Philmont Journal

Philmont Trip Day 1 Journal
October 18, 2008

Arrived in Colorado from Soldotna, Alaska. The flight I took was a red eye flight which got me into denver at about 10:15 am. At 10:15 meet up with friends from local Colorado Troop which I will be going with. This colorado Troop is Troop 780 based out of Castle Rock Colorado which is a suburb of denver. The reason why I went with this group was because before I moved to Alaska I was involved with this unit for a long time and became very close friends with many of the scouts and leaders of the Troop. Started driving towards Castle Rock and ended up going out to lunch and REI for last minute gear pickup for crew equipment. We got over to the friends house by 2:30 pm and by this time since i did not sleep very well on the flight took a short nap before the rest of the crew for the philmont trip started arrived. At approximately 4:00 pm the rest of the crew began arriving with gear. The purpose of coming over to the Benzel residence before leaving for philmont was because we had to leave fairly early in the morning to leave and also because we had to do a gear shakedown. At the gear shakedown we setup the Troop backpacking tents to ensure we had all of the correct pieces, setup stoves, check and cleaned the water filters, discussed what gear needed to go in our bags for personal gear, and discussed formulating a duty roster. After this we had a pizza dinner play some video games and went to bed.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616