Trek '96 Preface.....

I'd first heard about the Philmont Scout Ranch when my oldest son, Matt, joined Troop 285. It seemed there was a Boy Scout "ranch" up in Northern New Mexico, and the main program there was backpacking. 285 did lots of backpacking. A fifty miler each Spring, several short trips every year, and a trip to Philmont. When Matt became old enough, he signed up for a Philmont "Trek", and went the Summer of 1991. He came back 2 weeks later, tanned, tired, and with the biggest blisters on both feet that I'd ever seen! He swore then that he'd NEVER go back to Philmont! "The food was horrible, the trails were nothing but rocks, and it's just about the worst place to backpack in the world!" But then he did say that he'd had a good time, until his feet started getting bad. He'd climbed this mountain called of all things, "Baldy". (There are at least 4 other mountains in New Mexico called Baldy.) He'd gone into a gold mine. He'd gotten to shoot a black powder rifle. "Gee, dad, I guess I really DID have a good time." So in 1993, he went back to Philmont, this time as a crew leader, and hiked the southern area of the ranch. He came back tanned, tired, and without blisters! He had really worked hard this time, being the crew leader, but again had a great time. So we started planning to both go on the next trip, in 1995. He would go as a member of the crew, and I would go as one of the advisers, as I was a member of the committee at 285 at that time. But things didn't work out, and due to some internal problems within the Troop, we both dropped out of the trek and the Troop. It was a real disappointment to Matt and me, but was for the best.

The next Summer, my wife Beth and my younger son, Tommy, got to spend a week at the Philmont Training Center. I went up a day early to pick them up, and immediately fell in love with the area! I felt the magic of Philmont, and knew I had to come back!

The next Spring Tommy graduated into Boy Scouts, and as I'd been his Webelos Den Leader, I went with him into Troop 381. The Troop had no backpacking or High Adventure program, and the older Scouts didn't do much at the meetings except sit around and cause problems. I volunteered to start up a backpacking program, and went to work on it. In April of 1995, the Committee Chairman and the Scoutmaster came to me and said "we got a trek lined up for July of '96 at Philmont. Would you consider heading up the training and such?" I JUMPED at the offer! Finally, I'd get a chance to go to Philmont on a trek!

What I didn't know was that the next 15 months would be some of the most frustrating of my life! Getting a crew signed up, collecting the money, and trying to convince the boys AND the adults that they needed to TRAIN for the trek, and not just go. We had lots of set backs. Boys and adults dropped out for various reasons. New Mexico had the driest Spring in the past 100 years, which made training very difficult. The forests and mountains were actually closed to all use, forcing us to cancel all of our over night trips, and a few day trips. Just a week before we left, one of the boys in our crew seriously burned himself, and had to drop out. But the day to leave for Philmont finally came. The following is the story of our trip, taken from the journal that I kept during the trek. It's a story that I'm proud to tell!

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