Philmont Scout Ranch

Our daughter took us for lunch at the staff dining hall. When she called and asked us to come pick her up, she mentioned that the food was one of the reasons that she didn’t want to extend her Philmont stay. She said that they had changed food service providers, and the food was not nearly as good as it had been in previous years.

When she took us to lunch with her we saw for ourselves. She checked over every bit before eating it, just to make sure that all of the “cooties” were off of it. From my perspective, some of the food was not really bad, but some of it was downright nasty. Nothing that I ate that day was particularly good. Breakfast cereal seemed to be quite popular among a number of the staff, even at lunch time. She explained that it was pretty hard to ruin breakfast cereal.

We finally left Philmont. We gazed at the mountain peak known as the Tooth of Time. The name comes from the days of the Santa Fe Trail. When you saw the Tooth you knew that you were only 7-10 out from Santa Fe. Boy Scout legend has it that if you gaze at the Tooth of Time over your shoulder as you leave Philmont, then you will one day return. I was glad to have visited Philmont, but it isn’t really high on my list of places to visit again someday. As I we left Philmont I looked back. It was very rainy that afternoon, and the Tooth of Time was shrouded in low clouds, fitting perhaps.

After meeting up with our daughter at Philmont and seeing where she lived it was time to take a tour of the camp. Philmont is not your standard Boy Scout camp. This is a camp for training leaders. It is a prestigious place and a great privilege to be able to come.

One of the highlights of the Philmont experience is going on an 11-day trek through the backcountry. Our daughter explained that each day several groups of boys and leaders depart into the backcountry on their trek. Similarly several groups return from the backcountry.

There are special tents set up in camp for those getting ready to depart. Here they gather up all of the provisions that they will need and load them up. Each pack is individually inspected prior to departure. The main reason for the inspection is to remove any smellables from the packs. Smellables include things like soaps, deodorants, insect repellant, sunscreen, etc. Smellables are not permitted in the backcountry as they tend to attract bears.

There is another special camp set up for people returning from their 11-day trek. It is located downwind of the main camp, and for good reason. Certainly no one would want to have a large group of hikers, deprived of their smellables for 11 days camping upwind of them.

Our daughter explained that there are approximately 3000 people on their backcountry trek at any given time. In the main camp there is a logistics center where they keep track of all of the groups and there approximate locations. They know where they left from, and where they should be arriving at any given time. I peeked in the window. I saw a huge map of the area, people talking on radios, and sticking pins in the map to indicate where the various groups were located. Philmont has a number of backcountry camps where the groups check in periodically.

Another thing that she showed us was the Philmont Trading Post. For the first summer at Philmont, she was assigned to work here. My mental image of a Boy Scout Trading Post was based on my own experience at Scout Camps. I had imagined a small building where they sold candy bars, boondoggle, neckerchief slides, and pocket knives. Was I ever wrong. The Philmont Trading Post was huge! Here they sold every outdoor, camping, climbing, survival piece of equipment ever imaginable. They also had a large number of souvenir items as will. The scale of the store was unbelievable.

We asked her if, in her duties at Philmont, she did programs for children of the leaders she ever had the opportunity to get out and do much hiking or camping. She said that she would take some of the older kids on overnight trips into the mountains, and that she and her friends sometimes went on hikes when they had free time. I asked if she had ever seen any bears. She said she had seen bears three times. As a caring father I asked if she was riding in one of the vehicles when she saw them. Of course she wasn’t. She told me about the time they were hiking and saw a bear cub along the side of a trail. Of course mother bear was on the opposite side and quite angry with the hikers for getting between them.

Standard procedure when being threatened by a bear is to huddle together (so that you look big). Then you sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Apparently this will frighten most bears away. My daughter said that since there was a cub involved, mama bear didn’t turn and run like normal, she just got more angry. My daughter said that they had to retreat down the mountain and never finished the hike.

We arrived at Philmont to pick up our daughter and bring her home. This had been her third summer working at Philmont. She has really enjoyed her time here.

This was our first visit to Philmont. Our daughter had given directions to the camp from Cimarron, the nearest town of any sort. She told us which side road to turn on. She descibed the parking area where she would find us.

We hopped out of the car and looked around. We were immediately impressed with how large of an operation Philmont Scout Ranch is. I marveled at the number of tents which had been set up for staffers to live in. Some of the locals say that Philmont resembles an army camp.

As I looked around the camp, off in the distance, I saw someone who looked familiar. I looked a little closer and she waved. It was my daughter.

Her younger brother and sister ran out to meet her. We were all happy to see her again.

We were delighted to see how healthy she looked. She had a nice healthy-looking tan that she had developed from spending so much time outside.

She showed us around the living area. She took us to the tent where she had lived for the previous two months. She was happy with it. I guess at her age you view the world differently than you do as an old geezer does at my age. To me it was a canvas tent with a concrete slab floor. To her it was her home, headquarters while she was having her great adventure. From the looks on the faces of the other family members I think that they tended to agree with my assessment.

I want to go here, but no particularly scoutish motive behind my visit. My daughter is a Boy Scout, and is working at Philmont this summer.

This is her third summer there, and probably her last. We decided that rather than making her fly home or bum a ride from someone that we, as a family, will go down and pick her up.

She has really enjoyed working at Philmont in the past, but says that this year has not been as much fun. She is looking forward to coming home in a few months.

We plan to visit Philmont for only a few hours, but I am looking forward to seeing the place which has been talked about in so many of her stories.

I spent 10 days hiking with my son and his scout group. We climbed both the Tooth of Time and Mount Baldy. The scenery and wildlife were fantastic.