Philmont: Day 1 Trail Bound
OK folks, we’re off the trail, so it is going to take a short while to catch up on our blog posts. After 12 days on and off the trail with three crews, we managed to take over 2700 photos and have several memories to share. We’ll be posting these over the weekend, so keep a close eye here for the summary of each day. For now, let’s start with our first day into Philmont.
After a short three hour bus ride we arrived at Philmont Scout Ranch in the early afternoon after being dropped off by our Blue Sky Adventures hosts. The first order of business for trail bound crews was to get assigned a Philmont Ranger and begin the process of onboarding for the upcoming treks. While there is a lot of waiting there is a lot to accomplish in a short time including checking into camp logistics, shaking down individual gear, locking up personal items in security, getting trail food, locking up personal gear in lockers, checking out required crew gear from Philmont and getting assigned Trailbound tents for the evening.
Each crew is assigned an identification number and from this point forward each of the three groups act as an independent crew, taking leadership from their assigned scout crew leader in the group. We had a (*cough cough*) wonderful meal at the local dining hall and continued with our duties as the day went on.
Once done, we went to a welcome campfire which gave a short, narrated history of the Philmont Scout Ranch and the Santa Fe Trail which runs through it. Unfortunately the presentation was cut a little short by rain, but that provided a good lesson on being prepared with rain gear in the back country. After all that activity and excitement it was time to head to our tents and prepare to hit the Philmont trail the next day. The Cimarron evening sky was quite a sight as the clouds reflected the glow of the setting sun. For the outbound crews, this would be the last time we would have flushing toilets, hot showers, sodas, candy bars, ice cream and other creature comforts we all know and love.
As promised, we’ll be putting together the daily posts over the next few days in order to re-live each day and share our funny stories, our challenges and most of all, our daily triumphs as each of the three crews set out on their Philmont treks.