Philmont Scout Ranch
Philmont Scout Ranch is a large, rugged, mountainous
ranch located near the town of
Cimarron in the
Sangre de Cristo Range of the
Rocky Mountains of northern
New Mexico. The ranch, formerly the property of oil baron
Waite Phillips and now that of the
Boy Scouts of America, is currently in use as a National High Adventure Base in which crews of Scouts and Venturers take part in
backpacking expeditions and other outdoor activities. Of the four national high adventure bases operated by the National Council of the BSA, Philmont is the most highly regarded.
Philmont is also home to the
Philmont Training Center, which is the main center for BSA's national-level training for volunteers and professionals.
Philmont is located in the
Sangre de Cristo Range of the
Rocky Mountains of
New Mexico. The closest village is
Cimarron, New Mexico, which sits at 36°30'34" North, 104°54'56" West (36.509467, -104.915496). The address of the ranch is usually given as 17 Deer Run Rd., Cimarron, NM, 87714. It is also about 20 miles (30 km) west-northwest of
Springer, New Mexico, and 35 miles (56 km) southwest of
Raton, New Mexico. The Ranch is shaped somewhat like the letter 'I,' with the bottom section larger than the top. It is about 12 miles (19 km) across (east to west) at its widest point, and about 30 miles (48 km) long. There are no mountains to the south of Philmont, or to the east (indeed, part of the eastern fringe of the ranch is
prairie) but the interior is quite mountainous.
 |
Location of Cimarron, New Mexico |
|
Mount Baldy, from the peak of Mount Phillips |
The lowest elevation is 6500 feet (1981 m), at the southeast corner. The highest point is the peak of
Mount Baldy at 12,441 feet (3792 m), located on the ranch's northwest boundary. The most recognizable landmark is the
Tooth of Time at 9003 feet (2744 m), a granite monolith protruding 500 feet (150 m) vertically from an east-west ridge. Tooth of Time Ridge, and the latitude line on which it sits, mark the boundary between the central and southern sections of Philmont. The boundary between the central and northern sections is the narrowest part of the 'I'-shape, only a few miles across.
U.S. Route 64 runs through Philmont just south of this line.
Aside from Baldy, the ranch contains a number of prominent peaks. Directly south of Baldy lies Touch-Me-Not Mountain, which is located in Cimarron Canyon State Park. The South Country is home to a series of six difficult peaks, namely Mt. Phillips, Comanche Peak, Big Red, Bear Mountain, Black Mountain, and Schaefers Peak; the popular "Super Black Death" challenge consists of summiting all six in a day, concluding with the hike over the Tooth of Time and into Base Camp. The less-strenuous "Black Death" challenge comprises only Trail Peak, Bear, Black, Schaefers, and the Tooth, and likewise ends in Base Camp. The final prominent South Country peak is Trail Peak, which is popular for its relative ease, its nearness to
Beaubien, and the wreckage of the crash of a
B-24 bomber in 1941 near its summit.
Of the ranch's various hikeable peaks, Black Mountain is widely considered the most difficult, followed closely by Baldy and Big Red. Other prominent landmarks on the ranch include Grizzly Tooth, Window Rock, Deer Lake Mesa, and
Urraca Mesa, the last of which is notorious for being allegedly
haunted.
Native Americans of the
Jicarilla Apache tribe and
Ute tribe once inhabited Philmont. At least one Native American
archaeological site exists in the northern section, and various camps seek to preserve Philmont's Native American heritage.
Private ownership
In the mid-
19th century, the
Santa Fe Trail crossed the plains just southwest of Philmont. The
Tooth of Time owes its name to this trail; travelers knew that once they passed it, they had only a few weeks to go until they reached
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Philmont's strategic location along the trail spurred some interest in it. In 1841,
Carlos Beaubien and
Guadalupe Miranda obtained a large land grant from the
Mexican government, including the present ranch. Soon the grant fell into the hands of Beaubien's son-in-law
Lucien Maxwell, who played an important role in developing and settling it. Maxwell sold the ranch to the
Maxwell Land Grant and Railroad Company, which gave up and handed it on to a Dutch development company, which decided to parcel it out to ranchers.
