Here is the second of two accounts of Troop 175's 2011 Philmont Adventure as told through the eyes of Drew Veltrop.
7/2/11 12:43 PM:
I am sitting in the plane, we are approximately 38,000 ft. above sea level. Oh boy!
12:48 PM:
Still in the plane.
1:59 PM:
We just got back from eating at the country buffet. Luckily, it was all you can eat. That means you can eat all that you possibly can. That one took me a while to figure out. Anywho, at the country buffet I entertained myself by placing certain items of food on other peoples plates. My most famous instance of this was when I deposited a steaming pile of spinach on the plate of scout from a different troop. I believe he was upset with me.
3:46 PM:
After a good feeding session at the country buffet, we took a walk in the Garden of the Gods. What started out as a jolly stroll soon turned into a massacre by hail. Although there were no casualties on our side, it still felt as if we had been through a war. Luckily, we found shelter under the roof of a forlorn building right next to a parking lot, where we stayed until the hail subsided. It was fun watching fellow tourists have their hopes of a scenic hike ruined by balls of icy death flung from the sky.
7:05 PM:
We arrived at the university where we’d be staying the next few nights not very tired, because it was only 7. So, like any reasonable boy scout would do, we went to the rec center. It was awesome! They had a water-volleyball net, a hot tub that could seat over 40 people, a big pool, and a righteous waterslide! But, of course they had a not-so-fun lifeguard. The lifeguard wasn’t a happy camper and she also took her job a little bit too seriously. If I saw the pool, and began to walk at a slightly advanced pace, I would suddenly hear “NOOOOO RUNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIINNNGGGGGGGG!!!! GET OUT OF THE POOL AND TRY AGAIN.” It was fun to mess with her by breaking silly rules, such as: you must be on your back, facing forward whilst you go down the slide. After a night of shenanigans at the pool, we retired to our dorms and went to sleep, thus ending our first day of Blue Sky Adventures.
7/3/11 5:00 AM:
This is how early Blue Sky made us get up. This was because we needed to get an early start towards the mythical cogwheel ride. After a breakfast that was in the form of a buffet, we set out towards the famed cogwheel.
8:39 AM:
We arrived at Pikes Peak just in time for our ride up the mountain. Let me tell you that I was very surprised not to find any seatbelts on the train, as the type of speeds that we reached were pushing 7 mph. That’s right, 7 mph and they didn’t even have seatbelts. What a hoot. The view made it all worth it, and there were even donuts that can only be made at a certain elevation, which were delicious. Eventually, it was time to get back on the cogwheel, this time going even slower, and wind our way back down to the base of Pikes Peak. Next was rafting!
I forget what time this happened at:
After our exhilarating ride up Pikes Peak, rafting was a nice change of scenery. Before we could get on the river, we had to wait for our guide to get here. To pass the time, we played volleyball, which, needless to say, was fun. Once our guide/bus arrived, we suffered through a safety seminar, and then finally got out on the river. The water was very fast cause it had just rained, so that was bodacious. My codename aboard the raft was Dragon. I could breathe fire. After rafting, we enjoyed some steaks and classic music by Tom Munch. We went to bed that night knowing that tomorrow we’d leave for Philmont, thus ending our final day with Blue Sky Adventures.
7/4/11 6:43 AM:
We are finally leaving for Philmont! Unfortunately it is a 4-hour bus ride there. Luckily, there were TVs on the bus, so we popped in The Matrix and watched it on the ride there. However, our bus driver refused to turn up the volume, so it was at the point where even a person who was good at hearing would have a difficult time understanding what Neo and his less cool friends were saying. Long story (not really) short, we watched the Matrix but never listened to it. When we pulled into base camp, we had to take care of “logistics” first, afterwards we were introduced to our tents for the night and did some first aid stuff to make sure that we were healthy enough for the trail. Then it was time for lunch. The counselors at base camp have a tradition where they tell some outlandish story and then scream “I wanna go back to Philmont.”
