Sam Houston Area Council B.S.A. Crew 505
Chartered to St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church
Houston, Texas

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[ This month's Scouting ]
Stripes
Philmont Trek 713K4-06 - An Overview

by John M. (Historian)

Coming into Philmont felt like entering a dream, or fighting with your uncomfortable bedroll at least. The bus was comfortable -- like a body cast would, and the food was expertly cooked -- several hours before we arrived. But despite the trials of the bus ride, the quandaries of poorly explained string theory, the confusion of who this squirt character exactly was, and the utterly sleep deprived state that we arrived to New Mexico in, things were shaping up for the better. At five in the morning, the horizon started to grow lighter, but most of that could have been the sun.

Base camp was great; Captain Check-in would meet us occasionally for a few words before darting off to save yet another form from the perils of misfiling. Our Ranger, Reid, lead us to our tents, where we dropped off our gear, and then filed us around from place to place, leading us through check-in and then to the 'best meal in Philmont' -- cookie-cutter pork-like patty covered in red stuff. While we looked with a bit hesitation and wondered, "...if our cuisine is degrading this quickly, where will we be at day 12...?" Reid ate like a starved mini-bear; on day 12 we would too, going back for seconds and thirds of beef-like cardboard piece in brown runny stuff.

After a good night's sleep -- "you mean you don't normally sleep in a body cast?" -- we got on the earliest bus we could and tried to get out on the trail. After a lengthy 'tour' of the countryside involving zebras and underground golfing complexes, we arrived at the Kit Carson Museum. The tour was filled with wagons, rifles and ox-blood floors: the Old West. Soon after the tour we ate lunch, and then hit the trail.

It was not more than two miles into the trail when we stopped for our first twenty-minute break for Michael's stomach. The cause: Squeeze-Cheese. This single event changed the eating habits of half our crew.

We camped our first night in Olympia and discovered the wonders of the wilderness Pilot-Bombardier. Where else but Philmont can you enjoy the wonders of the Rocky Mountains, witness the moves of rabbits and other mini-bears, and feel the wind on your cheeks all from the wondrous throne of your toilet seat? That's what I thought, nowhere.

We packed up and moved out early, as we would everyday from then on to maximize our mileage and minimize our water usage. We rolled into Zastro Camp where we had breakfast, and our first taste of Philmont's active program: Orienteering (much to the joy of John, who taught orienteering for a month at Cima). The record on the Course was 10 points out of 20 in 2 hours; we had 19 points in 3 hours.

After such an impressive shattering of the previous record we headed out to what would be the hardest climb of the trek -- we were simply not acclimated for the high altitudes. We were nearing the top of Urraca Mesa and our camp, Toothache Springs, when members of our sister crew, 713-K3, began passing us. We realized when four members of their twelve-person crew passed and the other eight were a good quarter-mile behind us that we had a sort of crew cohesiveness that other crews didn't have; that really came in handy as the trek continued.

The next morning, our last with Reid, we awoke and looked down on the valley that we had climbed from the day before; as the sun broke over the eastern hills and cut orange beams into the dark purple western mountains, and as the river and forests below us awoke in the way they had for ages, Reid gave us his good-bye speech. He said, with chorus of colors swirling behind him, "With my best crew, we had one moment -- one time where I could say 'This is what Philmont is about; this is why I'm here -- why I keep coming back. With you guys, I've had more than I can count. None of my other crews was half as good -- as together as y'all have been; you're gonna have a good trek." The rest of the morning was a blur of sunrise-vistas and deer.

We ate breakfast in a clearing on the side of the trail, and enjoyed the bluish light of the early morning and the oddest energy bar yet, the HOOAH! bar. We came across our first troubling turn, and after some discussion and elimination as well as some group orienteering, we selected the right path (which happened to be to our left) and trotted along, while our sister crew selected to go to the right hand side. We soon made it out of the forest, and headed for Miner's Park Camp, while our sister crew took a 1/4 mile detour.

