Philmont Journal

Philmont Journal Day 7
October 24, 2008

Today we woke up at about 5:45 in order to get camp packed out and hit the trail by about 6:30 am. We quickly and efficiently pack up personal gear, tore down tents, and distributed the crew/group gear. After these assignments were made we hit the trail without eating a full breakfeast. Throughout the the hike we snacked on various items in order to hold us over until we got a large meal for a late afternoon lunch at a fast food restaurant which ended up being Arby's. The distance we covered today ended up being about 8 miles, which means for those members of the group who hiked the whole distance they were eligible to recieve the 50 miler patch. I have already recieved the standard 50 miler patch so to me it wasn't the biggest lose ever but it was still slightly disappointing. Considering I had a fair amount of pain in my knee I ended up staying at the front of the group for the majority of time after the first stretch. Some group members believed that there was not a problem with my knee towards the middle because I was doing so well. Even though I was doing so well I still had pain in my knee but was able to manage and tolerate it a little bit longer than some because of the fact that I have a fairly high pain tolerance because I have experienced many excruciating migraines. After reaching the vehicles we did a end of the trail cheer got in the cars and headed back to philmont headquarters. At headquarter we went into the trading post. This trading post is huge and you could have easily spent a couple hundred dollars right then and their if you were not carefully and watched your money closely. After getting some stuff at the trading post we hit and trail and after stoping for lunch we drove straight home to castle rock in order to beat rush hour traffic, which could have been horrible because it was a saturday evening but it ended up being fairly tame considering that some many odds were stacked against us. We get back to the Benzel house where I am suppose to stay the next two nights.

Route:

1. Start from Beaubien and head south along Bonito Creek Trail to Fowler Pass Trail
2. Follow Fowler Pass Trail and go over Fowler pass which has a elevation of 9216 this is the highest point we will have to go to today, minus our starting elevation.
3. Follw Fowler Pass Trail All the way to Crater lake Trail and stop at crater lake in order to get a good picture of Tooth of Time Peak.
4. Follow trail of a Crater Lake that leads to Lovers Leadp Camp ground.
5. At east end of Lovers Leap Campground we take a secondary emergency access road down to the primary road that will head to our vehicles and ultimately after driving in the vehicles will get us back in the Philmont camping administration area.

Philmont Journal Day 8
October 25, 2008

Spend the day recuperating from the philmont experience. I also spend the day hanging out with the Benzel family but I spend most of my time with J Benzel and not with D Benzel because he invited one of his non-scout friends over in order to hang out with his cool friends. What I mean by cool friends are the friends that are fully socially acceptable and not involved with the scouting program. D Benzel does not have a problem with scouting but needs to take a break every once in a while from the program.

Philmont Journal Day 9
October 26, 2008

Woke up at about 4:30 am and left for a early morning flight out of denver. I get into kenai which is about twenty minutes from where I live at about 2:00 pm Alaska Daylight Savings Time.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616

Philmont Journal

Philmont Journal Day 6
October 23, 2008

Today we still had snow on the ground but is was slowly beginning to melt off. Unfortunately due to my knee still being in pain and me fighting a cold I end up staying back with one of the adults in order for me to feel fairly descent for the hike out the following day. After the group left me and one of the adult leaders caught up on some personal matters that we needed to discuss during this trip. After the personal matter's were out of the way we brought more firewood into the cabin and kept the fire going throughout the day. After gathering the wood we talked about the upcoming fall camporee that I was tasked with planning. Maybe if I have time I will write a post on how the fall camporee went where I was the event's incident commander. Back to the main focus though after that we ate lunch kept talking and then went over the a fire ring to setup for tonights big campfire where we ended up having a large and formal campfire program. After that we played cards and then finally the rest of the guys got back from the group. The group took the Bonito Creek Trail to the Trail Peak Trail where they summit Trail Peak which has a elevation of 10250 feet. Near the top of this peak is a crashed B-52 bomber which the group thought was awesome. After they got back we just hung out, ate and relaxed. When a couple of hours had passed we going started on the second half of our service project continuing to move wood piles and organize the wood stacks. After a hour and a half of doing this we went over to the campfire ring where we had dinner. Once we had dinner and cleaned up our dishes it was dark so we started the campfire program. The scout that put on the program did a excellent job of planning it. Everything in the program ended up going great.

Route: No distance covered due to injury and having a cold.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616

Philmont Journal

Philmont Journal Day 5
October 22, 2008

Had a sleep in day to between 8:30 and 9:00. Woke up to a snow storm which started last night during the early morning hours. In my mind before a went to bed I thought I saw a slight mist which lead me to believe that it was possible to have a snow accumulation. I never brought this up to me tent mate or the rest of the group because I was not positive but had a good feeling that it could happen. Since the wind was blowing strong and snow was coming down we were invited into the cabin and in the end we ended up using the cabin the rest of the week. My knee which I injured yesterday by irritating/pulling a ligament is still hurting but I decide to go on the hike today. The goall of today's hike is to summit bontio Peak which has a elevation of 10610 feet. By the way the approximately elevation of the base camp which is Beaubien is about 9400 feet. We ended up leaving base camp around 11:30 during which is was still slightly snowing. As we move further up the mountain the wind and snow became worse until we reached the top of the peak. Once we reached the top of the peak the fog cleared up and we had a awesome view of the surrounding area and the valley below. Also the snow and wind subsided and then stopped for our hike back to camp. After we got back to camp we spent a couple of hours warming up and just having some freetime. After freetime we had to start our service project for the 50 miler patch. which requires 3 hours of community service. The service project we had to do was to gather and straighten the wood piles surrounding beabuien. Today we did about 1.5 of our 3 required hours. After that we had a nice fire inside and stayed inside most of the evening because the wind and snow picked up again during the service project.

Route

1. Took trail north out of beaubien to Beaubien Access Road Junction where we followed the road in a north-easterly direction until we reached bonito Peak Trail. This trail actually continues down the other side of the mountain and ends up going north to various other campsites and back south to porcupine camp. In order to do just the mininum required in order to get the 50 mile patch we went up and down the same side of the peak, which ended up being about 8 miles.
   
2. Went up Bonito Peak Trail to top of peak
3. Came down the same side of the peak that we came up on Bonito peak Trail.
4. From Bonito Peak Trail we to the Beabuien Access Road to the Junction.
5. From this junction we take a trail into Beuabien.
   

Yours in Scouting Service
mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616

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