T955 Philmont Crew 2014: Philmont Day 1

We arrived at Philmont around 10:30 this morning. The bus ride down from Denver went well.

We spent most of today in-processing going from station to station. Philmont does a very good job keeping things moving along. We went through medical re-check, admin (the money part), gear issue (tents, dining tarps, patrol cooking gear), and logistics. The logistics stop was the most important and was where we marked up the map with all of our stops along the way. Just to make things interesting, our trek involves the use of 2 separate maps. We are hiking the north side of the ranch and into an area called the Valle Vidal. Philmont does not own this area but has a long-term lease to use the property.

Alex Barnes is our ranger and he'll be with us for another two days. He is a rising junior at NC State in the mechanical engineering dept. He's very knowledgeable and the scouts really like him.

The evening ended with a church service at 7pm and the opening campfire at 8pm. We learned a lot about the history of the Philmont area going back to the Pueblo Indians. We also learned that this is the 75th year for scouts to come to Philmont for the backpacking adventure. The first year they had about 200 scouts the entire summer. This year there will be 22,000 before the summer is over. It is an impressive place for sure.