One of the most prominent ranchers was
Jesus Gil Abreu, who ran the
Abreu Rayado Ranch from the
1870s to his death in 1901. Operating from the Rayado Settlement, he raised
cattle,
goats,
sheep, as well as growing limited amounts of crops. The family owned this property until 1911, when they sold most of it off. One of the sons remained on the ranch at the site of
Abreu Camp, and his
homestead was preserved for years. However, the building was made from
adobe and collapsed. The foundation of this building now serves as the foundation for the
Abreu Cantina. The house was reconstructed by
Cabin Restoration in 1998 about 100
feet uphill.
The history of
mining at Philmont dates back to the years immediately after the
Civil War. At the time, many
U.S. soldiers were stationed in the West, as the
U.S. Army was driving out the
American Indians. The story is that one of these soldiers befriended an Indian, who happened to give him a shiny rock. The shiny material in the rock was found to be
copper. According to the story, the soldier and two of his friends went up to investigate, and found
gold. However, they could not stay and mine the gold, and by the time they returned the next year, the area was overrun by miners.
Scores of gold mines were
excavated in Philmont, and operated into the early 20th century. A large vein of gold is said to lie under
Baldy Mountain to this day, but extracting it has not been feasible. The
Contention Mine, located at
Cyphers Mine camp, is open to guided tours.
The penultimate owner of Philmont was wealthy oil magnate and wilderness enthusiast
Waite Phillips, who amassed a large part of the old land grant in the
1920s, totaling over 300,000
acres (1,200 km²). Phillips built a large residence in the lowlands of Philmont, and called it the
Villa Philmonte. The ranch became a private game reserve for Phillips and his friends, and a number of
hunting lodges and day-use camps were built. It would not have been beyond his means to bring
electricity to those camps, but he decided not to. Some of these camps, including
Fish Camp and the Hunting Lodge, have been preserved, complete with
wood-burning stoves,
oil lamps, and unique design features indicative of Phillips's often eccentric taste.
Boy Scout involvement
Phillips sometimes allowed others to visit his ranch, including a few Boy Scout troops. He was so impressed with the Scouts that in 1938, he donated 35,857 acres (145 km²) to the
Boy Scouts of America. They initially named it the "Philturn Rockymountain Scoutcamp"
[sic]. The word 'Philturn' comes from Waite Phillips's name, together with the "Good Turn" he did by donating the property. In 1941, Phillips added more Philmont property, including the Villa Philmonte, bringing the total to 127,395 acres (516 km²). (Contrary to popular belief, Phillips did not give his entire ranch to the BSA, but only those properties that would have the most recreational value. The total donation comprised about 40% of the ranch.) To help fund the upkeep of Philmont, he threw in his Philtower office building in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. The ranch's name was changed at this time to the "Philmont Scout Ranch and Explorer Base".
Philmont was run differently in the early years than it is now. Half a dozen "base camps" were constructed at strategic locations. A visiting group of Scouts would stay at one of these camps for a week, and day-hike to surrounding locations of interest. If the Scouts wanted to visit a different area, they would pack up their gear, hoist it onto
burros, and hike to another base camp. Eventually, possibly due to the advent of modern lightweight metal-frame backpacks and other
backpacking technology, the program was restructured to be backpacking-based.
In 1963, through the generosity of Norton Clapp, vice-president of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, another piece of the Maxwell Land Grant was purchased and added to Philmont. This was the Baldy Mountain mining area, consisting of 10,098 acres (41 km²).
In recent years, Philmont has also been able to gain use of the
Valle Vidal section of the
Carson National Forest. Since 1989, Philmont has had a series of five-year special-use permits from the Forest Service, allowing crews to hike and camp in the Valle Vidal as part of their Philmont treks. Philmont operates three staffed camps—
Whiteman Vega,
Seally Canyon, and
Ring Place —and two trail camps in that part of the Valle. Those camps serve around 3,000 Philmont campers each summer. Each camper performs four hours of conservation work in the Valle on projects approved by the Forest Service.
In addition, Rich Cabins, a historical farming cabin on Ted Turner's Vermejo Park, is also operated as a staff camp.
