I arrived back from Philmont at 1:06 AM this morning, and wrote this post from my in-Philmont journal entries. It was an awesome trip, and I think everyone should at least try to go once.
Crew Stats
- Crew Leader: Robert Ying
- Trek Number: 21
- Expedition Number: 626-E1
- Number of Scouts: 6
- Number of Advisors: 3
Day 1: On the Plane
On the first day of my Philmont expedition, we flew out to Denver, CO and stopped over there for about two hours. As I stated in my previous post, the time we had to arrive at SFO was somewhere in the vicinity of 4:30AM, and thus we were quite tired. The flight itself was rather boring – inflight entertainment has really gotten worse over the years, and they didn’t even give us peanuts to eat on the way. During the stopover, we ate lunch at the airport and waited for the Denver-Alberquerque flight to begin boarding. Upon arrival at Alberquerque International Sunport, we met up with the Blue Sky Adventures tour guide.
He brought us to a Greyhound-type bus, and we filed on to it (receiving a free 500mL Nalgene on the way xD). As we drove around the city, we lunched at Blake’s, a local McDonald’s type of fast-food restaurant. It wasn’t terrible, nor all that good, just a little bit bland. After lunch, we visited the (informally named) Nuke Museum, which showcased the progress of the Manhattan project. The Manhattan project’s primary site was Los Alamos, NM, so we were able to see many of the tools and materials that they used to construct the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Contrary to popular belief, the hardest part about making the atom bomb was not the detonation – it was the acquisition of sufficient quantities of U235 to create a large enough chain reaction.
One of the supposed highlights of our tour was the Double Reversible Jigback Aerial Tramway, the longest in the world (approx. 2.7mi). Unfortunately, it started raining when we got to the top, and thus was a rather depressing and boring place. The one good thing was that the upper station had plenty of rain shelter, as well as tables on which to play cards. When we saw that the rain and hail would not let up, we decided to just go back down. As a short and sharp warning about lightning, a bolt struck the metal railing just minutes before we left – only about six feet away.
We stayed at the Mariott that night, which was a rather nice hotel, if lacking in the tasty food department. Dinner was a buffet, and we stayed up and watched random cable movies on the TV, including War of the Worlds and Outbreak.
Day 2: Almost on the Trail
Our breakfast in the Mariott was a rather strange version of a breakfast buffet (what’s that supposed to be?), consisting of bacon, eggs, bacon, cereal, and bacon. Admittedly, it was quite filling, so we weren’t hungry on the 3.5 hour bus ride to Philmont. On the bus, we watched Ocean’s Twelve, which I’d never seen before. It’s a pretty good movie, so the ride passed quickly. We also attempted to watch Casino Royale after, but it didn’t really work out when the card games started. Upon exiting the bus, I had to go and get some important paperwork done, while the rest of the crew unloaded the bus.
We met our ranger, Jackson, at the Welcome Center. He at first seemed pretty chill, but we didn’t realize how bad he really was. He lead us through the before-trail prep, such as gathering crew equipment and food from Services as well as packing for the first day on the trail. Fitting in all the equipment proved to be quite a chore – both weight and volume had to be well managed for long hikes.
Our Equipment:
- Cooking Pot (x3)
- Wash Pot (x1)
- Cleaning Kit (x1)
- Bear Bag (x5)
- Bear Rope (x2)
- MSR Whisperlite (x1)
- MSR Whisperlite Internationale (x1)
- First Aid Kit (x2)
- Dining Fly (x1)
- Stakes (x30)
The food, however, was even worse – not because it tasted bad (we didn’t know that yet), but because we had 65 separate packs to carry, and they were annoyingly heavy in quantity. Each pack of food weighed approx. 1lb, and when you’re carrying twenty-something, it stacks up.
The night before we left, we attended a pretty awesome opening campfire, including music and advice for the trek itself. We settled into the (prebuilt) tents they had for us at base camp and slept – the last night in a bed
Day 3: On the Trail (w00t)
We quickly had breakfast at base camp, and were shipped over to the Ponil Turnaround, where we started our trek. We found out at the last moment that one of our crew members had become sick, and so couldn’t carry much weight (a continuing problem throughout the entire trek
At the turnaround, we went over some essentials for Philmont hiking, namely the lightning position and map-reading. The lightning position turned out to be unused for us, as lightning never came close enough to warrant its use. Map-reading, of course, was useful throughout, and we never got lost for more than a half mile or so (thankfully). We also did go over how to avoid minibears, AKA chipmunks (throw rocks), and bears (hoist smellables up in bear bags)
The hike itself that day was quite short, only about three miles. We hiked to Ponil first, and were able to participate in some of the activities (namely branding the free 500mL Nalgenes with Philmont’s horse and cattle brand). We arrived in rain, but it stopped shortly before we left, and we were able to hike to our campsite (Sioux) in sunshine. Of course, being as that we had done activities in Ponil, we arrived at Sioux late and were hard-pressed to find a good location for our camp. After something like an hour of looking, we decided on a campsite and set up the bearbags. Here, we discovered Jackson’s evil: every time we tossed up the bear line, he’d pull it back down and make us do it again (WTF?). Eventually, we finally got to eat our dinner – dehydrated pasta primavera. It turned out to be surprisingly good, and we slept well that night.
