Local Boy Scouts complete Philmont Adventure of a lifetime

It is 3:30 a.m. on July 25 as Philmont Crew 7-17C crawls out of their tents after a short night of sleep. Ahead of them is the 12,441’ summit of Baldy Mountain, the highest peak on the 140,171-acre scout ranch.  

After checking their headlamps and the contents of their packs, the crew sets out towards the summit with the stars in the Milky Way guiding their way. Though the scouts will reach the top before 8 a.m., this was a journey that started over three years ago.

Philmont Scout Ranch is located in Cimarron, New Mexico. Each year, 18,500-22,000 scouts challenge themselves on seven or 12-day treks on 315 miles of trails. It is home to 250 horses, 85 burros, 320 cattle, 140 buffalo, 1,500 deer, 300 elk, 40 to 60 antelope and, yes, between 100-150 bears. (Quick facts, www.philmontscoutranch.org.)

Local Scouts from BSA Troop 38 initially planned on attending Philmont in 2020.  Starting in 2019 the community supported their fundraising efforts by purchasing popcorn, attending spaghetti dinners, and donating soda pop cans that, in all, raised over $12,000 for a trip that cost close to $3,000 per person after air travel. Unfortunately the COVID19 pandemic changed everyone’s plans, including ours, as cancellations prohibited travel and Philmont closed their doors. 

Discouraged but not defeated, Troop 38 applied for and got granted a summer 2022 trek. The Scout’s motto is “Be Prepared,” and this expedition requires preparation that goes beyond readying for a weekend camping trip. 

Fundraising efforts continued, and conditioning started. Seven scouts and four adults took monthly “prep hikes.” Carrying 30-45 pound backpacks, scouts hiked between four to six miles at local locations such as Oakley Corners State Forest, Aqua Terra Wilderness Area, Virgil Mountain, and even a snowshoeing hike at Robert Treman State Park. Physical and social conditioning was continued when the crew completed a 34-mile, 4-day backpacking “shake down” trip up and over five mountains in the Catskill Slide Mountain Wilderness Area. Conditioning complete. 

On July 14, the crew drove north to Syracuse Airport to catch a flight to Denver Colorado. Since the elevation at Denver and the Philmont scout ranch is over a mile above sea level (in contrast, New York’s highest mountain, Mt. Marcy, stands at 5,344’, Philmont’s base camp sits at about 6,500’), we decided to spend two days adjusting to the altitude while touring around the Colorado Springs area.  

Blue Sky Adventures picked us up in Denver, and bused us to locations such as the U.S. Air Force Academy, up and down Pikes Peak, and white water rafting through the Royal Gorge portion of the Arkansas River. For two nights, scouts were treated to hotel accommodations at Great Wolf Lodge and indoor water park, with views of Pikes Peak and NORAD from their windows.

After two days of touring, on July 16, we made our way to Philmont Base camp.  Here, the scout ranch welcomes up to 350 adventurers every day. To guide us, we were assigned a “Ranger” who would help us with logistics and would trek with us for the first few days to ensure our success. We spent one night in “Tent City”, an area of 600-plus walled canvas tents, and the next day we were transported to Ponil trailhead for 11 days of backpacking and camping. 

The program Philmont Scout ranch offers is more than just backpacking. We hiked through and stayed at numerous “staff camps” that offered us programming including lassoing metal “steeds”, challenge course team building activities, homesteading, Mountain Biking, branding, spar pole climbing, cross cut saws, railroad tie making, blacksmithing, a gold mine tour, tomahawk throwing, a “Chuckwagon” dinner, muzzleloader shooting, and more. This programming was in addition to backpacking each day for five to eight miles between campsites.

Scheduled campsite locations included Bent, Dan Beard, North Ponil (a dry camp without water, so we had to carry extra that day), Ponil, Rich Cabins, Flume Canyon, Baldy Skyline, Copper Park (where we stayed two nights), and Miranda. We hiked through Bonita Canyon, Horse Canyon, Cook Canyon, up and over Wilson Mesa as we increased in elevation over several days from 6,500’, to Cooper Park where we camped at 10,600’ (about twice the elevation of Mt. Marcy).

It was here at Copper Park where we made our summit bid for Baldy Mountain. Being used to steep and rough terrain in the Adirondacks and Catskills, we decided to take the steeper “Goat trail” up Baldy Mountain; a path that followed up a “rock glacier” (no snow or ice, just millions of softball sized rocks that as you took two steps up, you often would slide a half step back). 

Just before the summit we ate breakfast in an old mining shack next to a closed copper mine. Around 7:45 a.m., despite the thin air, as a group we submitted Baldy to be greeted by high winds, 35-40 degree temperatures, and 360-degree panoramic views. Being that we started early, we had the summit to ourselves. 

Looking to the east, we could see other scout crews working their way up a series of switchbacks on a longer, but less steep trail; a trail that our group decided to descend on our way back down to Copper Park for some rest. 

Meals were provided in meal packs that contained dried and freeze dried food, and required scouts to cook on single burner camping stoves. Food, at night, was stored in “bear bags” that hung on ropes off wires that were suspended 20-feet in the air between two trees.  

Outside of staff camps, water had to be treated before drinking it by running it through a special water filter designed for the backcountry. Each night we would sleep in small two person tents that scouts would have to set up themselves. 

The last day on the trail we completed a three-hour conservation project of clearing brush and trees to prevent forest fires that have plagued Philmont over the years. In 2018, thousands of acres through the center of Philmont were burned in a fire, and even this year our trek was changed slightly due to the high fire danger in the area (there were no active burning fires when we were at Philmont).  

The last three miles to our trailhead were downhill and fast. The scouts were well conditioned and all excited to get back to base camp for showers. That night after dinner we did not have to prepare ourselves or add water to hydrate it, we visited the National Scouting Museum to learn about the history of scouting and Philmont itself. The next day was a day of travel, but the conditioning paid off when our plan was late arriving in Charlotte and we, as a group, had to sprint across the airport to catch our connecting flight.  We made it on the plane just in time, and as the doors were closing. Though we caught our flight, our luggage did not; but later that night we were home in our regular beds.

Philmont is considered a “once in a lifetime adventure”. Philmont is not just a camping trip; it is much more than that. If you are fortunate to go as a youth, memories of this trek will be with you for a lifetime. Now that the crew is back home, we are starting to plan the next high adventure trip that our troops will embark on.  

Troop 38 for boys, and 638 for girls in Owego, N.Y. always welcomes youth between the ages of 11 and 18 who seek adventure such as what was written here. Most adventures are within New York and Pennsylvania over weekends, and this year we are planning trips that include sleeping on a battleship in Buffalo, backpacking in the Adirondacks, skiing and snowboarding at Greek Peak, wilderness survival camping on an island, biking trails at a nearby state park, visiting Gettysburg National Park, and much more.  

If you would like to learn more, the group meets on Monday evenings, beginning at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Owego, NY starting in September. For questions about both troop 38 and 638, send an email to scouttroop38@gmail.com and a leader will get back to you.