Wonderful post, John.
Returning to Philmont, with your daughter, after 43 years must have
been an emotional experience.
Dan Preston
On May 10, 2007, at 9:48 AM, John LeBlanc wrote:
> Philmont 1959
>
> All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a Boy Scout. That still
> holds true. As a young Scout, I dreamed of the day I could attend
> Philmont. Philmont to me was what it was all about. Hiking instead of
> riding to camp in a bus. Cooking on open fires and sitting on a rock
> instead of mess halls. Climbing mountains that I had never even seen
> before, yada, yada, yada.
>
> Finally I turned 14 and got to go. It was my first trip away from
> home. I was the smallest boy on the trip. The year was 1959. Our
> contingent leader was a huge guy who played guard for Texas A & M
> under the tutelage of Bear Bryant. Bill Godwin was also director of
> the waterfront at Camp Bill Stark, our council summer camp. He was
> very a respected leader by both us boys and our parents.
>
> We rode the commercial bus Greyhound to get to Philmont from our home
> in southeast Texas. No charters available back then. Today it is a
> 20 hour drive, it was a lot longer back then.
>
> At first light when I woke up on the bus, I looked out the window and
> saw a neat mountain and took a picture with my Kodak box camera. I
> still have the photograph. Over twenty years later, I discovered it
> was Capulin Mountain I photographed that morning. Years later, I
> would assend Capulin with my family out of curiosity from that first
> sighting.
>
> We arrived at Philmont on the ricketiest, scariest ride from Raton
> imaginable. The bus was an old at that time school bus that only held
> about twenty-five people. I don't remember much detail other than
> fear. If the driver wanted to instill that, he did.
>
> At Philmont HQ we were issued U S Army surplus "mortar board"
> packboards to lash all our gear on via the infamous diamond hitch.
> After tying and untying that hitch every day, I can still tie it 48
> years later.
>
> Official Boy Scout "Trail Tents" which were no more than canvas tarps
> with a lot of tie tapes attached were issued as tents. We lashed all
> the gear to our packboards.
>
> Included in our meal rations was the dreaded Seidels Veg-A-Rice. It
> was some kind of weird rendering of rice that made an otherwise good
> tasting grain almost cause one to gag.
>
> First night on the trail was at Old Abreiu. Late in the evening, they
> set a bear trap right in the middle of our campsite, baited him in
> with more bread than we had been issued for a week and gallons of
> honey. The next morning the bear was in the trap and no bread or
> honey was left. He got it all before being tempted into the trap by
> that last morsel inside.
>
> We fished Rayado with make shift outfits consisting of a stick with
> string and a fly from home. We were Boy Scouts, we came prepared. We
> “borrowed” butter to fry the trout in from a very unhelpful camp
> worker at the trail camp replenishment place whatever it was called.
>
> We hiked to trail peak and sat in awe thinking of the tragic loss of
> lives on the side of that mountain, not knowing any more other than
> what we read on a metal plaque wired to a tree at the site.
>
> We hauled one scout back to a staffed camp for help when he split his
> shin open with an axe at Clear Creak Trail camp instead of the log he
> was aiming at.
>
> We climbed Clear Creek Mountain and used cotton gym sweat suits which
> served us well in the days before poly pro and Gore Tex. By the way,
> the cotton did not kill us.
>
> We hiked all day in the mud along logging roads on the way to Cyphers
> Mine where we were thrilled to get to sleep out a rainy night in brand
> newly constructed Adirondak shelters with concrete floors.
>
> We endured rain every day on the trail and usually in the evening also
> with nothing more than ponchos. Some official Boy Scout models, but
> most army surplus .ones. Some of those were worn by the boys dad in
> W.W.II just before we were born. I read where they don't work well.
> I beg to differ. If that is what you got, you make it work.
>
> We learned what “put your food up because of the bears” meant and did
> it with no problems. A troop from New Jersey "put it up" by placing
> the chuck box on 18 inch sticks only to have a bear swat it into
> splinters to get at the food inside. I got a picture of what was
> left. They learned too.
>
> I learned how to cook over fires made of wood that don't make coals
> like I am used to here in the south such as hickory and oak. I still
> savor the smell of the pitch containing woods. However the pinon used
> in Taos is much more pleasing to my olfactory senses.
>
> Anyway, we did Philmont. We hiked from Carson Maxwell across Clear
> Creak to Cimarroncito. It was a long way, but we enjoyed it all the
> same. There were no programs for us to attend. We and what we did to
> not only survive, but enjoy outdoor living were the program. After
> all, we were scouts. Some things we did wrong, some things we did
> right. But in all things we learned about ourselves.
>
> Finally we were presented our arrowhead patch. The arrowhead was
> first awarded in 1958. Had I been just two years older, I would have
> received one of the older Philmont circle P patches that are so rare
> today. That was the one I really wanted because all the older Scouts
> had them.
>
> During a 12 year career of teaching science, I used to roll out my
> trail worn map and arrowhead patch and get down on the floor with my
> students that were going to Philmont the next summer. We had a common
> bond that spanned the ages. The next year, they always brought their
> maps and pictures by for me to see.
>
> Philmont was one of those life experiences for me that means so much.
>
> I stayed working with Boy Scouts until I started teaching school. I
> had to give it up as teaching consumed so much time.
>
> God blessed me with two wonderful daughters. They tried Girl Scouts,
> but it is just not a good program down here.
>
> My family had been to Colorado several times. We always drove like
> crazy on the shortest route to get to the mountains. I had always
> wanted to curve by Philmont just to see it again, but had not.
>
> Then in 1992 a buddy and I went on an elk hunt in Gunnison, Colorado.
> We normally follow US 287/87 through Amarillo, up the Texas panhandle
> to Clayton, Raton, Walsenburg, etc.
