The Philmont crew performed very well this weekend on our backpacking outing from Three Forks to Woody Gap. With the side excursion to Long Creek Falls, we hiked around 17.5 miles over the course of the two days on the trail. The scouts kept a good pace throughout and kept calm even when we encountered a young timber rattlesnake sitting in the middle of the trail.
We had very humid conditions throughout the trip which made the climbs over Sassafrass Mountain (760 feet elevation gain in 1 mile) and Justis Mountain (500+ feet elevation gain in 0.5 miles) all the more challenging. In general, it seemed like we were either climbing or descending almost all the time (no flat terrain). Some scouts even thought this was more difficult than our outing at Standing Indian.
One item of importance that came out of this weekend was that all scouts need to be equipped with the capacity to carry 3-liters of water. This can be either with water bladders or Nalgene bottles. Since we're sharing water filters at Philmont, several of our filters fit more easily into a Nalgene bottle. Philmont will give us lemonade type packets at some meals, so if you want to add these to your water, it would be better in a bottle from which you never plan to empty the contents into your bladder.
- If you have a 3-liter bladder, make sure you have at least a 0.5-liter Nalgene.
- If you have a 2-liter bladder, make sure you have at least a 1.0 liter Nalgene.
- Have another small bottle if you plan to mix in the lemonade packets.
-Brad Newton
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| This is "Survivor Dave". He showed up at Horse Gap right when we were taking a break. He had water in his vehicle and gave us enough that we were able to make it to Justus Creek for a re-fill. |
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