Philmont was a lot better than I would expect it to be. When I signed up for it months ago I thought Philmont was going to be very hard and strenuous throughout the trek because it was a high adventure backpacking camp. As a crew, we had to practice hiking a lot to prepare us for the trip, and that made me think that the trip was going to be a lot harder than practice hikes. All in all, Philmont turned out to be worth while. It is something I am proud of doing because it was an important training to me.

At first I thought it was not worth going 12 days on a trip with nothing to do but stay in the back country with a group of people and two advisors. I thought it would be very boring to hike for so long each day. It ended up that we all got to know each other better because we had a huge amount of social and bonding time. We had very fun talking on the trails and also bonding at the campsites.

The activities and hiking at Philmont was actually a lot funner and easier than I thought. The hikes seemed to go by faster when I talked to people. A long hike with a heavy backpack got less difficult as the days went on. I seemed to get used to the hikes along with carrying my pack. We saw many things on the trail such as many bugs and critters in logs and on the trail, many beautiful plants, and of course, the scenery around us. Philmont is a peaceful place where everything there seems quiet and peaceful. The activities at Philmont were also very fun and challenging. We went rifle shooting, sparpole climbing, rock climbing, tomahawk throwing, and many more events. The campfires we attended were probably the best campfires I have ever attended in my life because of the skits and songs they offered. We even helped build a trail so people could walk on in it he future.

I learned a lot from this trip because it made me experience how I had to live in the backcountry to survive. We had to setup our shelters, cook our own food, and clean everything up. The most important person from this trip was probably our ranger Paul. I don’t know how our crew would survive without Paul teaching us the basics you need to know. He led us the first 2 days and showed us how to orient, cook, clean, set up bear bags, and he also told us how we had to act as a crew. One of the most important skills we learned from him was hanging up bear bags. Without this skill, the bears and mini bears would have ate all our food. The bear bags keep the bears out of our campsite and thankfully no bears came along.

Philmont was definitely a trip well worth while because of all the wonderful things it offers. It made us act as a crew with teamwork and also gave us experience on how to deal with things by ourselves. The hikes and activities were all challenging, but our whole crew and advisors accomplished all of the events. While the scenery and the activities were great, the most important concept we learned within our crew was to act as a team and bond together.