Preparing for Philmont

A successful and enjoyable trip to Philmont involves making sure you have all the logistics taken care of (trek selections, travel options, trek options etc), conduct multiple shakedowns, to ensure that you have bought the appropriate equipment and most importantly, conduct as many practice hikes, with a fully loaded backpack. Oh and know your knots 🙂

Being based out of Texas, we faced an additional challenge, we are at a very low elevation, and there are not many hills where we can practice on a regular basis. This is where you need to be creative, for example walk up and down stairs.

Day 0: Albuquerque (Sunday July 3rd)

It was the day… all the months of preparation, and now we were ready to embark on our journey!

We headed to Hobby airport at 7am for our flight on Southwest Airlines. Our crew checked in without any issues. Houston to Austin and then to Albuquerque. We had arranged with Blue Sky to pick us from the airport and an overnight stay at Sheraton. I had toasted sub for dinner, and went to bed early. We are all very eager and excited. 

Day 1: Camping Headquarters (Philmont, Base Camp, Monday July 4h)

Got up at 5am. Got ready, had breakfast downstairs, and started on our journey from Albuquerque to Cimarron. While taking a break on the way, an army core of engineers person gifted us a multi tool carabiner. It was a really nice gesture!

Reached Philmont and promptly got our guide assigned. Nobel would be our guide for the first 2 days. We put our gear in the tents and then walked  around the base camp to get familiar. Had a veggie patty with a bun, beans potatoes for lunch. Following that, we went for our health checkup, all good. Then on to logistics and registration. Picked up a few things at the Tooth of Time Traders. Dinner, at 4:30pm, baked capsicum with rice and veggies.  Did a shakedown with Nobel, then went to the campfire at 7pm. Back at tent and in bed early. It was a cold night.

Day 2: Backache Springs (Tuesday July 5th)

Woke up at 4:45am. Showered, had breakfast at 6:45am. Last min checks… put our extra stuff in the lockers, got on the bus and headed to Kit Carson museum. After a quick museum tour, we did tomahawk throwing and blacksmithing. Had our first lunch on the hike…then got on the bus and were dropped us off at Zastrow.

With a map and a compass and knowing our current location, we were supposed to hike to Backache Springs. The hike stared out pretty flat, but pretty soon, we were going up the mountain. It started raining real hard! We quickly dropped our backpacks and put on our frog togs. Climbing up the really steep hill in the rain was not fun. If it wasn’t for Noble, we would definitely have gotten lost. He guided us to the right location, and then, just like that the sky cleared out. We would soon realize that afternoon rains were a part of the the schedule at Philmont, something to expect every day.  At our campsite, we were able to take in the majestic views. We pitched our tents, dining fly and Noble showed us how to use the stove, cook, clean up, use the sump etc. We had pasta for dinner.  It all felt so foreign, and yet in a couple of days it would become second nature to us. It was a great first day, where everything got thrown at us, and we made it successfully. Now we were felt that we were prepared for what was coming next.

Day 3: ABREU (Wednesday July 6th)

Got up at 5am. No “Red roofs” here, so we had to use the shovel. Packed up, had breakfast on the go… headed out by 7:30AM. The plan was to head to a location with water, but unfortunately, it was dry. We did find a cattle trough, and used a water filtration pump to extract water and the tablets to disinfect the water. The hike overall was easier, as most of it was downhill. Took a lunch break midway.  Reached ABREU by noon. Bought patches for the scouts and adults.  Had a Mexican dinner.. veggie soup and bread. Scouts learnt how to put up a bear bag. Got our daily rain from 5pm to 7 pm. Had an advisors coffee meeting. Just hung out with a couple of other troops leaders and exchanged notes. Two of our adult leaders felt they could not carry on any further and planned to head back to base camp to re-evaluate. It was our last night with our guide, Noble. We are worried, but we will power on. Scouts are doing an excellent job of handling the rigors of Philmont. 

Day 4: Bear Caves (Thursday July 7th)

We woke up around 4:30am. Packed up, It happens to be the birthday of one of the scouts. Celebrated his birthday with pound cake and frosting, that Noble got. Cleaned up at camp and we are on our way to the next camp site. We have a long day ahead of us. Steep climb lots of switch backs Weather so far has been awesome.  Hike was strenuous, lots of rocks on the way. We started at 8am and reached Bear Caves at 2pm. There were a few places where we had fallen logs that we had to climb over. The campground is primitive. Scouts set up the bear bag first. After that we started looking for water. We found some untreated water and filled up the 3 5L bags and put the iodine tablets in it. I figured out how to use the stove and one of our scouts made dinner… we used up all the rice (risotto) and some snacks. It was filling. Plan is to get up by 3:30am tomorrow morning and hike to crater lake for our service project. 

Day 5: Miners Park (Friday July 8th)

Woke up at 4:30am. Scouts started sharing responsibilities for packing the tents and packing the supplies. We took the 30 min hike to Crater lake. Got here at 7am for the conservation project. Had breakfast on the way and filled water from a spigot at the lake. Hiked back to the conservation location.

