RE: [Philmont]: Northern Tier

From: CCPineoIII@aol.com
> More significant possibly: schools in our part of the country are out
mid- to late
> May, but go back into session as early as the first Monday in August.
Getting
> to a high adventure base in June is no problem for our Scouts. Staying
past
> July 30 is a huge problem. (It remains to be seen how our local schools
will treat
> those students who return to school "late" in August 2005 because they
were at the
> National Jamboree.)

We had the opposite problem here. Our public schools are going to get out
on
June 17, 2005 here, and we originally got a trek that started June 15, this,
of course,
meant that we would depart Fullerton on June 13 and miss four days school.
Philmont's
"no-trade" policy really was a bit problematic to deal with, as we had found
a crew that
got an August slot that couldn't use it because it ended after their school
year started, but
Philmont wouldn't let us trade and would make no guarantee that treks would
be made
available. The new lottery didn't have the flexibility in selection of dates
to let us choose only
treks starting after June 19 (due to transportation issues, June 20 would be
the earliest
arrival date we could use) yet still accept any date from June 20 to August
9. Fortunately,
they did have a trek starting August 8 available and they did accommodate
us.

We had the added problem that one of our trek crew members wanted to go to
National
Jamboree as well and we wanted to get a trek outside that time frame to
accommodate
him if we could. He'll be home two nights between Jambo and Trek :-).
Again we got bit by
the lack of flexibility in the new system on this. Fortunately, both our
crew and troop were
eligible for a trek, and the Troop got waitlisted, but the Crew got a trek.
It does mean our
Troop is elibigle for 2006, though I doubt we'll apply for a trek since
we're going in 2005.

Having such a late dismissal in the public schools is problematic around
here for Troop activity
planning as well, as the summer heat here in the Southwest kicks in around
mid-June and
doesn't let up until school starts, so treks to places like the Grand
Canyon, ZIon and other
Southwest destinations either require taking a day or two out of school or
accepting the
frequent 100+ temps to make those treks. If school got out Mid-May, we'd be
able to do
more stuff like Grand Canyon Rim to Rim hikes. Instead, we try to look for
high altitude
adventures as our alternative, so we do things like week-long Sierra
backpacks, which
are great, but we tend to repeat too frequently.

Regards
Don Roberts
ASM T1201, CA C1202
Fullerton, CA
Philtrek 05 808-K

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Received on Wed Sep 29 11:31:36 2004