While I agree that Philmont is awesome, their way of selling it failed to inspire camp spirit, which made getting into the cafeteria all the better. After lunch and dinner (doing stuff in between, of course), we attended our respective church services. Needless to say, we sang songs. After church, we went to the trail-bound campfire, which, predictably, was the best part of the trip. After the campfire, we retired to our tents, thus ending our first day at base camp.
First day on the trail:
After a tasty breakfast of cold eggs and damp bread, we waited for the bus to arrive that would take us to the trail. Once it did, we hopped onto to it, much like a goat about to be milked hops up onto its wooden pedestal. When we arrived at the trail Matt gave us some useful information, such as what red roof inn is (two person porta potty) what mini-bears are (rabid chipmunks that try to steal your food) and other not as useful tips. After this seminar, we finally embarked on our actual Philmont journey. To start the journey off, we had to hike a terrifying TWO miles. I did not sign up for something so physically and mentally challenging.
Well, after the colossal hike was conquered, we set up our tents/bear bags and went swimming in a cool spot we had seen whilst hiking. Needless to say, we got wet. After swimming we enjoyed some root beers at the cantina, milked some goats (which made my hands smell like feces) and finally did our first round of “Thorns, Roses and Buds,” which is where you say something good and bad about the day, and something you’re looking forward to. After this activity which would be repeated every night afterwards, we all went to our tents and slept, thus ending our first day on the trail.
Second day on the trail:
After a bland breakfast of cereal bars, we hit the trail, still tired from yesterday’s overwhelming distance traveled. Our first stop was Carson Meadows, where we were introduced to our good friend Tom. Tom made a lasting impact on all of us through his witty puns, hilarious jokes, interesting conversation, and his uncanny wookie impression. Tom led us in the search and rescue program, in which we had to find our ranger Matt, who was about 100 feet deep into the woods. As you can imagine, finding him was no challenge whatsoever, and it only took a few seconds. After search and rescue we continued on the path to Crags, which would be our campsite for the night. Along the way, there was a place called the notch, which had incredible views of the surrounding mountains. Once we fully soaked in the view, we continued to Crags, where we played some Frisbee, washed our clothes in the nearby stream, and had a good time altogether. After another session of Roses, Thorns and Buds, we went to our tents, thus ending our second day on the trail.
Third day on the trail:
Next up on our epic hajj was Fish Camp. After an incredibly short hike, we reached fish camp and enjoyed a complimentary tour of the old cabin there. The thing that surprised me most was how some one from the 1800’s could still be alive. Once the tour was finished, we continued on to make our own flies for fly-fishing. Sadly, no one caught any fish, which was probably because about 50 scouts/
scout-masters fish there everyday. Other than fishing, we occupied ourselves by climbing, playing cards, or sitting in our tents alone writing all this down. When I finished scribing this vital information, I emerged into the sunlight and did stuff. Thus ended our third day on the trail.
Fourth day on the trail:
On the way to Apache Springs (our next campsite) we spotted a dead elk, which was cool to see because the fur still clung to the rotting carcass. After a heart-warming picture of us surrounding the dead elk, pretending we were the ones that slew the beast, we continued on to our next landmark; the seven switchbacks of death. To start off with, there were 8 switchbacks, and they were also some of the easiest switchbacks on the ranch. Apache Springs was right up the hill from the switchbacks, so we enjoyed another casual hike. The first thing we did at Apache Springs was our conservation project. I thought we would be doing something along the lines of planting baby trees or flowers, but instead we hacked away at existing trees with a bunch of dull axes like a group of bloodthirsty Vikings. It gives me a warm feeling to know that I played my part in conserving the forest. Needless to say, the last sentence had hints of sarcasm. Our next activity was the sunset hike, in which we walked up a short but steep path to get an amazing view of the sunset. What was once a dense force was now a wide open plain, which made it perfect for viewing the set of the sun. Another thing about the meadow we were in was that it bordered another ranch, so we all had fun by peeing over the barbed wire fence onto the opposing ranch. We then ate our now maddeningly boring freeze-dried dinners and went to our tents, thus ending our fourth day on the trail.