Did some major clearing work. We had to take the tree trunks, branches from near the trail and throw them more than 15ft away. We chopped down some seriously big fallen trunks and moved them away. Came back to Crater lake. Had lunch and are now heading to Miners Park. The route was downhill and flat. Just a few climbs. Some really narrow sections besides the mountain sides. It was a fun hike. We did good time. We reached Miners Camp by 1:30pm.

There are activities in the PM, but our scouts didn’t seem too keen on them. Oh, and they have “SHOWERS”. We put our gear at our camp site and the adults headed to the showers. Since it was sunny, we also washed our clothes. Oh that felt so good. I wore my Texans T-shirt. It felt like the nicest camp site so far. It’s 3:30pm and it looks like our daily thunderstorms are here. Got some hail along with the thunderstorms. It started clearing out around 5PM. We started boiling water for our dinner. We can still hear thunder in the background. Dinner was chicken rice/chicken dumplings with Oreos. Had some Advisor coffee at the admin office. Cleaned up all the stuff, put backpacks under the dining fly had a chat with our sister crew. Went to bed. It was a cold night. Not sure if the coffee caused it, but I did not sleep well. 

Day 6: Black Mountain (Saturday July 9h)

Woke up at 5am. Took care of bear bags etc repacked, distributed the breakfast, did the police line and are ready to hit the trail.  It’s 6:40am and we are on the trail. The trail is narrow and very scenic. Initially it was mostly down but then it went up and down. We also zigzagged across the river. It was pretty brutal. Got here at 12 noon. Luckily no one fell into the water, though some of them kind of got their feet wet. It is a bare minimum campground.

Pack in pack out. Since we are at a trail camp tomorrow, we figure we do our dinners here and eat the trail meals at Divide. So we had trail meal 10 for lunch.Cooking dinner at 5:50… Mexican style vegetable rice. Went for the advisors coffee. Couple of the rangers were playing music. Not much. We were the only advisors there. We will also have the cooked breakfast and then we will head out to Divide. 

Day 7: Divide (Sunday July 10)

Slept in…Woke up at 6AM It was a really cold night. Scouts are waking up. All doing their chores. We are going to cook the breakfast and then do the power rifle shooting at 8 and then we will head out to Divide. Had a good breakfast. Did the rifle shooting. It was really good. I got 2 and jus missed the 3rd one. Packed and hiked out. The first half was all river crossings. It was pretty narrow sections. Once we were done (cross the service road) with this part, we came up to a really steep hike 650ft to get to the top of a hill and 200 further feet to get to the top of Big Red. It was a really rocky up and down. Took me forever to go up. Toughest part so far. Then we had a steep downhill descend very rocky once again. So far the hardest day. Reached Divide at 5pm. Glad to be here. My feet need rest!!! Thet have water here and a red roof. Cool!

We will have the non cooking lunch meal today for dinner. Done with dinner. Walked around, filled the water bladders, had Advisor coffee. Putting up bear bags and getting ready for bed. Overall Divide seems like a really new campground. Lots of fallen trees and rangers clearing things up. Scouts were playing the bean bag throwing game. Some of the folks are sniffing. Hopefully it is because of the cold night we just had. Plan is to wake up at 4am tomorrow morning and get out by 5am so we can put our stuff at Philips Junction and climb MT Phillips and have lunch on there. 

Day 8: Clear Creek (Monday, July 11)

The night was not too cold. Slept pretty well. Waking up at 5am… a bit later than we planned to. Now to rush the process of getting ready for the long day ahead. Got out around 7am. Got out of Divide, looped around the Red hills campground, then walked along the river for a while, before getting into a steep climb. It was a really rocky climb up. We came to the intersection of MtPhillip and Comanche Peak. We dropped our backpacks went to Commache Peak first and then picked up our backpacks and headed to Mt Philippe.

The road was rocky and was really difficult to walk on. Lots of uphill and downhill hiking. It was gorgeous. We sat for a while took pix and had our lunch. After lunch we headed to clear creek. From there we took the OA trail to Clear Creek. It was a nice curvy trail all downwards. We reached Clear Creek around 2:30pm. As usual it rained for a few min around 3:30pm. Set up tents dining fly and making dinner now. Water not completely boiled… but we added the water and got it started anyways… did our daily prayers and finished dinner. Scouts played around for a bit and then we headed up for Advisors coffee. Had hot cider and chatted with the rangers, and then went to bed. 

Day 9: Porcupine (Tuesday July 12)

“DAY 9” yay, getting close to the end. We love it here, but all are starting to get homesick! We woke up at 5:30am and are packed up by 6:30am. Did the police line and headed out to Porcupine. This one is a trail camp. The trail takes us next to the Rayado creek. It’s a 8 mile hike but all downhill according to the map. We did really well. We got there in 3 hours. Staying at campsite 5. We set up camp, dining fly. Some of the scouts stayed behind while the others went to get food from Phillips Junction. Looks like we have a steep climb way to get there or a river path to get there. And then… it started raining around 2pm and continued all the way to 7pm. It rained really hard. Luckily all of us are dry for now. We were missing a few stakes, so we went to the  camp office and purchased 10.

