Philmont Journal

Philmont Journal Day 4
October 21, 2008

Today end's up being the longest day we have at philmont for hiking distance. Today we end up cover about 10 to 11 miles. The reason why I say 10 to 11 is because we ended up taking a lot of switchbacks that are not marked on the map and the fact that we ended up having to do some bushwhacking because of the fact that we lost the trail. The story of losing the trail is that their is a section of trail that follows the western border of philmont that is not always clearly marked, so instead of following the fence line and following the trail our navigator ended up taking a old logging road that was not marked on the map of philmont. I would not say that we were ever lost but the fact remains that we just made a couple of poor decisions about how to go about navigating through this section of trail. The navigator even with this mistake did a superb job of keeping track of where we are. This morning we got up at 7 am and were on the trail by 8 am. We did not get back from our hike until about 6 pm, so we were basically on the trail for about 10 hours. This evening we had dinner which the adults cooked for us, which surprised me because these adults that went with us usually never cook for us. After that we had a fire and talked and then went to bed fairly early. We were total we could sleep in because of how long of a day we ended up having.

Route:

1. Followed trail out of Beaubien Campsite to road junction.
2. From junction we took a trail that heading in a southwest direction to the Philips Junction Comissary were we stayed on the trail for the majority of the time to Philips Junction.
3. From Philips junction we followed a road/trail combination along Rayado Creek to Fish Camp. During this time we head primarily in a southernly direction.
4. From Fish camp we followed the trail to Agua Fria Camp following Agua Fria Creek to opening before the major switchbacks on this trail in order to fill up water bottles because this would be the last chance to fill up water bottles until we hit buck Creek.
   
5. From this stop along Agua Fria Creek we followed the trail and hit the major switchbacks. From the switchback set we took the Trail that would head towards the Apache Springs Campsite. This took us generally west and the north after hitting the switchbacks.
   
6. After going through Apache Springs campsite we follow trail going out of this campsite to the western border trail.
   
7. Before hitting the western border trail we decide to bushwhack up to the top of Apache Peak. Apache Peak has a elevation of 9856 feet.
8. Come down from Apache Peak and hit western border trail.
9. Follow western border trail and then lose it and end up on a unmarked and old logging road.
10. Follow old logging road and then hit the seasonal Bear Creek. From Bear creek we decide the best option is to get off the road and bushwhack up and over a ridge. Over this ridge is a road that follows Buck Creek which is our destination
11. Make it over and down the ridge where we hit a road that follows Buck Creek.
    
12. Follow this road past the point where we were suppose to turn off. In order to make the day go quicker we back track to the appropriate trail.
13. The his trail has a few super large switch backs and then leads us into the backside of Philip's Junction.
14. From Philips Junction we follow the trail back to the first major road junction.
15. Go across this major road junction above Beaubien and finally take trail from road junction to Beaubien.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616