Miner's Park Camp was fun -- they had showers! -- Although, we did not anticipate such a long hike up to Betty's Bra, the climbing area, and most of us were out of water by the time we started the descent back to camp. We all climbed, and had lots of fun trying to do the "hard"(5.5) and "harder"(5.7) climbs. We all did, though the Merrills ended up swapping shoes around so that they could get rubber soles on their shoes.

We left Miner's Park Camp later than we had hoped -- our sister crew left a full 45 min before we did; we caught up to them as we came to program at Crater Lake. There we were greeted by Otto, the Lumberjack from Vancouver. He told us the utter sob story of the lumberjack orphans who were being raised in the true lumberjack way -- cut down and destroy everything beautiful. But these poor children, they were deprived the only thing they desired, cookies. "They go into the pantry to get one chocolate chip cookie for the 14 of them, and what do they find? NOTHING! No cookies, no éclairs, no bear-claws, not even a piece of cake. So please, send your baked goods to: Crater Boys, PO Box ..." For program, we created a railway tie out of a whole log, and then climbed their newly installed spar-poles. When we harnessed up for the pole climbing they told us, "We don't do any of that ballet on, ballet off stuff. We are real men; we use donkeys... 'Donkey, if my love for you were vomit, there would not be enough sawdust in all the trees of Philmont to clean it up."

We left Crater Lake in the afternoon and began the climb up Trail Peak, through the aspens and towards our greatest elevation of the trek thus far. Our sister crew again left before us, but we overtook them at our constant pace (slow and steady wins the race) about halfway up to the pass. Although we didn't have time left in the day to climb to the B-22 wreckage, we arrived at Lower Bonita just before the sunset.

Lower Bonita was truly spectacular. A pristine meadow, a small pastoral river passing through green pasture so, tall pines towering over fifty feet above our camp, all in the view of the great trail peak, removed from any real trace of man, everything was so perfect, it was ephemeral. This was the backcountry; this was Philmont.

Leaving the beauty of lower Bonita behind was hard, but we started early, before the beams of sunlight could show us the full wonder of what we had just left. Infused by the glories of a full night's sleep and wonderful scenery the crew moved with hereunto unknown speeds -- of course this wouldn't be the last time we stepped it into high gear.

We crossed through Webster's Pass and as we descended into the river valley that lay below us, the unmistakable sound of plucked strings floated through the trees towards us. As we pulled around the last of the switch backs that ran their way across the mountain we saw it: Fish Camp.

We pulled into Fish Camp before the dew had cleared off of all the leaves, before all the crews had left, before program had even been set up (that's pretty good time if you ask me). We were eventually joined by our sister crew, but that was long after we had already begun tying our flies and casting away. Though we fished the morning away, I was the only one lucky enough to catch a fish: a shining rainbow trout that played with me for over an hour.

We left Fish Camp after lunch, and not a moment too soon, as the old pilot/ bombardier was being moved and replaced with a pilot/ copilot set up, leaving the hole completely exposed, and our nostrils to it. We hiked as the rain began to fall and fill the creek with small silver ringlets of light, and hail. Coming to the base of Apache Springs was beautiful; it was enjoyable. Climbing up to Apache Springs was not. The trail was broken, eroded, and steep. Large boulders and rocks broke into the steep path that the rain had turned to mud. It wasn't easy, but with a full rest day ahead of us we grit our teeth and climbed on.

The first program we scheduled for the next day was trail building. Evidently the rocky hell that we had first ascended was in that condition from poor construction and lack of maintenance, a mistake they intended not to make again. The trail builders gave us instructions, helmets and tools and simply said "alright get to it!" Some of us chipped into the stones others paved retaining walls and constructed proper drainage channels while still others of us, myself included, did the fun stuff: moved big rocks.

