The good, the bad, and the ugly... Notes from Philmont for next time!

Vicki Armstrong, crew 618-7A: 9 Scouts and 3 adults from Troop 583, Castaic California.

Bear Bags

We tried to have each food buddy pair share a bear bag, and each pair to write on their food bags with a Sharpie, but somehow we always ended up with random loose items and trash in bags, with no one taking ownership of those items. It would take 45 minutes to sort out food every morning. Other people have suggested using one colored drawstring bag per Scout to corral their food items into, so I think we would do this in the future. My two sons did put their loose snacks into an orange rolltop bag they had with them so those two at least were able to find their stuff in the mornings!

Crew Shirts

I procrastinated over these and left it too late to order the official Philmont t-shirts. Ended up getting shirts made locally in our Troop color instead. Recommend this T-shirt: PC380 and LPL380 Port & Company Performance Tee, if you’re making your own!

Smart Water bottles

During shakedowns I converted our Scouts to taking Smart water/ Life water/Gatorade water bottles instead of the heavier Nalgenes. Plus, you can fit two 1-litre bottles in one side-pocket.

Sharpie initials rubbed off after a day, and we ended up with several unclaimed bottles as the week went by. Top tip: put Scotch tape over the name to stop it from rubbing off before leaving for the trip!

Several shakedowns earlier the Scouts learned why they only use one for smellables and drinking out of, leaving the rest as water for topping off, sharing, or cooking… Backwash into water bottles when they chug the water after inhaling a dry packet of electrolytes is quite disgusting and we don’t need to share that water. Glad we got that one out of the way.

Sanitation bag

We split the MicroPur between two Scouts as per Roger Hoyt suggestion at Adult Advisor meeting. Just as well - our sanitation bag (with the MicroPur) went missing for a day! It was later found - got stashed in someone’s pack and forgotten about. Phew!

Day hike blunder - French Henry and Mt. Baldy

We should have taken MicroPur tablets on our day hike of Mt Baldy so we could top off our bottles at the creek at French Henry on our return. As it was, it was a cool day and we didn’t run out of water (each person took ~3L water), but we really should have taken some MicroPur with us!

Duty Roster

Crew leader prepped this in advance, laminated, and hung on his backpack so everyone could readily see what they needed to do. We had the itinerary on the other side (from the Itinerary Guidebook) but our actual 7-4 itinerary was slightly different than the published one, but it was still useful to have the camps, activities and mileage to hand to answer the inevitable questions “How far is it? Are we there yet? “

Dining Fly

We got rained on several times and had to shelter and eat under the dining fly - very cosy. Actually, that was one of our adult’s favorite moments!

I sewed one from a RipStopByTheRoll WinterHexTarp kit using seconds silnylon fabric - cost $57 plus shipping. Recycled the guylines from two old tents, and old tent stakes. Pros: was a little larger than the Philmont dining fly, and only weighed 1lb. We were able to put this up in a variety of ways with hiking poles, Dyneema cordage (1.25oz for 30ft and very strong!), and guylines. It even survived overnight rain - I baled 6 gallons of water that had pooled on one side!

Scouts had to re-learn the taut line hitch, bowline, and clove hitch, plus we used slip knots or tautlines on a bight to shorten the guy lines when needed. Knots are a perishable skill and several Life Scouts just couldn’t remember how to tie them! Re-learn ahead of time.

Team Chair

We are mostly team chair! I learned this from my 2022 trek because it’s nice to have somewhere dry to sit in the rain. The two Scouts who did not bring camp chairs sat in the dirt or on wet logs/rocks and subsequently got rather damp.

Breaking Camp

Everyone packs their personal stuff. Those who are speed demons at packing up then worked together to pack up crew gear. This worked better than following the duty roster to a T just because some of them were sloth-like at getting up and out in the mornings.

Tea and coffee

Some mornings we adults just didn’t have time to get the jetboils going. Powdered black tea from Amazon combined with lemonade mix helped me survive those days!

Backpack weight - small adults and crew gear

This was my 2nd Philmont trek. The prior one I left basecamp with a 45lb Pack because I was carrying extra water, crew gear and other people’s food bags, because they just didn’t have room in their packs (mostly because they were carrying extra stuff, including solar panels and a satellite phone we didn’t know they had because their Dad was tracking them and they needed to keep it charged up, and contraband items like deodorant…). I’m only 115lb so it made for a tough trek with sore legs every morning, although I built up some pretty good muscle.

This time, I was with a crew from our own Troop and, thanks to multiple shakedowns and a final backpack check before we left, everyone had a good weight with everything on the list and no more (except for one full size deodorant that somehow came out with the Scout. The coconut scent kind of gave it away). This time, I did not carry crew gear or other food (other than one bear bag, and my personal sewing and repair kit for everyone to use), and left base camp with just 31lb. Much happier this time!

Switching meals

For our first day on the trek, our menu had a rehydrated dinner for our dry camp. So, we ate it at lunchtime at Ponil where there was water, and ate lunch for dinner. Good plan, especially as it was raining when we got to camp. The next day’s breakfast was also a Mountain House meal combined with an early start to hike to Cons at Elkhorn, so we switched it for the next day's breakfast instead.

At our last camp, Miranda, we rolled into camp at 9.30am and snagged the last program time slot of the day, so again we decided to cook dinner for lunch instead, as we had lots of time to cook and clean up before getting to program at 4pm, and saved us having to rush afterwards to cook so we had ample time to return to the evening program at 7pm.

Backcountry trading posts

WiFi at Baldy Town isn’t 100% reliable so using bank cards was a bit hit-and-miss. Take cash for the root beer and souvenirs in the backcountry!

Our favorite and lesser liked campsites

We loved the campsites at Head of Dean and Miranda! Roomy, flat enough, and beautiful views!

Bluestem was ok but I had to use the open latrine cautiously because I was the only female in the group and almost got caught in the act by two Scouts coming down to use it. I was whistling but these guys aren’t terribly observant.

Baldy Town campsite 11 was horrid - nowhere flat, soggy, lots of bear scat, and hard to find an open tentsite that was far enough away from the Bearmuda triangle. It was also half a mile downhill along a rocky trail to get there, so quite a pain to get back to Baldy Town for showers, Trading Post, signing out and program (we were consequently 45’ late for goldpanning).

This year we had rangers at both Baldy Town and Miranda come down late at night for a campsite check (to make sure that Bear Bags were hung correctly, and that tents were far enough away from sumps/dining fly etc). This was a new thing I hadn’t seen before!

Cooking whoopsies

A couple of times they got cups and litres confused and added 6L of water to the Sante Fe Chicken and Rice instead of 3L...

Santa Fe Chicken and Rice results in a rapid dash to the Red Roof Inn, and lots of flatulence.