Fifth day on the trail:
Today we did not need to hike, as it was our layover day. We passed the time until the teepee tour at 11 by playing stick ball. To my surprise, we never lost a ball, even though some of them were launched into the field where it was nearly impossible to find the balls. Before we knew it, it was time for the teepee tour! It took surprisingly long to tour a place with one room. The guide gave us some history on the Indian tribe, passed around some pelts and arrowheads and even a ceremonial bow. After the teepee tour was archery. We had to move the time slot for archery back by an hour because of rain/lightning. Luckily the bad weather passed, and we were able to get our shots in. It was fun because the targets were not conventional targets, but some kind of rubbery replica of different forest animals, which made shooting at them all the better. Nothing happened after archery because it was to cloudy to enjoy the sunset, so we all went to bed, thus ending our fifth day on the trail.
Sixth day on the trail:
Today we faced our first hike that was actually challenging. The camp that we would be staying at wasn’t that far away, but we had just run out of food, so we needed to go out of our way for a new food supply. This made our total miles traveled for the day about 10. Along the way, we stopped at Crooked Creek, where we got another tour of the beaver-trapping lodge, caught chickens that were running (some of them were actually hard to catch because they were so small) and chopping wood. The best part of Crooked Creek was when Mr. Rice shattered the axe he was using whilst chopping wood. Needless to say, the axe was not usable afterwards. Once we had spent a large amount of time at the creek, we continued to hike the remaining miles up to Wild Horse. The only noteworthy part of Wild Horse was John Cahill’s sermon, where we sang songs and such. After this, some of us went to bed while others did the nightly workout, thus ending our sixth day on the trail.
Seventh day on the trail:
Needless to say, we woke up in the morning. Our first mission of the day was to climb down the mountain we had just climbed up the previous day. As a result, it was all down hill to Clear Creek, where we would be staying a short while, but not the night.
We reached Clear Creek at around 7:30 AM, and only one of the counselors there was awake. He was from Shelton, CT so we had a good talk about how Connecticut was superior to all other states. At one point, another counselor named Will emerged from their cabin with a roll of toilet paper, and went straight to one of “Red Roof Inns.” Five minutes later, he went back to the cabin and reemerged with another roll of toilet paper and went back to the Red Roof Inn. Will had lots of personality. The main event at clear creek was shooting, so after a supply drop of ammo we went to the shooting range, where we fired black powder muskets. Instead of firing at set up targets, we had to make our own targets by placing a personal object, such as a shirt or bandana out on the field for us to shoot at. I shot my Philmont shirt right in the heart, if the heart were on the right side of the chest.
After shooting we started the rest of our hike, the part that was actually difficult: the climb up Mt. Phillips. It started off at an average incline but eventually it got so steep that if you lay down on the trail you would most definitely start rolling. It took us an hour and a half to reach the top of Phillips, and we were all sufficiently tired by that time. To make matters worse, it looked as if it was about to rain, so we set up camp and ate our dinners at 1 when it was still light out under the dining fly. After dinner, we all went to our tents, although only a few people went to sleep. After some time, the people that had gone to sleep woke up, and thought it was the next day already, so they started screaming and spazzing out. Since we were all awake, we took a picture resembling Iwo Jima at the top of Mt. Phillips. After that, those of us that hadn’t slept were tired enough to go to sleep, while the people who had already slept were no longer tired, so started doing stuff that made it impossible for us normal people to fall asleep. Eventually, however, I did fall asleep, thus ending our seventh day on the trail.
Eight day on the trail:
Our destination was Cypher’s Mine, and luckily for us, it was all downhill. After climbing down Mt. Phillips and some other hills, we reached the camp and found out that we would not need to set up our tents, as there were shelters for us to sleep in. Next up was the mine tour, which was awesome because it was completely dark, other than the occasional shine of a flashlight. When we reached the end of the mine, we had to make our way back without any light, only by groping and feeling the wall. The light hurt my eyes when we finally got out. After the mine tour was the forge. This might have been cool if we could’ve gotten a fire, but we apparently lacked the skills to create one. The final activity of the day was the stomp, which basically was a music party. We all danced and had a good time, enjoying the classic songs sung by the counselors. The stomp ended late at night, so we made our way back to the shelter and went to bed.