Of course not all the program was manual labor and heavy lifting. There was an archery course, and best of all 'steam huts'. Though they were little more than PVC hovels made of old tents and mud floors next to a constant fire, they were one of the most cleansing experiences of the trip. We sweat out our dirt, our grime and most of our fluids, by placing hot coals in a bucket in the center of the tent and slowly pouring water over the rocks; it was a Native American sauna. When the coals were cooled we burst out and threw large buckets of water over our drenched bodies and shouted as our dirt was washed away. The night was spent with cards and deer, as we ate the first meals of our new, drastically smaller food supply.

In the morning we rose as was now standard, but would be insane: at the break of dawn. We packed on into Phillip's Junction to pick up our third and final supply of food, and after dividing it we hiked on into Porcupine. What a stickler that camp was. A dangerous combination of preseason flooding and erosion had made the original camp unstable and unsafe for continued use, so we were detoured into the new camp: the side of a mountain. With brand new sumps, very well hidden fire pits and a hike up and down the hill for water, the new camp was anything but an improvement.

The next day we set our crew's speed record, making it into clear creek camp before even the staffers were awake. We waited patiently for our chance for program, which consisted entirely of guns, axes and beaver traps. As the day wore on, the rain came once more, this time without remorse. Stuck in a camp too small to allow for good placement of the larger tents, and directly up hill from the creek that carried all the water back down the mountains, the water had only one way to go: through our tents. Sadly, in the effort to keep ourselves dry and warm before the next day's climb over Mount Phillips, we resorted to older, less ecologically-friendly scouting methods, using our spade to dig small direction channels away from our tents and more towards the creek.

And then there was the climb over Phillips. That morning as we crossed through the boundaries of Philmont property and towards the famous climb our order changed. Tad, who had previously guarded the rear valiantly, now took the fore. And he climbed. The trails and tree line broke before he did. And so we crossed Mount Phillips.

Finally atop our highest achievement of the trek we spent several hours taking photos having coffee and hot chocolate and maintaining our favorite past-time since Crater Lake: mini bear watching. As we came down from Mount Phillips we soon realized that while the road was all downhill from there, the proverb was a little most difficult part still lay ahead.

After sleeping the night in the shadow of Big Red we began our trek's mad dash back towards base camp. With only two days left and over twenty miles to go and still another mountain to climb, we once again kicked into overdrive. We flew through Cypher's Mine, cutting through Thunder Ridge and only stopping for the now necessary swap-box and enough time to get completely lost in the dark and make ourselves a hook. Then we sped off again through North Cimarroncito Canyon in past the hunting lodge and the beautiful Cimarroncito Reservoir into Clark's Fork for dinner. While bagged stew and caned fruit are usually never found on our refined and well seasoned pallets at this point we could not help but enjoy food that was neither freeze-dried or in an energy bar wrapper and that best of all, we didn't have to carry in anything but our stomachs.

We left Clarks Fork with a feeling of ending. We had finally realized that it was all going to end soon. We saw no one that morning heading in our direction; they were all trail bound, as our path wound back home. Crews passed us with a different sort of look now. Our faces were dirty, our clothes three times worn, but our looks were determined, not grim but resolved. We climbed greeted by the sky and ladybugs. Along the Tooth's grey stone back we rose, to our left the reservoir and Clark's Fork receded, on our right we could see the north face of Urraca Mesa, the site of our first real climb and our last night with Reid. As we reached the top of Tooth, we could see everything: The Kit Carson Museum where we started, Crater Lake and Trail Peak, whose shadow hid away the magic of Lower Bonita; Mount Phillips, whose trail we knew all too well, and far off in the distance old Baldy, that oft sung of mountain whose face we knew only from away. But before this all, and yet still ahead of us lay base camp, the beginning and the end of it all.

We wove our way through the endless turns that lay down the mountain's north side as base camp loomed closer and closer, yet still so far out of reach. Finally as both the weather and our patience began to turn, we reached it. The sign. "Welcome back -- You made it!"

Stripes
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