We cooked southwest chicken for dinner. The MSR stove didn’t work, maybe I wasn’t using them properly. So I used the other one and cooked dinner. Making hot water for apple cider/ hot coco. Something to warm us up. Cold night. Not the coldest though… but definitely the second coldest. There were 2 turboprop planes that flew over us at around 10:30pm. Sounded really low. 

Day 10: Apache Springs (Wednesday July 13)

Woke up around 6:30am. Not in a rush today. Need to buy some supplies at Phillips Junction. Packed everything up. Things are still damp and wet. Will hike out of here at 8:30am and buy supplies. So we headed to Phillips Junction, picked up gas and swapped supplies from the swap box. Hiked on to Buck Creek. It was a good hike first and the all downhill to Buck Creek. Now we are headed to Bear Creek. It was up and down too. Had lunch at Bear Creek. It was a nice 30 min break. Now we head to Apache Springs. We reached Apache Springs at 2:45PM. It was a tough hike. Lots of ups and downs. Crew is pretty tired at this point and getting a bit cranky. We are at camp site 16. Tents set up, fly is done. Dinner is ready… teriyaki noodles. 

Camp site is pretty decent. A few of us went up to see the sunset. It was pretty nice. Once we came back we booked water and had some apple cider and hot chocolate. KP was done after that. Apparently there were some bear sightings in the area. The rangers came by and make sure we were keeping things clean in our campground. We did a clean job. It is relatively warm today. I’m sleeping in my T-shirt and shorts. Not using the thermals.  Plan is to wake up and get ready as soon as possible, to hike down to American Creek. Scouts want to get there asap… and not waste time doing archery or other activities. Crew excited as we are almost done with our trip and are ready to head home 😁

Day 11: American Creek (Thursday July 14)

It’s 6am and no one is up yet… we are letting the folks sleep in a bit. But we need to get going. We have a long day ahead of us…Plan to hike across the meadow to Garcia Cow and then take a combination of service roads and trails to get to American Creek. Had mashed potatoes and chicken for breakfast. Packed our stuff and are on our way … a bit later than expected, it’s 9:30am now. By the time we took care of water, and logistics it was close to 10am.

On our way now. First we had a good climb to the meadow. Then we walked across the meadow, it was a decent hike. We reached Garcia Cow without any issues. We couldn’t find the road after that. We were a bit lost. We hiked thru the vegetation and found another crew hiking. That helped us identify the trail to take. We went on the trail till the lake and then cut across to the other trail. Kind of got stuck in the buffalo pen while trying to come out! We went thru the barbed wires to get out. There were clouds in the area and we could see some rain in the area too. It was a really long hike. Towards the end it was getting really difficult for me to keep up. We finally came to the American Creek camp sites. We first overshot the site. But we came back to locate it. It was a primitive camp site rustic. Tents were set up on the slanted area.. Had breakfast for dinner. All set to go to bed now…

Day 12: Toby Trail Head, Camping HQ (Friday July 15)

Woke up at 4:30am. Got ready and headed out by 5:40am. There were some up’s and downs but overall it was a pretty decent hike. Lots of amazing views. We made it to the bus stop by 10am. Got on the 11am bus and headed to the base camp along with our sister crew. Once at base camp we returned our equipment, got patches etc at logistics, and got into our tents. I then took a shower and had dinner around 5:45pm. We served food prior to our dinner. I purchased most of the patches. Need to purchase  a couple of them to complete the list. It’s 8:20 and we are doing the closing ceremony now. Closing ceremony was fun. Song and play musical! 

Day 13: Flight back to Houston (Sat July 16)

Woke up at 5am, shaved, got ready, packed, had breakfast, picked up some goodies from tooth of time traders (tags for me and plaques for the advisors) and loaded up on the van, headed to the airport. Blue Sky was here on time to pick up our two crews as well as 4 kids from NAYLE, the advanced version of NYLT. At the airport by 11am. Unloaded and heading into security. Flight to Austin is delayed. But Austin-Houston is on time. We should be all good. Will be heading home with soon. 

Took some pictures at the airport. My son and I shared a sandwich. The scouts presented the advisors with thank you Plaques. They then handed out the acknowledgements to the advisors as well as the patches to the participants. Flight left at 2:10pm, landed in Austin on time. We walked around the Austin airport. Left Austin at 6:45pm and are on our way to Houston. Landed at 7:15pm. Glad to be home.

Thoughts after the trip

Have to say, this trip to Philmont was an amazing experience. I have learnt so much over the past couple of weeks. This has to be one of the hardest as well as one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.