Ninth day on the trail:
We got up in the morning feeling well rested from sleeping in a nice shelter. When we headed out on the trail, we soon realized that it was imperative for the path to criss-cross around the stream at every possible moment. Before we reached Cimmaron-cito we made a stop at hunting lodge for water and what not. The remainder of the trail to Cimmaron-cito took about 40 minutes and was all uphill. It was soon revealed to us that the water here actually did taste like sulfur, which wasn’t very fun. The first thing we did was go rock climbing, which 90% of the scouts enjoyed. The belayers at rock climbing had a tradition of asking what your favorite Disney character name was, and then assigning your name as the counterpart of that character. So when I asked to be Scar, my name was soon changed to Nalla. I forget what other people’s nicknames were because I wasn’t paying attention. When we were finished with climbing, we ate lunch and then went to the climbing gym, where they had a rock-climbing wall covering every inch of the room (besides the floor) so you could climb on the ceiling and do flips off of it. We stayed in the gym until it was closing time, and then went back to camp.
Tenth day on the trail:
Today was a relatively easy hike, short and downhill. We got there in time for horseback riding, which was why we left early in the morning. My horse was named Apples, and did not like John’s horse who was next to me, because he kept biting and nosing him. It was a very scenic route and we even saw some dead animal skeletons, such as a cow’s head. The counselors who were riding in the woods parallel to us claimed to have seen a mountain lion. Sadly, we never got to go any faster than a slow walk. When we returned from horseback riding, we went to the branding station to get our stuff branded. I got a lightning bolt on my boots and a dragon on my nalgene. After branding some of us went lassoing, in which we tried to get a rope around the head of a metal bull. The guy next to us failed to understand that the bull was not actually a real bull, but a fake bull, so he thought that when its wooden legs were swiveling back and forth; he thought it was trying to escape and proceeded to yell, “It’s running away!” and then attempt to lasso its legs. This went on for a while. When I had had enough of the guy’s ranting, I went to hang out at the campsite, until the chuck wagon.
When it was time for the chuck wagon we all walked down the hill, hungry with anticipation of real food. We arrived in time to see the food being cooked in delicious aluminum bags in pots of boiling water. But all was well and the beef stew was great, probably because we had been eating freeze-dried food for the past 9 days. I made friends with Kid with Mohawk at the chuck wagon. We went to bed early because tomorrow morning we would be waking up at 2:30 AM.
The Last Day:
As stated before, we woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Luckily, it was a full moon that night so it was far from pitch black. Even though it was so early in the morning, we packed up camp in a record 30 (usually takes at least an hour and a half) minutes and were hiking by 3 o’clock. It was awesome to see the mountains bathed in serene moonlight. One of the reasons we got up so early was to watch the sunrise from atop Schaeffer’s Peak. When we reached the summit the clouds were just starting to turn pink, so we got to enjoy the full sunrise. By the time the sun had risen, we were hiking towards the Tooth of Time, which took about an hour.
When we reached Tooth of Time, we had to put all our smellables in a bear bag, which a this point was getting bothersome to do, so once we did we began to climb up the rocky mountainside. Before we started we passed another troop and asked them how long it took to get to the top. They said 20 minutes, but we did it in 9. That just goes to show you that 175 is the best. At the top, an adult was trying to get us to laugh by talking about photos or something. Obviously he did not succeed. When we were satisfied with the Tooth of Time, we scrambled back down and continued to hike towards base camp. The last stretch of the trail was switchbacks. But not ordinary switchbacks, no these were hell-spawned switchbacks. Normal switchbacks try to reduce the amount of distance you travel by constantly switching back, hence the name switchback. But these ones were determined to make you travel an extra mile per turn, so that you would travel 15 meters down the hill after 30 minutes of hiking. When we finally got down the hill, we looked back and realized that what took us 2 ½ hours could have easily taken 10 minutes if we had disregarded the switchbacks and rolled down the hill like any sensible person. So after 10 + days on the trail we had survived monster switchbacks, mini-bears, invasive Tom and much more.
To sum up Philmont, it was an experience not to be forgotten and one that has changed all of our lives through its awesome nature.
(Submitted by Philmont Scripe Drew Veltrop)
