Re: [Philmont]: 2003 Trail Menu

I believe it has been discussed before on the list, but it has been said that you can put a lot of healthy foods in the meals and kids will turn up their nose at it. Hiking at Philmont burns up a lot of calories and kids need to get those calories in them in the way that is most pleasing to them, i.e. junk food. I can't remember of any incidents of people being injured by the menu. Is it a dieticians dream? Absolutely not! Philmont takes the comment sheets that all advisers and crew leaders fill out at the end of the trek seriously. Food likes and dislikes are taken into consideration when coming up with next year's menu. I have 10 treks and one Autumn Adventure's experience. What I found out was that the quantity of food consumed and/or leftover varied directly with the average physical size of the crew members. When my younger son was a whopping 95 pounds in 1997, he didn't consume as much food as he did on his other treks in '99 and '01 after he had finally decided to grow. Our trek in 2001, I had by average the largest weight and age crew that I ever went with. In years before I had plenty of food. That year I anticipated a problem and I personally carried two complete extra cooked entrees for our crew. I also carried 9 cake mixes. ( I baked three cakes at a time on three occasions) That extra food made all of the difference in the world for our crew. The boys still decided what meal they wanted to eat and when and incorporated my two meals into the plan. I am not saying that this is necessary for all crews, but I felt it was necessary for that crew. I have gained weight on the trial and lost weight on the trail on different treks. I have found that the morale of even the best crew goes up and down based on the content of their stomachs.

My suggestion would be to try one of the exact Philmont meals on your training hikes. All of the Phil Food is commercially available. I am not aware of anything specially made for the ranch. Check to see if you think the quantities will be enough in your situation and adjust accordingly.

This was my 2¢ worth.

Ken Flanagan

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Received on Tue Mar 18 22:30:19 2003