Trek Kanik Double H Charter Year Philmont Training Center Courses Led By T32
 
Training
Center

  
   
            From The Archives Of Troop 32

   
Panning
for gold








  The following is a diary written by one of our scouters with events leading to and including the 1999 Troop 32 Philmont Expedition. Philmont Crew 711 - H06 began with a training regimen of 5 warm up hikes. An overnighter at Sid Richardson and a hike around Benbrook Lake combined for the first 2 warm up hikes. April found the Philmont Crew hiking the Mineral Wells Trail from Weatherford to Mineral Wells State Park. This turned out to be 14 miles of flat "shadeless" trail. Our first real test of feet created serious blisters but everyone made it ok. Our Philmont group discovered Bruce Simonsen loves ice cream more than coffee!  
  Click Here For Tooth Of Time Panoramic

 The Ft Worth Nature Center was the scene for our May warm up hike. The flowers were blooming but recent rains created a lot of mud. The final warm up came through the first weekend in June and took us to the Cross Timbers trail on the banks of Lake Texoma. The day was hot and muggy, the trail was not well marked and Bruce overheated.

The second chapter of this monumental trip was the travel time and touring the group conducted. An ice cream social, loading equipment and the marathon drive to Philmont were pre-cursors to witnessing the slow rise of the New Mexico mountains. A rainy spring reflected unusual greenery along the roadways to Philmont as well as antelope grazing close to the road. The group overnighted at the National Guard Armory but experienced the unforgiving nature of hard cold concrete. Everyone awoke, repacked vehicles, and took a group picture of the entire crew standing on a deserted New Mexico highway with the mountains in the background.

Since Philmont receives several hundred scouts on a daily basis, everything operates on a "Day One, Day Two, etc" schedule. The third chapter began with the arrival at Philmont and the beginning of a tried and true preparation that over 20,000 attendees each summer go through.

Base Camp

The group checked into the Welcome Center, took the gear to the Trail Bound Camp and met their Philmont Ranger. After lunch, they received 45 bags of food, several pots, utinsels and a dining fly. At the suggestion of their ranger ...
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2003 Trek
Troop 32


2003 Trek
Troop 32


2001 Trek
Troop 32


Busy New
Mexico Highway

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2000 Philmont Training Center:
Woodbadge

  

2003 Philmont Training Center:
Scouting in the Catholic Church
   ASM Jim Higginbotham and ASM Jeff Nelson participated in a once in a lifetime experience by taking Woodbadge at the Philmont Training Center. The Woodbadge program has been compared to the "ultimate" scouter training experience as it certifies an adult ready to propagate the Boy Scout regimen to youth.      Troop 32 committee member John Ryan was invited by the Longhorn Council to participate in the Scouting in the Catholic Church National Catholic Comm on Scouting Conference held during the summer of 2003. John attended through his role in the Diocese of Ft Worth Catholic Cub Scout Retreat held annually since 1998. John is pictured standing third from the left on the back row. Greg White, a member of the Dallas Diocese CCS, is pictured standing next to him.
   

Base Camp ... Continuation of 1999 Philmont Diary 		 
  they left a few pots and pans behind. The Ranger also went through an individual "shakedown" on gear to make sure everyone was not carrying any more than they needed. In fact, there was one tube of toothpaste and one sunscreen bottle for the entire crew. The Crew Advisor and Crew Leader received their trail map and route briefing at Logistics Building. The Crew went to the open-air Philmont Chapel for mass before attending the traditional opening campfire where the staff re-enact the history of Philmont Scout Ranch.

Day One

One of the big jokes connected with Philmont is trying to sneak rocks into the backpack of one of your crew members without them knowing about it. When they discover the deed, everyone has a good laugh. Well, sometime during the base camp shakedown, Scott had a few rocks added to his backpack. On Day One, everyone went to the Welcome Center building to weigh their packs before departure and Matt's came up to 67 pounds! Everyone else ranged from 45 to 56 pounds. A few minutes later, there were rocks rolling on the ground as Scott may have paid Matt back with a larger set of rocks.

Everyone saddled up at 10am and rode the bus to a starting point called Zastrow Turnaround. The Philmont Ranger spent some time going over the "low impact" rules for the back country and some basic map skills. The Crew hiked to New Abreu where they had their first lunch, toured an adobe ranch house, and bought root beer and candy in the cantina. The ranch house had several items from the period it was inhabited. After the tour, the crew hiked to Old Abreu for the first night under the stars.

Old Abreu is not a staff camp so we were on our own. You always seem to forget one thing on a campout and it ended up being the lid to one of our big pots. The Ranger happened to bring a pan along so the crew pounded it flat. You see, trying to boil water at higher elevation is already hard so that a missing lid would mean huge delays. After dinner, the crew gathered all smellables and hung the bear bag. All food is placed in a bag and pulled to about 20 feet above the ground to prevent bears from eating your next meal.

The crew made water from a clear stream which ran by the camp. The water was cool and rushing over rocks by the camp so they heard the sound of running water all night long. You never knew there could be so many stars.

Day Two

The next morning, everyone found Jimmy with only his head in the tent and everything else in the sleeping bag on the ground outside. No claw marks so the crew gave him instruction on closing a tent zipper. After Breakfast, they headed back through New Abreu toward Urraca Mesa. The trail to Camp Urraca was beautiful but steep and rocky. It was very sunny and hot going. Every time we would look up, we could see the rock wall and it never seemed to get any closer. Once we topped the ridge, the Mesa came back into view. We finally made the top and it was lunch time. Dustin, the Ranger, announced that we needed to hurry and cross the Mesa before the rain came. Since there were very few clouds, we doubted his word but we ate and crossed the Mesa before a storm hit. It seems Urraca Mesa has a lot of lightning strikes each year.

The Crew was to late for the COPE course so they set camp, ate dinner and attended the campfire. The campfire featured an outstanding line up of music and a humorous version of the history of the area. After everyone was bedded down, the Ranger got us up to go look at the stars, discussed what we expected from Philmont and looked over the Philmont wilderness cards.

We were asleep when someone woke us up about leaving some spices out on the ground. Sean and Brian got out of bed, lowered the bear bag, dropped in the bag of spices and received a stern lecture from the Ranger before going back to bed.

Day Three

The Crew took a short side hike to Inspiration Point. It is a part of Camp Urraca but was about 15 minutes extra. The view was great and the climb was fun. Terry talked the crew into going around the Mesa rather than over the Mesa to Miners Camp. Although an abandoned trail had us lost for awhile, the crew responded by checking map/compass and for a meadow with a pond in it. It was a team effort and we only lost 10 minutes.

We were short of water and filtered some from a dirty looking pond. After using iodine to make it drinkable, we hiked on to Lovers Leap Camp. We dumped the water and obtained some from a clear stream. We had lunch and then spent 3 hours working on a conservation project. Some dug dirt, others made small rocks from big rocks and others built a drain across the new trail to prevent erosion. We pitched camp at Miners Camp and experienced a strong wind that almost blew down the dining fly. Continue to Day Four