Trek
The standard and most popular Philmont program is the
trek. A typical Philmont trek lasts 10 days and covers anywhere from 50 to 100 miles (80 to 160 km) of trail. In 2006 there were 35 different
trek itineraries, ranging from challenging to super strenuous. Each trek is unique, covering distinct regions, peaks, and camps. A group of Scouts on a trek is called a
crew; most crews are assembled by troops, Venturing crews, or local councils, and consist of people from the same area. A crew consists of seven to twelve people (usually ten or more), with two to four adult leaders and a crew leader. A
contingent consists of one or more crews from the same council (see
Boy Scouts of America: Organization), traveling together.
Sister crews are crews that follow the same itinerary and are usually from different troops. Around 360 trekkers arrive at base camp every day of the season.
A typical crew's experience is as follows:
The crew arrives in
Base Camp, checks in at the Welcome Center, and meets its
ranger, a trained staff member from the Ranger Department. He or she assists them in the various registration ("processing") procedures, which consist of verifying their itinerary with Logistics and checking out gear, such as a dining fly, bear ropes, bear bags, and water purification tablets, from the Services building.
The dining fly is a 12-foot-square water-retardant blue tarp with two collapsible
aluminum poles, which may optionally be replaced by
trekking poles to save weight. Its purpose is to provide a storage place for crew gear in camp. It is also used as a rain shelter incase of rain. It is designed to be set up as an A-frame (see
tent), with two opposite sides staked down, the middle supported by the poles and a ridgeline, and the ends open.
If crew members have not brought
tents of their own, they may also check out Philmont's tents, known always as "Philtents". Philtents are two-man blue A-frames which measure five feet wide by seven feet long, are supported by two poles at the front and one at the back (no ridgepole), and come with a rain fly. They are more difficult to set up than conventional dome tents, but very easy to break down. They are reputedly bulky, but in fact are not significantly heavier than most ordinary dome tents.
A crew also receives several days' worth of Philmont trail food, packaged in bags which feed two people each; the exact quantity depends on the crew's itinerary and the day on which it is scheduled to reach the next commissary (see
below). Philmont also provides optional cooking supplies.
The crew spends its first night in Trailbound Tent City, where it has access to showerhouses and flush toilets. The trekkers sleep in tan canvas tents, each with a concrete foundation and two cots. The next morning, they eat breakfast at the dining hall and board a bus to one of the ranch's several trailheads, called "turnarounds" because they consist of a loop in the road for the bus to turn around. The crew and its ranger are now alone.
|
A crew ready for their trek |
The ranger verifies the trekkers' general backpacking knowledge, and teaches them specific Philmont procedures, such as bear procedure and latrine usage. Rangers stay with their crews for two days, and depart on the morning of the third day on the trail. In the next eight days the crew will hike through the Philmont wilderness, staying at various
staffed camps and unstaffed "
trail camps" scattered about the Ranch. On the final day, the crew returns to Base Camp, sometimes by bus from a turnaround, but more popularly by climbing over the
Tooth of Time and hiking directly into Base Camp from the west. During the final day at Base Camp, the crew cleans up, returns various Philmont-issued supplies, including cookware and tents, and attends the closing campfire.
Awards
By meeting the challenge of Philmont, participants are considered to be worthy of awards. The awards represent the Philmont experience that can never be sold or traded; only earned.
|
The Arrowhead Award patch |
Arrowhead Award:An individual camper award presented by your adult advisor when they have: :*Attended opening campfire--"The New Mexico Story." :*Completed a Philmont-approved itinerary (except for medical reasons) with your crew. :*Completed three hours of staff supervised conservation work or a camp improvement project on Philmont. :*Fulfilled the personal commitment to the Wilderness Pledge. :*Taken advantage of every opportunity to learn about and improve our ecology, and practiced the art of outdoor living in ways that minimize pollution of soil, water, and air.
"We All Made It" plaque:An award presented by Philmont to each crew that: :*Demonstrated good camping practices and Scouting spirit. :*Followed an approved itinerary and camped only where scheduled. :*Fulfilled the commitment to the Wilderness Pledge. :*Took advantage of every opportunity to learn about and improve our ecology, and practiced the art of outdoor living in ways that minimize pollution of soil, water, and air.