Day 4: Flume Canyon
We woke up early and left Sioux around 7:00AM, to pick up our burro at Ponil. Pablo, as we named him, was awesome in that he carried the large majority of the food. On the hike, he was rather irritable and slow, but at least he couldn’t complain about the weight. Even though it was only a four-mile hike, it felt like much longer, tired as we were from the previous day’s heavy packs. We arrived at Flume Canyon reasonably early, and set up camp quickly. That evening, we hiked over to Pueblano for their amazing campfire program – the best that we ever got to see in Philmont. Of course, their ending statement (HEAD OF DEAN, SEND US YOUR BACON) turned out to be impossible, but that was OK.
Day 5: Spar Pole Climbing
Jackson left in the morning on this day, and we couldn’t quite say we missed him. He did leave us with a nice pound cake and vanilla frosting, which bettered our spirits (admittedly the next day)
Our trek went through Pueblano again on the way to Head of Dean, so we were able to participate in Pueblano’s activities – namely logging and spar pole climbing. The logging was pretty normal, but the spar pole climbing was probably the most fun activity we did out of all of them xD. We climbed up what was essentially a 150-foot tree with only two spikes and a belt (no rope!). At the top, we were expected to yell out a manly phrase, not including “RANBO”, “I can see my house from here”, and “THIS IS SPARTA!”. Without pictures, the difficulty probably isn’t so easy to imagine, but it was really fun. Its one of those events you’ll never be able to do elsewhere.
Lunchtime at Pueblano was when we discovered the horror of sunbutter – it was packed into almost every lunch afterwards, and tasted horrible. Probably the most common thing in the swapbox xD
Our campsite, Head of Dean, was a staff camp, so we finally got purified water (YAY!). I decided that we wouldn’t do the activities there, and so we just set up camp and went to sleep.
Day 6: Black Powder
We hiked from Head of Dean to Miranda quickly, and arrived at the burro pen around 10 to 11 in the morning. There, we were forced to separate from Pablo – the road after didn’t have space for a burro. We would have to carry all our own equipment from then on. It wasn’t the last time we’d see him though – we passed back through after Baldy to visit him.
Since we did not do activities at Head of Dean, we were able to get to Miranda early enough to sign up for Black Powder Shooting, with a 50 caliber black powder rifle. Although we only got two shots, I’d like to think we were rather successful that day – my bandanna has more than four bullet holes =). The best shot was definitely one of our adult advisors, who hit both shots on a dollar bill that we couldn’t even see. I guess the whole ex-military thing actually means something then.
After Miranda, we had to actually hike to our campsite, Ute Meadows, where we would be staying for two nights. I do have to say that it wasn’t a very good campsite, without clean running water (all we had was a mosquito infested pond) and the red-roof (toilet) far far away. As we were staying two nights though, we packed everything for the next day beforehand so we could leave earlier for Baldy.
Day 7: Baldy
We woke up for the Baldy hike at 3:45 AM, and left at 4:20 or so, off to Baldytown. It was a hard, long, uphill hike to the peak – but totally worth it. Baldy stands at 12,441 feet above sea level, the tallest mountain in Philmont. It is, as according to its name, bald – the top is all shattered shale and sandstone. At the top, we tried to find the USGS marker to take a picture, but we found out later that it had been stolen and wasn’t actually on the mountain (who would do that?). From Baldy, we took the beautiful Ridge Trail down, which exited Philmont and let us see four different states (guess which?)!. Of course, the trail was incredibly long – we probably hiked over ten miles that day, from Ute Meadows to Baldy and back.
Before we returned to Baldytown for our food pickup, we did some programs at French Henry, which was on the way. There, we forged an s-hook and went through an awesome mine tour. Walking through a pitch-black mine shaft was a new experience, and we were able to learn of Philmonts original industries (wood and gold).
We left Baldytown with a full complement of 45 packs of food – not the most fun thing to carry, but we did it ’cause we had to.
Day 8: Starting down South
After loading up all of our packs with equipment, we started our southward hike. Passing back through Miranda and Head of Dean, we met up with Pablo again and the staffers on the way – but we still had more to go. The hike was hard – we had very heavy packs, and the trail wasn’t easy even without any packs, not to mention the distance we were hiking. Of all days, this was probably the most physically challenging. We camped at Santa Claus, an abandoned staff camp. While it did have water (from a spigot too!), it was not purified, and far enough that it was annoying to get to. As there was a risk of rain upon arrival, we had an amazingly fast setup – in the vicinity of 15 minutes (compared with the normal 1.5hrs). We did have an interesting experience there, meeting up with crews going the other direction, before their ranger left them. The information that they could supply for our route helped us plan nights ahead of time. Since there were no activities, we slept early.
