Boundary Waters

I have added the files we used for planning our Boundary Waters trip.
I hope you find them useful.
You can find our planning files here .

Philmont 2014 Video

I have the video from our 2014 trek posted. What a great adventure! Hope you enjoy the video.

You can find the video in the list to the right or click here:

Philmont 2014 Video

Philmont 2016

We’re in!!! We have received 2 treks for Philmont in 2016. Looking forward to another amazing trip! We are in the process of filling the spots. I think we will have enough scouts and adults in our troop to fill a large amount of both treks. Our troop will be talking with some of the other troops near us to see if they have scouts or adults that would like to join us.

Boundary Waters

We’re starting to get ready for next years High Adventure. The Troop has decided to go to the Boundary Waters. This should be a great trip.
Currently our plan is:
2 crews. One composed of older boys that want a more strenuous trip with portaging, and moving camp daily. The other crew will be for younger scouts and those who do not want to move. This will have a base camp and allow them to do day trips.

Our rules:
Every scout must have:
First Aid, Swimming and canoeing merit badges before the trip. All of these will be offered through the troop in the spring.

We are lucky to have friends from other troops to help and guide our decisions along the way.
A big thanks to Gary for talking to the scouts last week.

Philmont Trek 2014

The entire trek photos are now posted in 3 parts. Just continue scrolling down to find all 3 parts.

Philmont 2014 Trek Part 1

Philmont 2014 was a really fun, but LONG trek. On paper, it looked really interesting. It started in the lower east corner by the Kit Carson museum. Then traveled west, then north past the Tooth of Time and all the way north to Baldy Mountain. Then west to Indian Writings. The only corner we missed was the south west corner. This was trek 28. It is listed as 82 miles. By my GPs, it was 114.7 miles.

This post will be very long, so it will be split into 3 parts. All 3 parts are now complete. Just continue scrolling down to find the other 2 parts.

Amtrak is a great way to travel. It is fun for the scouts as many have never been on a train before. You can sleep, relax, play cards or read in the lounge car. .

Travis and Cullen play cards

Just got off the train. Time to make a pack line while waiting four our bus to pick us up and take us to Philmont.

The bus ride to Philmont.

One of the first things you see at Philmont. The boots of many scouts are worn out after the trek and they end up here. this gets cleared off several times during the season.

The dining hall. Great food while you are in camp. It’s hot food and you don’t have to cook it!

The administration buildings. During the day of check-in, you will spend a lot of time in this area.

Some of the tents that you stay in the first night.

More of tent city.

The sign will get you anywhere you want to go.

The tour of Waite Phillips summer home is a don’t miss.

Waiting for the tour to start

One of the final pack lines before leaving

The last time we will look this clean for a long time.

Our last pack line in camp.

Packing up the bus to leave.

At the Kit Carson museum, we got to do some blacksmithing.

Tomahawk throwing is always fun

We had help as our ranger was going over orienteering. Yea, she was adorable.

Our first night was at Backache Springs.

Our water source

Yes, this is how you get water from the pond. We filtered some and used Micropur for the rest.

The next morning we climbed to the top of the mountain next to camp for the sunrise.

Mike snorts a tree. The mature ones smell like vanilla or butterscotch. They really do!

Looking through the trees is a great view of the Tooth of Time.

The next day we arrived at Crater Lake.

This is a logging camp. It’s really fun!
Their main program is Spar Pole Climbing. It’s not as easy as it looks, but lots of fun!

Dan was our instructor for Spar Pole Climbing.

Some really good looking Bear Bags hung up

Getting ready for supper.

Aaron won one of their challenges. He got pudding and a photo shoot.

The crew put on a great show. Good music and funny skits.

More to come as the next 2 posts go up.

Philmont 2014 Part 2

We start part 2 after hiking from Crater Lake to Miners Park. This is a really fun camp. Their program is rock climbing and rapelling. We had an extra with us as my son Dan (on staff at Crater Lake) had joined us for a few days.

You must climb up before you can rapel.

After climbing up, then you get to rapel down.

We cooked supper for lunch at Miners Park as we had water there. Then we packed up and headed to Schaefers Pass, set up camp.

The next day, we did a side hike to the Tooth of Time.

The first part of the climb is a nice trail. The rest is all boulder climbing. Challenging, but fun!

Getting ready for breakfast on the Tooth.

Most of the crew on top of the Tooth.

Mini-bears are everywhere and they are sneaky!

As I was approaching the top, I watched a man slip and fall into a craves. We had enough help to get him patched up, and safely get him down the mountain to where camp medical staff could attend to him.

After we returned to camp, we took down camp and reviewed the map so our navigator knew where they were going.

Some bridges are better than others.

We arrived at Hunting Lodge. Getting ready for supper.

Really nice looking Bear Bags. This is an important skill as badly hung Bear Bags have been attacked by bears.

How do you make advisors happy? Give them coffee!

A beautiful view along the way.

Another bridge.

A trail. Some were in better shape than others.

Sometimes you just guess where the trail is.

Not every stream has a bridge; sometimes you walk across rocks.

In front of the reservoir.

They really do have black bears here. Several crews saw them!

We hiked up to Cimarroncito. A beautiful camp.

Did I mention they have a really sweet shower house? Probably the nicest at Philmont.

And laundry building. This is a really nice place to do laundry. They even have clothes lines for drying your clothes.

From there we hiked to Ute Gulch to restock food. They also have fruit and milk as well as a trading post.

Another great view after we left Ute Gulch.

Time for a break.

On the peaks, lightening hit many trees. This one the sap looks like it was vaporized.

Another great crew shot.

When we were hiking uphill, we often “catepillared”. This is a great way to conserve energy, catch your breath, get a drink, look around and enjoy the climb more.

Another tree hit by lightening.

On the way to Head of Dean, we passed through “Santa Claus” camp. This used to be a staffed camp, but then the cabin was infected with hantavirus. Now nothing can be done with it.