50-Miler Award:All Philmont itineraries can qualify crew members for the 50-Miler award as it relates to distance. 3 of the 10 required service hours must be done at Philmont. The award is secured through participant's local council service center.
"Duty to God" Patch:Under the guidance of a crew Chaplain's Aide, each participant in a trek may work to fulfill the requirements of the
Duty to God Award.:The Requirements are::# Participants must attend a religious service while at Philmont, participate in at least Three daily devotionals with their crew, and lead grace before a meal.:# Participants must obtain a Chaplain's Aide signature to certify completion of requirements.:#Chaplain's Aide must secure a
"Duty to God" brochure for the cew upon completion of the trek.:Once these have been fulfilled, one may obtain the
"Duty to God" patch from the
Tooth of Time Traders Shop.
Other programs
*
Cavalcades, which are similar to standard treks, but are conducted on horseback.
*
Rayado, a prestigious and very strenuous twenty-day program. Scouts are challenged physically, mentally, and spiritually. Rayado crews, accompanied by two of the Ranger Department's best qualified members, are put together by Philmont staff, and consist of people from different parts of the country. A person may only be a Rayado participant once; a ranger may only be assigned to a Rayado crew once; and staff members are disqualified from participation in Rayado treks except as rangers.
*
Mountain Treks, which last five days and are conducted by the Philmont Training Center for trainees' families. PTC offers a variety of other programs for younger children and spouses.
* The
Roving Outdoor Conservation School (ROCS), which teaches participants about ecology, conservation techniques, and trail construction methods. ROCS also is noted for being the only program to eat regular food while on the trail, instead of the normal freeze dried food.
*
Order of the Arrow Trail Crew, a two week program allowing
OA participants to work on various conservation projects around the ranch before embarking on a self-devised, week-long trek. Various program elements are included that are mysterious.
*
Philmont Autumn Adventure program
*
Kanik, a winter program similar to
Northern Tier's
Okpik.
*
Ranch Hands, during which participants work for several days with the Philmont ranching staff as wranglers and cattle handlers, before embarking on a cavalcade trek of their own design
* Guided activities such as fishing, winter camping, and skiing, are offered throughout the year.
*
Philbreak, an 'alternate spring break' program started in 2003 to help restore Philmont from the devastating fires. Since 2004, the participants have been working on the Urraca Trail, which is intended as a day hike for those attending the Philmont Training Center.
*
National Advanced Youth Leader Experience, a high-intensity leadership course based on backcountry high adventure skills. Discontinued (last course in 2005) for regional courses instead.
Philmont now has one large base camp, 34 staffed camps, and over 50 unstaffed camps, known as "trail camps", which are generally set no more than a couple of miles apart.
Base Camp
|
Base camp's "Tent City" where departing and returning treks are staged. |
Base Camp is the center of all Philmont administration, ingress, and egress. Most of its area is occupied by Camping Headquarters; ancillary facilities include the
Seton Museum (devoted to
Ernest Thompson Seton's
Woodcraft ), the
Philmont Training Center and
Villa Philmonte, the fire response facilities, the cattle headquarters, and the administration area.
Camping Headquarters is a town unto itself, and its population exceeds that of Cimarron on most nights of the summer. Its primary facilities are:
* The Welcome Center, a large pavilion containing soda machines and picnic tables. It serves as a waiting area for crews arriving at or departing from the ranch, as well as crews catching a bus to go on the trail or returning at the end of their trek. Philmont operates a bus from the Welcome Center to Cimarron which must be scheduled in advance. The Welcome Center's small office offers check-in instructions and general information, and its restrooms are considered the best on the ranch.
* Camp Administration/Logistics, which manage registration and orchestrate all the ranch's operations.
* Two dining halls, one for campers and one for staff. Rarely do campers eat more than three meals during a single stay in base camp.
* Services, a large L-shaped building whose facilities include:
** Rental and return of gear and issuance of trail food
** A room for crews to scrub their dirty pots and dishes at the end of their trek
** Hooks and bungee cords on which crews hang their tents and rain flies at the beginning and end of their trek for inspection
** Lockers, where crews may store anything they have brought but do not want to take on the trail
** A post office, which handles mail for staff and crew members
* The Health Lodge, which conducts "rechecks" of all incoming campers, and handles all the ranch's serious health-related issues. Health officers communicate with backcountry staff by radio, and can dispatch Suburbans to retrieve patients if necessary.
