[Philmont]: Back on list and 'Philmont Duty to God Patches'

Hello to all!! I had stopped getting mail from the list earlier this
summer as I was going to be away from my computer a lot for work,
summer camp and as luck and our fast dialing fingers would have it, a
Philmont Trek.

Our Trek went well, great thanks to all who have answered my specific
questions as well as all those contributing for the last several years
(I was preparing for this Trek for a LONG time!) We did itinerary 18
with side hikes to Crooked Creek, Apache Springs and from base camp to
the Tooth on day 12 (Ute Gulch was also a side hike on Day 2 for a food
pick up.) We took our own tents, pots (except for 1 6 qt Phil-pot) and
dining fly. We used the (or a) turkey bag cooking method which worked
out great for us*. We all had a great time and I for one am ready to go
back... I also know my son (turned 15 on 8/15, the day we got home from
our Trek) wants to go back and do a Rayado and after he finished High
School (baseball to be precise) he wants to work as a ranger. We had a
great ranger, Steve C. from the Naval Academy and also met another
great ranger, Steve's friend Mike also from the Naval Academy, Steve
really got us off to a great start.

I do have one question, we underestimated the hike up the tooth from
base camp and ended up shorting ourselves on getting on our bus to the
train in Raton (we walked back into base camp at about 2:05pm and the
bus was at 3:00pm (it actually showed up at 2:45.) My plan was to take
my son and I's 'Philmont Duty to God' patch chits to the trading post
after we got back into camp and got a shower, as it turns out, the 2 of
us as well as 1 or 2 other scouts from our crew didn't have time to
stop at the trading post so we didn't get the paper turned in and
patches paid for. Does anyone know if there is any way to mail the
forms back out along with a check or MO for the number of patches we
need?? My email for TOTT is outdated, if anyone has an email that I
could use to contact Shelly (it is still Shelly isn't it??) it would be
much appreciated.

A couple notes:

Hiking the Tooth from base camp will likely require skipping breakfast
or lunch (we ended up missing lunch but not necessarily by choice) we
took 3 hours to climb up to the top and 2-1/2 hours to come back (had
a little encounter with a 3' rattle snake on the way up that slowed us
a bit.) Be sure to take plenty of water with you, it's a long hike in a
relatively arid area.

Take a REAL carribeaner for putting up an oops bag, we had never ending
problems getting 1 rope up, let alone 2. I don't remember this
mentioned but it may have been and I missed it. (We straightened out a
Philmont TP 'souvinere' beaner trying to put up an oops bag on it.)

As an adult, one of the things I will take with me next time is a
couple travel packs of wet wipes, again, not something I remember from
the list but it may have been mentioned. This was something Ranger
Steve had with him that I borrowed when I needed a little extra
cleaning power. This isn't something that I think needs to be on
everyone's gear list though.

If you have extra food left from meals, swap box it at your earliest
convenience. The only thing I stock piled were gatorade mixes for use
in treated water. We had several boys that wanted to scavenge
everything uneaten from every meal to eat later but we didn't ever run
out of food from the meals and even managed to work out a plan the last
2 days on the trail that allowed us to bring home unopened examples of
trail breakfast, lunch and dinner packages (the 10th serving and a few
smaller appetites helped.)

We had trail shirts made from dri-release t-shirts (had our state and
trek number on the right sleeve and the Philmont Arrowhead and 2003 on
the left sleeve, the idea was you'd still be able to see the stuff with
a backpack on.) I won't ever hike in a cotton t-shirt again, that stuff
was amazing.

Anyway, enough rambling for now. More later I'm sure. (I do have some
info on the dining fly question but it's at home.

Yours in Scouting
Kevin Mineart 2003 Phil-trek 802-B3
West Burlington, IA

*I came up with a little variation that I don't remember mentioned on
the list in the past, we would dump the food mixes in separate turkey
bags (we didn't mix food items other than a couple times where they
were similar things, noodles and rice combinations, etc) we boiled a
pot of water separately, sterilized plates/bowls/cups/spoons and then
dip-measured the boiling water into the bags which were then stirred
and twisted closed before dropping into the 6 qt pot with about an inch
of water in the bottom, this was allowed to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes
and then it was set off the stove for the balance of time needed to
fully reconstitute our food. After the first couple days on the trail,
we learned to guage whether the 9 of us needed 10 servings or 8 (or
even 6) and we didn't ever really have too much trouble finishing the
food and finding someone that wanted to 'sump' the bag. We also tried
to do our best in the way of compacting trash, the best day, we got our
entire day's worth of trash into a cheerios box, a club cracker box and
hmmm... another box of similar dimension (this included our 2 turkey
bags from supper that had been 'squeegied' clean and then rolled up and
stuffed, the trash is a major smellable anyway so there was no need to
put the turkey bag in the yum-yum bag.

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Received on Tue Aug 26 11:40:36 2003