Day 9: Another Trek
We hiked from Santa Claus over to Upper Bench, an unstaffed trail camp. It was once again at risk of rain, and also lacked water for us to drink. The lake had long been a swamp, and we had already seen a bear on the other side. Pressed by these threats, we once more set up camp quickly and slept early. The 9-mile hike wasn’t too hard, and we made it to camp reasonably early.
Day 10: Showers!
We hiked quickly to the Ute Gulch Comissary in order to pick up yet more food (the last pickup). It was amazing in that we found fresh fruit there – the first nondehydrated food we’d seen in days. There was also one of the things that people really don’t realize are important… showers! They were the first we’d been able to get to since base camp, so of course the first thing to do after camp setup was to go and take a shower xD. The water over at Cimarroncito was rather sulphury, and thus terrible. We didn’t do all that much after dinner, except a few epic uno games.
Day 11: BEAR BEAR BEAR
We awoke in Cito to the sounds of a bear attacking our dining fly, at 5:15AM. Although we were unable to catch it easily on film (it was black, the sky was black, the trees were black), we all saw it and chased it away from our food. Surprisingly, it attempted to take our toilet paper, which we had been assured was not smellable. The rangers at the camp did eventually catch the bear, and it’s probably still in that bear cage now. Since Cito was another layover, we went out and did the activities, starting with conservation in the morning.
Conservation consisted of practicing kung fu on sticks to break them up and stacking them in a pile, in order to clean up a clearing. We were probably supposed to use the tools, but I found they were almost completely useless for cutting branches (and kung fu was more fun).
We also climbed up a short sheer face and rappelled down the other side, but it was incredibly easy. In the afternoon, we tried a traverse wall and a bouldering course – both of which were very very hard. For completion, we got a free bag of donuts… but we didn’t really complete either. THe bouldering course involved too much upside-down climbing for us, and we ran out of strength partway along the traverse wall (it is much harder than you think).
Day 12: Chuck Wagon Dinner
Our primary destination on the twelfth day of the trip was Ponderosa Park, an overflow camp of Clarks Fork, where our activities were. On the way to Clarks Fork, we went to the demonstration forest to see how foresters cut and maintain large forests, which was pretty interesting. We then continued all the way to Ponderosa Park and set up camp. A moment after arrival, the ominous cloud above started to pour down rain, so we hurried up.
Since we still had horse riding at Clarks Fork at 1:00PM, we rushed back down the trail amidst marble-sized hail to the stables, not knowing that the ride had been delayed for lightning. At the stables, we ate lunch while waiting for the stornm to subside. The horse ride itself was quite fun. I rode a horse named Zorro, but the most interesting had to be Double Whopper Jr. Bacon Eater the Third, the horse another of my crew rode. The name, as you can tell, is quite interesting.
The other activity at Clark’s Fork was the Chuck Wagon Dinner, the first nondehydrated dinner we had in over a week. Of course, dinner ended up just being canned beef stew and peach cobbler, but it was good nonetheless. We were well satisfied, and slowly made our way back to Ponderosa with a few gallons of water (it was a dry camp).
Day 13: Tooth of Time
On the last day of our trek (on the trail, at least), we hiked up the most famous peak in Philmont: the Tooth of Time. The Tooth was actually a pretty easy hike, just ridiculously rocky along the way. We stopped at the base to eat lunch, and the peak actually had the USGS marker, which was pretty cool. Then, we took the pasture trail down to base camp – the last leg of the trip.
Upon arrival at base, I was forced to fill out a stack of paperwork, the usual stuff. It was a huge relief to finally not have to set up camp, and to have someone else cook the food (even if it sucked). We went to closing campfire, where we met up with all of the other crews and enjoyed the end of our trip. Most importantly, we were homebound.
Day 14: Going Home
We left Base Camp at 10:30AM on a bus to Alberquerque, where we would be catching a plane to LAX and then SFO. The ride was fun, and we were able to watch (slowly) a badly scratched copy of Mission Impossible III. For lunch, we ate at a local buffet in Alberquerque (but it really really needed some Asian food xD). For the longer flight to LAX, we took a CRJ200, which is a tiny 50-seat plane, and wholly uncomfortable. To SFO, we at least got to ride another Airbus 320, and upon arrival were welcomed by all of our family. It was an awesome trip.
Since I didn’t bring my own camera, pictures will be upcoming whenever the others get around to uploading theirs to somehwere I can get them, so come back later!