[Philmont] Camp Daniel Boone Treks?

Joe,

My crew had an absolutely horrible experience at Camp DB in 2003.? I mention the year because I know from experience that camps change, but I don't plan on checking this one out again.? I refer to it as the "Bait and Switch" camp.

We signed up to do their 2 days of whitewater canoeing and 3 days of backpacking? and a half day of rock climbing trek.? What we got was a half day of whitewater rafting and one of the worst backpacking treks of my life.? Lowlights follow:?

1) Our "rangers" were directionally impaired. {The camp?requires that?the rangers hike with?you the whole time}? They were reluctant intially to share the map with us at base camp, so I bought two copies for the crew at the whitewater rafting outfitter's store.??Once they insisted they knew a shortcut, which they never found, and we ended up wading down a river until we could find the trail again.? The second time, they ignored a clearly marked trail sign, taking us down what turned out to be a fishing trail that faded out after about?1.5 miles.? In both cases, my crew chief questioned them about the decision, but was told that they were the rangers and knew what they were doing.? No effort to teach map reading (or to allow a trained crew to naviguess)--just "follow me."

2) We took our own crew gear and had it parcelled out in advance, so the rangers offered to carry the food.? It was the end of the camping season, and they were out of most of the breakfast and dinner meals, so they stopped along the way out to our trek start point and provisioned up.? I like peanut butter and jelly, but five days of it for breakfast and lunch got old very fast.?They did have some cooked breakfasts, too, but see # 3 below.

3)?The rangers?had the food.? They camped some distance away from our campsites, and did not get up before 9 or 10.? Our crew had learned through experience that we hike further and faster before the day gets hot, so we got up at 6 or so.? Getting these guys out of bed to give us the food (they didn't use our bear bags, so I have no idea what they did with it at night, but we had bear bags up for smellables every night) was not working, so we finally "liberated" breakfasts and made our own, packed up, and prepared to get on the trail.? We gave the rangers a 30 minute warning, and then prepared to set out without them.? They managed to join us, but were clearly disgruntled that they could not "sleep in."

4) We ended up doing 5.5 days of backpacking, missing out on the rock climbing because of the two "missed trail" experiences.? We had planned for only 3 days of backpacking because we were taking some kids who loved canoeing but were only so-so on backpacking.? By that I mean that they knew what to do on a backpacking trip, but moving on foot was not their favorite adventure.? Some of those kids were very soured on the experience.? The crew members referred to the trip as the "Death March" for several years thereafter.?

The good point was the meals (other than the PB & J).? They used bakepackers and we some of the best pre-packaged trail food I've ever had (and I teach lightweight cooking!).

I learned thereafter that another crew from our area had a similarly bad?experience.? In contrast, we've used our local scout camp's backpacking program (Lenhok'sin, from the NCAC) five times (and are talking about going back again in 09), and have been to Philmont once.? We're going back to Philmont this summer.? We're a backpacking/high adventure crew, and this trip was the low point of our summer camp experience.

Denise Vowell
Crew 574

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Johnstone <joe.johnstone@gmail.com>
To: Philmont List Member <Philmont@troop47.com>
Sent: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 2:39 pm
Subject: [Philmont] Camp Daniel Boone Treks?

Waited a little to long to sign up for the council 2008 contigent, and they lost some spots as well.? Looking for some alternatives, and have seen some interesting treks on Camp Daniel Boone near Asheville.

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Anyone have any experiences with these week long treks?

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Thanks!

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Received on Fri Oct 26 14:15:23 2007