The scouts of Troop 411 in Chapin have returned from another daring adventure at Philmont Scout Ranch.  Philmont known to many, as “Scouting Paradise”, is a 137,000-acre ranch in the northeastern portion of New Mexico.  Most of the crew this year is returning to Philmont for the second time.  Kevin D, Brian C, Cannon F, Richard P, Edwin W as well as Advisors Furman Miller and John Ferguson were members of the Troop 411 2001 Philmont Crew.  Joining them for the first trip to Philmont were Paul C, Kiri F and Advisors Jack Daniel and Charles Weber.  Our Philmont Ranger this year, Robert Inman, is a Troop 411 Eagle Scout who hiked at Philmont with Troop 411 in 1997 and 1999.  Kevin served this year as the Crew Chief, Richard served as the Assistant Crew Chief and Edwin served as the Chaplain Aide.

            We chose a super-strenuous itinerary for this year, nearly 95 miles in the north and central sections of Philmont.  We began hiking on Monday, June 16 with a short 2-mile hike to Anasazi Camp and the next day we hiked 4 miles to Cottonwood Camp.  Along the way we saw the world’s only fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex footprint and we saw petroglyphs or “rock writings” made by the Anasazi Indians over 1000 years ago.  The next day we hiked 6 miles over Hart Peak to Ponil Camp where we branded our boots and belts and went horseback riding in the rain.  On Thursday we learned how to pack our food onto two burros and we hiked 8 miles to Pueblano Ruins Camp.  Here we finally saw the sun and we dried out a little.  The next morning we all climbed 30-foot tall spar poles, like lumberjacks used to do to limb tall trees.  After a late morning hailstorm interrupted our climbing we repacked our burros and hiked 8 miles to Miranda Camp.  We stayed two nights at Miranda, which gave us the opportunity to hike to the top of Baldy Mountain.  Miranda is nearly at 9000 feet elevation; Baldy is 5.5 miles from Miranda and stands at 12,441 feet.  We had a great sunny day and all the crew made the climb to the top of Baldy.  On Sunday we left Miranda without the burros and hiked to Head of Dean where we helped to plant grass and put out wheat straw in the burned areas of forest.  Philmont lost 35,000 acres of forest to fire last summer.  Philmont is trying to plant grass to hold the soil and prevent erosion in the burn areas.  After lunch we participated in “Challenge Events”, which are a series of games designed to build teamwork concepts.  After the Challenge Events we finished our day of hiking 10 miles by going to Santa Claus Camp.  The next day we hiked 10 miles to Upper Bench Camp and on Tuesday we hiked 8 miles to Harlan Camp, where we first reloaded 12-gauge shotgun shells and then went trap shooting.  Later that day Richard and Brian won the daily “burro race’ at Harlan.   That Wednesday we hiked 12 miles to Clarks Fork Camp and the following day we hiked 15 miles over Tooth Ridge back to base camp.  We all hiked to the top of the “Tooth of Time”, Philmont’s famous landmark on our way to base camp.

Once again as in years past we had a great trip that we will all treasure for years to come.