we needed to stop to eat lunch in order to keep moral up. We stopped, and did NOT eat under a tree to stay dry since there was lightning (actually, we did eat under a tree). We continued on the trail, and it finally cleared up about 15 minutes before we were at Cypher’s Mine, the mining camp.
The staff was incredibly nice, and immediately invited us into their cabin, where they gave us the porch talk, hot chocolate, and apple cider. They showed us to our dwelling for the night (at Clark’s Fork, crews sleep in a large 3 sided “muckshack,” and do not have to set up tents). We arranged our muckshack, and decided to put a 4th wall, made of tarps and ponchos on it. This turned out to be beneficial, since it rained all night. That evening, Adrian and Trent were supposed to cook, but Adrian was nowhere to be found. By this time in the trip, we were all working together, and didn’t really care who was assigned to cook or clean up; we would all help out. Adrian showed up just before we ate, but had a good excuse. He was talking to the staff members, and they gave him 3 cans of tomato sauce. To this day I do not know how he got the tomato sauce, but he claims they just asked him if he wanted some tomato sauce. That night, Skip entered the “Tough Man Competition” where each contestant makes up a story about how tough they are (emphasis on make up). We were thinking about just telling the story of what we had been through so far, but decided it wasn’t crazy enough. We then went over to the “Stump,” which is Cypher’s Mine’s version of a campfire. Basically, they pile everyone into a small cabin, light a bunch of gas lanterns (the fire Marshall would have a fit), and play some great music. It compared to the Pueblano campfire, because of their eclectic choice of music. They played a few Grateful Dead songs, told some funny stories, which turned out to be different versions of Pueblano’s stories, and then sang the Mountain Dew song. Needless to say, Luis and I sang along.
The next morning, we took the mine tour, and continued on our way to Mt. Phillips, and Red Hills camp, which the staff told us was completely dry. We passed through Thunder Ridge, which was the windiest place I had, to date, stepped foot in, and started up Comanche Peak. We were going at quite a slow pace, and Skip was getting mad at this, but Trent kept insisting that we slow down. We had wanted to eat lunch on top of Comanche Peak, but we ended up stopping for lunch before we were on top of the mountain.
After lunch, Mr. Meadows told us that he was having a panic attack, had pains in his left side, and was in a cold sweat. Being scouts, we all knew what these were symptoms of, and we also knew what to do. We took out the map, and noted the nearest staff camp (Cypher’s Mine) and the nearest 4x4 road (Thunder Ridge). After lightening their packs, we sent Kevin and Adrian down to Thunder Ridge, where they would leave their packs, and then continue on to Cypher’s Mine. We found some aspirin in Adrian’s “Medicine Cabinet.” Mr. Meadows was going to leave his backpack halfway up Comanche Peak, but Trent would not allow it, and so he decided to carry both his pack, and his father’s pack (now he could enter the “Tough Man Competiton”). We then split up into two groups. In front was Mr. Meadows and a few youth, and behind was Trent, with the two packs, myself and a few others. On the way down we met a crew going up who asked us how Mr. Meadows was doing. Apparently, they met Adrian and Kevin hurrying down and cutting switchbacks, and got mad at them, until they heard the circumstances. We finally made it to Thunder Ridge, where we decided to set up the dining fly in case of rain. Mr. Meadows told us he was feeling better, and so Trent, and myself climbed down the more direct 4x4 road to Cypher’s Mine in order to tell that he was feeling a bit better. We also took the dromedary in order to fill it up with water for the evening. When we were almost at the bottom, we met up with 2 staff members from Cypher’s Mine climbing up, and filled them in on what was happening. When we got back to Cypher’s Mine, we met up with Kevin and Adrian, filled up our water containers, and started back up to Thunder Ridge.
When we arrived at Thunder Ridge, we were told that Mr. Meadows would be leaving to base camp that evening. By this time it was already 4 PM, and we had to decide whether we wanted to continue to Red Hills that night, or change our itinerary. At that point, I took part in the most serious conversation in all my life. We were deciding whether we would continue on that night, or have an extra long hike the next day. At first almost everyone wanted to continue, but then we realized that we would be arriving at Red Hills at about 6:30 PM, and would not have time to cook. Much of the conversation was long moments of silence, followed by someone expressing an opinion, and then another pause. We ended up deciding to stay and cooking our spaghetti with real tomato sauce! It was by far the best spaghetti I had ever eaten.
That evening, we decided to do Thorns and Roses. It ended up lasting about 25 minutes, because everyone was so touched about what had happened. Trent probably had the best complement for Skip, when he told him that although, at the beginning neither he nor his father felt Skip was doing a great job as crew leader, his view had changed. He now would follow Skip anywhere, and Mr. Meadows would do the same. This was illustrated by Mr. Meadows leaving the crew in the hands of his 22 year old nephew, his 19 year old son, and most of all his 17 year old son. I was contemplating the day’s events and realized, that if I was hurt in the woods, I would rather be hurt with this group of people than anyone else. I also realized that the average age of our crew was pushed down to 16, which would probably make us the youngest, most experienced crew ever to go through Philmont.
