RE: [Philmont]: Value of Basecamp Experience (was "Rules" - Timing)

>>We've all been novice Advisors once. Thinking back, I certainly
preferred my second arrival over my first. And even on my first, I at
least had the 16 and 17 year old memories of my previous Scout visits
(as Crew Chief), so things were at least somewhat familiar. Personally,

I prefer having a clue. As I posted earlier, "Knowledge is Power".

- Dr. Bob<<

In our situation all of us were green. None had been there before and we
were assigned a first year ranger. He had several crews under his belt
by our arrival in August, but I'm sure he was still a bit green as well.
It did have a minor impact on our crew even once we hit the trail as it
seemed that every free moment for the first two days was filled with
Ranger training. We had practiced and reviewed the Philmont way of doing
things before our arrival, but it still is not the same as being there.
Looking back, or perhaps I should say, looking forward, I would do a few
things differently (related to base camp):

1. Bring our gear. I mentioned this before as a way to reduce Check
in/out tasks and time. But it also reduced new information overload.
Learning how to set up Phil-tents is no big deal, but it is another
"new" bit of knowledge that crew members need to absorb. Plus there's
comfort with the know and having gear you've handled in the past
provides a little bit of comfort.

2. Stronger map reading skills, especially for us flat-landers in the
Midwest. We worked on reading and triangulating but the territory in
Philmont is like nothing we've seen. One, our ranger queried us on map
symbols we didn't run into on our shakedowns, like abandoned mines. I'm
sure there are some in the Midwest, but not where we were. Two,
identifying landmarks. In the Midwest there may be a couple of high
hills or significant landmarks to ID. At Philmont, "which of these
mountains on the map is the one I'm looking at in front of me?" or
"Which ravine is this one?" You learn to work through it, but it' so
easy on the shakedowns that the skill needed honing on the trail. (I
don't think you can become expert at it until you're in the terrain, but
I'd spend more time on the shakedowns to make it more repetitive.) I'd
also work on being more aware of pacing and distanced traveled. "We've
walked an hour since we last checked our position so we should be about
'here' on the map." We continually overestimated our progress on the
map. Part of that is the slower pace due to the up and down trails
instead of flatter Midwest trails, and part is the difference in map
scales. We used USGA topo maps that have a smaller scale. I'd order a
map with the same scale as the Phil-maps for at least one shakedown hike
so we were more familiar with the ones we'd use on the trail.

Plus the items I mentioned in my earlier email!

BTW, our waiting list number for 2006 is 1,000 something. I'm not
holding my breath. But I am encouraging the boys to consider the other
options.

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Received on Fri Jan 7 13:07:24 2005