* Tooth of Time Traders, the official "trading post", which sells all manner of camping and backpacking gear as well as a large selection of souvenirs.
* The Snack Bar, in the same building at the trading post, which sells a variety of snack foods, beverages, and ice cream.
* Four chapels of four different faiths:
Catholic,
Protestant,
Jewish, and
Latter-Day Saints. Each chapel holds services every evening, and most incoming and some outgoing crews attend these.
* Three tent cities: Trailbound, Homebound, and Staff. Each contains several showerhouses. The staff tent city's capacity is roughly 900, though it is rarely full; Trailbound and Homebound each hold between 400 and 500 trekkers.
Trail camps
A trail camp is simply an unstaffed camp. Trail camps contain several campsites, but they are often spread out over half a mile of trail or more, so that there is no sense of crowding. Each trail camp is marked by a map, attached to a tree or the side of a latrine at every trail which passes through it. Campsites are marked by:
* A wooden sign nailed to a tree which indicates the campsite number.
* A metal
fire ring. This may be used for small fires unless a fire ban is in place, which is almost always the case, given Philmont's dry climate. Campfires were permitted at the start of the 2005 season until fires broke out on the nearby Angel Fire Ski Resort in July, prompting an immediate fire ban.
* A
sump. This is an L-shaped plastic pipe, with a six-foot vertical section and a seven-foot horizontal section perforated like a sieve. Most of it is underground, and the top is capped with a piece of mesh. Sumps are used to dispose of dirty dishwater.
* Several campsites share a bear cable. This is a metal cable strung between two sturdy trees at least ten feet above the ground; it is used to hang
bear bags.
* Several campsites also share a latrine or toilet. These come in numerous configurations:
** The enclosed configuration, with walls and a red roof, is known for obvious reasons as a Red Roof Inn. Older Red Roof Inns contain two adjacent seats and no door, while newer models have two back-to-back seats, with a wall between and swinging doors on either side.
** The open-air style with two adjacent seats is affectionately called the "pilot to copilot" design; this results from the joking conversation which often takes place between two campers using the toilet simultaneously.
** The other configuration, called the "pilot to bombardier", is generally preferred because its two seats are back-to-back and offer somewhat more privacy than the "pilot to copilot".
** Occasionally a "single pilot" - one open-air seat - may be found. Philmont latrines of all types are known to house spiders, whose bite induces a rash, which is why campers are encouraged to check the underside of the boards with a stick.
As of 2005, there are fifty-seven trail camps.
Staffed camps
Many camps have several live-in staff members who are in charge of the camp's "program", which consists of a wide variety of activities. Camps often carry a historical or modern theme, such as logging (
Crater Lake and
Pueblano), mining or blacksmithing (
French Henry,
Cypher's Mine, and
Black Mountain), fur trapping and mountain man life (
Miranda), land navigation (
Zastrow) or cowboy life (
Beaubien). The program in a camp is run by staff known as
Program Counselors. These Program Counselors are supposed to be trained by their supervisor, the
Camp Director.
Specific program activities include
black powder rifle loading and shooting,
shotgun shooting and reloading, trail rides on horseback,
burro packing and racing, rock climbing (on artificial towers as well as actual rock faces, such as
Betty's Bra at
Miners Park), tomahawk throwing,
branding,
search and rescue training, mountain bicycling, Mexican homesteading, and a variety of campfires and evening programs.
All staffed camps contain several campsites of the same sort which appear in trail camps; however, the primary distinguishing factor is the presence of one or several cabins. There is always a main cabin, on whose porch an arriving crew is given a "porch talk" by one of the present staff members. This includes information about available program, location of trash receptacles, and other timely information such as the presence of "problem bears."
Most staffed camps have a swap box—a box in which crews may place unwanted food and take anything they might desire. Predictably, swap boxes tend to fill up with the sort of food which no-one likes.