The next morning we were all pumped for our long hike. We woke up at about 6:15 and had left by 7 AM. We climbed up Comanche Peak at a very fast pace, and stopped to eat our breakfast. Trent had told us that Comanche Peak had a great view, but it turns out he was mistaken. We ate breakfast, and at the end of the meal, Trent did NOT throw all his raisins on the ground. We continued on to the spring along the path to
Shafer’s Pass. He found what seemed to be a spring, and so we stopped to purify water. About 40 minutes later, we were on the trail again, when we saw a sign telling us we were in Red Hills. We had looked at the map and decided that we would not go through Red Hills since it was slightly out of the way, and then we wouldn’t have to climb Big Red, the 3rdtallest mountain in Philmont. Needless to say, we were quite surprised. However, even more surprising was the huge river running through Red Hills, a dry camp. It turns out the trail we were supposed to take no longer existed, so we started up Big Red.
The path up Big Red is a water runoff path. Basically, it was formed by water flowing down the 1200 foot climb. We soon realized that water does take the fastest, steepest path down a mountain. We finally made it to the top of Big Red, where we took a 5 minute break. Surprisingly, Big Red was not Red. On top of the mountain, there was a small place to leave messages for other crews. We pulled one out and read it. It was from a crew who had done our same itinerary, but one day earlier. They were laughing at us because they would climb Baldy, Phillips, Big Red, Black, Shafer’s, and the Tooth. We just chuckled, and realized their adventure could not compare to ours. We climbed down the 11024 ft peak, back to the elevation we were at before climbing Big Red. We then stopped to eat lunch at the base of Bear Mountain. After lunch, we climbed ¾ of the way up Bear Mountain, to about 10000 ft of the 10663 ft that is Bear Mountain. We then climbed up Black Mountain. Black Mountain was a tough climb, and we made it to what we believed was the peak, and all took of our packs and laid down. We proceeded NOT to throw rocks off of Black Mountain so that we WOULDN’T knock a dead branch off. After this, we climbed up what we found out was the real peak of Black Mountain. The first peak was unofficially named Black Mountain, and the second: Black Mountain Sucks. We took pictures on top of the real Black Mountain, and then proceeded on our downhill climb to Shafer’s Pass. After a few more hours of hiking, we made it to Shafer’s Pass at 7:42 PM, a full 12 hours and 42 minutes after we started hiking. Almost all of us were completely out of water, and it turns out Shafer’s Pass is a dry camp. To our surprise, Mr. Meadows was waiting at Shafer’s Pass for us. It turns out they let him go back out on the trail, and a few staff members drove out to Calrk’s Fork (where we had been 3 nights before), and they hiked, in an hour to Shafer’s Pass. We realized that what we could have hiked in an hour took us about 20 hours.
We ate dinner, and thankfully Shafer’s Pass was also not completely dry. It had a spring which would fill a 32 oz Nalgene in about an hour. We realized that the only way we would be able to make it all the way back to base camp is if we collected water all night. We set a pot out to collect water, and prayed that it would rain (it didn’t). We decided to sleep under the dining fly that night, so we could leave quicker the next morning. By the time we got to sleep, it was 9:30, and then Mango and I woke up the next morning at 1 AM to change the water collecting pots. During the night, the wind picked up to amazing speeds, and blew our shelter over several times. Towards the end of the night, we just let the shelter blow over, and slept without cover.
The next morning we had enough water for everyone to have a little more than a quart of water for each crew member. We gave the other crew which was at Shafer’s Pass as much fuel as they could carry, and then set off. When climbing Tooth Ridge, I realized that Thunder Ridge was not the windiest place I had ever been; Tooth Ridge was. At several points, Omar, the 250 lb football player carrying a 55 lb backpack had to keep both of his feet on the ground in order to not get pushed over by the wind. We made it to the Tooth of Time, and climbed up. As soon as Skip reached the top, his hat flew off, and seemed to fly away into the valley below. Skip was quite mad because he liked his hat. After taking pictures, Kevin disappeared for a few minutes, and then reappeared with Skip’s hat. It would have fallen off the edge, but it was caught by a bush.
After coming down from the Tooth, we started back to base camp on the trail of switchbacks. There we discussed how switchbacks were not bad unless they were put in the wrong place. For example, Big Red definitely needed switchbacks, while the Tooth needed none. The Tooth of Time is known for having a massive number of switchbacks, so we decided to count them. It turns out that there is 15 switchbacks. We made it back into base camp right as lunch was starting. We hurried to take showers so we could get on the bus to Cimarron. At Cimarron, we ate pizza, and drank milkshakes. We then went back to Philmont, turned in our gear, and bought our last minute souvenirs. That evening we went to the closing campfire, and officially completed our trek. The next morning we left Philmont at 6 AM, and flew back to McAllen with many stories to tell.
After going to Philmont my first time, I looked at Philmont as a life changing experience. The second time, it did not have nearly as much magic because I was knew what was coming, but yet I was just as challenged, had just as much fun, and was just as changed from it. People will hear be talk about Philmont like I would almost anything to go back. This is not true. I would do anything to go back to Philmont, because it is that awesome. I believe I have grown as much in the 24 days I have been at Philmont as I have the other 17 years of my life.
And so, sing it with me: “I WANT TO GO BACK TO PHILMONT!”
Don’t pretend…you won’t understand until you go!
Some Crew Slogans:
6-11-O2: Down Three Men, and Still the Toughest Crew!
6-11-O2: A Expedition Number that shall live in Infamy!