>
> On this trip we got to jawing and missed our turn in Amarillo. The
> next thing we knew we were in New Mexico. A quick check of the map
> showed us we could cut up to Springer and over to Cimmaron. Further
> modification took us right by Philmont starting at Carson Maxwell and
> on up to HQ.
>
> We visited the Seton library and bought a couple of Rod Taylor tapes
> to get us on down the road. The place was all but deserted as it was
> mid October.
>
> To my surprise, the welcome station was exactly as I remembered it.
> It has since been remodeled, but in '92 it was exactly as it was in
> '59. Tears ran down my cheeks.
>
> That night we stayed at the NRA Whittington center. The next morning
> we planned to check the sight of our rifles on the range. We did not
> get to do that as over the night it had snowed eight inches. The
> place was a picture postcard.
>
> That morning we drove through Cimmaron and Taos canyons slowly.
> Partially as a result of the snow, but mostly so we could soak in the
> beauty of the area.
>
> We went on to have a successful hunt and a great time. I was so glad
> we missed our turn in Amarillo and got the chance I needed to go back
> for a short visit to Philmont.
>
> In 1996, I got an unexpected vacation change, so my family headed for
> Colorado. On the way home, I took the Taos route. We first stopped
> at Taos Pueblo and soaked in the pinyon smoke and some fry bread. We
> were short on money, so did not spend much time in the shops.
>
> When we got to Angle Fire, we went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
> It was a touching experience for me as I was in the Army in 1967, but
> was not sent to Vietnam. I lost a lot of friends in that war.
>
> While in there, the weather was turning sour as it often does in the
> Sanger de Christos during the summer We intended to stop at
> Philmont. A previousp hone call told me that we could eat in the
> dining hall. I thought it would be a good experience for me and my
> girls.
>
> We drove through Cimarron canyon around and over many downed trees.
> Obviously some high winds had preceded us. The date was July 25,
> 1996. As we would later find out, the tornado was right behind us.
> The reason I know is that when we got to Cimarron, the Post Office was
> still there. Just minutes later it would disappear when the tornado
> struck. We turned toward Raton to get away from the bad weatherand
> ate supper at the Matador.
>
> We intended on going to Philmont just to drive through, but the
> lightning was so intense in that direction, that I let better judgment
> rule. We headed east toward Clayton, our destination for the night.
>
> By the time it was dark and we counted 6 active thunderstorms in all
> directions. NE New Mexico was taking a pounding and we were right in
> the middle of it.
>
> About 5 miles east of the town of Capulin, the lightning was so
> intense and striking right in the middle of that arrow straight road,
> that I turned around and drove back to Capulin to wait out the storm.
> This is the first time in all my travels that I have been compelled to
> turn around and drive away from a lightning storm. That was some kind
> of bad weather.
>
> My wife asked what Scouts would do in weather like that at Philmont.
> We talked about it and the dangers of lightning and high winds in the
> mountains. A tornado never entered my mind although we live in a part
> of Texas that has frequent spring tornadoes.
> We made it to Clayton amid flooding in the streets and heard on the
> news about the Cimarron tornado as they called it. The next morning I
> called Philmont and Heck's in Cimarron on my cell phone and found out
> about the damage and how lucky the scouts at Philmont were.
>
> In 1998 we got to go back to Colorado and this time visit Philmont
> HQ. To make a long story short, we toured the museum at Carson
> Maxwell and attended the program there put on by a splendid group of
> people. They were so nice to my eleven year old daughter.
>
> It was typically raining at HQ when I went in and got meal tickets for
> us at the HQ dining hall. When I returned to our car and told my
> wife, she asked what the menu was. Funny, I had not asked. I
> explained that it was probably something like spaghetti and that they
> served whatever the daily meal was. Honey, it’s a Scout camp.
>
> An hour later after finding some needed and not so needed things in
> the trading post, we ate. The meal was spaghetti. She still does not
> believe me when I tell her I really did not know.
>
> My twenty year old daughter and I went through the line first. The
> scouts were all in a hurry to eat and she and I picked up on it and
> were gobbling down our meal. All of a sudden, we both burst out
> laughing. We were hurrying just like the Scouts were, only our
> scoutmaster had not told us to "hurry up and get through eating and
> then….." as I had done so many times before as a Scout leader.
>
> My youngest daughter was impressed with the table with loaves of bread
> and gallons or peanut butter and jelly. My wife and two daughters
> were the only females in the place filled with boys and got all the
> attention they could handle. As a dad, I enjoyed being in good
> company of kids that I felt comfortable with as being the leaders of
> our future.
>
> My eleven year old declared before we left, “I’m coming back and doing
> what they are going to do” as she pointed to a group carrying their
> packs. I asked “what are they going to do?” She told me “they carry
> their packs and climb mountains and camp out for more than a week and
> I am going to come back and do that”.
>
> Philmont is not perfect, no place is. But Philmont affords
> experiences in growing up that no other place provides.
>
> It was a long time before I got to go back. I'd like to hike the
> trails again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But the experiences I
> gained so many years ago there have stuck with me the rest of my life.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John LeBlanc
> Eagle Scout and Philmont camper both in 1959
> The above was written in 1999
>
> Three years later, in 2002 John LeBlanc and his daughter Allison ages
> 57 and 20 respectively went Philmont as part of a council contingent.
> Allison was fulfilling a dream to return to Philmont as a Venture crew
> member. The hiked many of the same trails that John did back in 1959
> and they stood atop Clear Creek mountain together as John had done
> back in 1959, only today it’s called Mount Phillips in honor of a man
> who gave more than he could,imagine to the youth of today.
>
Received on Thu May 10 20:56:46 2007
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