With several exceptions, staffed camps accept trash, send and receive mail, and offer purified water. The exceptions are those camps which have no road access, such as
Black Mountain or Crooked Creek; these camps receive their supply shipments by burro. All staffed camps also contain radios, by which staff members can communicate with Base Camp, the Health Lodge, or each other. The radio is used for all manner of communication, including notifications of the movements of the ranch's various vehicles, logistical inquiries between camps and Logistical Services in base camp, major and minor medical issues, and a nightly itinerary read-out, which often includes world news and a weather forecast. The ranch's non-stationary staff are assigned unit numbers, by which they identify themselves on the radio; notable among these are Unit 2, Director of Program Mark Anderson, and Unit 41, locally famous backcountry manager Gene Schnell. The ranch also employs a variety of esoteric radio codes for rapid communication.
As of 2005, there are thirty-four staffed camps:
Commissaries
A commissary is a small warehouse which is stocked with trail food for campers, real food for backcountry staff, and various other supplies, by periodic truck shipments. A small room in the warehouse holds a trading post, which sells a small variety of odds and ends, including postcards and postage. Commissaries also sell
white gas for crews' stoves. A crew typically stops by a commissary every few days so that it does not have to carry a huge amount of consumables.
Two backcountry junctions contain commissaries:
*
Phillips Junction*
Ute GulchFive staffed camps also contain commissaries:
*
Baldy Town, an abandoned mining town at the base of
Mount Baldy*
Ponil Camp* Rich Cabins
* Apache Springs
* Ring PlaceFood is also issued by the Services building in Base Camp, and if necessary can be supplied by Suburban at a predetermined location.
The Conservation department is the blood that flows through Philmont and allows it to survive. The first Conservation staffers begin hiking and clearing the trails one month prior to the first participants' arrival. These groups of trail workers are affectionately known as "A-team."
During the summer, the Conservation staff consists of conservationists that aide crews on their conservation project, GIS staff that works on maps, and work crews that maintain trails and campsites throughout the backcountry. These work crews carry their food & tools for more than one week and almost always have packs over sixty pounds.
Also see:
Roving Outdoor Conservation School"It was decided to call them Rangers." - Jack Rhea
When Jack Rhea, former Assistant Chief Scout Executive of Operations for the
Boy Scouts of America, became Director of Camping at Philmont, there was no Ranger program. But, as Philmont became more and more popular, he and his staff developed what they called the Ranger Program, which is now mostly responsible for teaching backpacking skills, first-aid skills, and developing the leadership of the crew leader. Rangers are responsible for ensuring that all participants know all required skills and procedures needed for backcountry treks. They generally will also hike along with crews on the 10-day treks for the first two days in which they teach and observe the crew. The Ranger department is also responsible for maintaining a ready search-and-rescue team at all times for use on Philmont land or in surrounding areas. The Ranger department also consists of Mountain Trek Rangers that are responsible for taking out the week-long mountain treks associated with the Philmont Training Center. Ranger Trainers are at least second year Rangers that are responsible for training and supervising other Rangers.
Philmont is also home to the Philmont Museum and Visitor Center, which offers exhibits relating to the ranch's history, as well as the
Ernest Thompson Seton Memorial Library, a research library containing Seton's personal collection and an extensive collection of volumes pertaining to western lore and the history of the area.
*
Double H High Adventure Base *
Florida National High Adventure Sea Base*
Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases*
Outdoor education*
Wilderness Grace*
James P. FitchGeneral
*
Official website of Philmont Scout Ranch
*
Philmont.com, an unofficial site which contains some information and a basic message board
*
Tooth of Time Traders, official website of the Philmont Trading Post
*
Philmont Wiki, a
wiki covering all things Philmont
Maps
*
Google satellite map - Accessed
3 March 2006*
Topographical map from Topozone - Accessed
3 March 2006Staff
*
Philmont Staff Association website*
Philmont Staff, an archive of messages from mainly former staff members
*
Philmont Staffers, an online group of former and current staff members (includes list of some returning staff)
*
Philmont Fans, an online group of persons interested in Philmont, includes a virtual tour of Philmont, pictures and other resources
Other
*
Philmont links collected by Seldon Ball
*
Web Ring of Philmont Related Web Pages*
Philmont Music has downloadable music recorded from backcountry campfires
*
Webcam is a webcam with hourly updates from Cimarron High School looking towards Black Mountain
*
Story about Philmont's effect on a young man
