[Philmont]: A couple of rookie crew questions

From: Gary Dodge (dodge914@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Apr 15 2002 - 18:29:36 CDT


Our crew is entirely new to Philmont trekking and we need a couple of
questions answered (so far!).
 
First, our scouts have just made their selections of treks and we're
about to send the choices in, hoping for availability. The concern,
however, is that their selections are all at the very high end of the
difficulty scale. We (the advisors) are worried that they may have been
overly optimistic about their own capabilities (not to mention ours!).
None of these boys have done any extensive, multi-day backpacking trips
in the past. In their quest to fully exploit the Philmont experience,
are they going to make themselves too miserable to enjoy anything? How
should we counsel them?
 
Second, we have a couple of scouts participating who are pretty small
(~120 lbs). They, of course, haven't expressed any concern about the
necessary pack weights, but their parents have. We've heard conflicting
answers about how the assignment of crew equipment is done. We've been
told (by those parents) that they've heard that the equipment/food will
be divided so that nobody has a pack weight > 30% of their body weight.
We've also heard that the equipment/food will be distributed evenly and
each will carry approximately the same load. Obviously both answers
can't be correct. Can someone help us out based on actual recent
experience with crews of various size/age boys?
 
Thanks!
 
Gary Dodge
Old and feeble, but still a fox!
 
 
 
 
 
 
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