Epic Novel, The Philmont Edition Part 2

Day 3 -- This was probably the worst day of my Philmont experience. One reason was we had to get up at 5;30 in the morning, not cool. Also we had to hike up about a mile in elevation to Lookout Meadows. (look out for the bears!!! wow mom) There were no bears or anything scary there unless you count a couple of deer and a mini-bear scary (you never know with the mini-bears) no flash floods either. It rained a little bit to, nothing too bad just a drizzle. Although I didn't have a sufficient pack cover. Then after we finished the huge incline to the first meadow before ours we thought the worst was already over, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO after we filtered water from the stream in the meadow we had to climb up the huge hill which was really steep uphill, not fun at all. Some of the highs of the day were that we got to milk a goat at Abreu, Ryan was the only one who wouldn't do it except the adult, or as Philmont likes to call them the advisers (said in a scary voice). We also fed the chickens there some granola from our breakfast it was really funny to watch.

Today was also the day we were tested by our Ranger to make sure we were back country ready to survive PHILMONT!!!!!!!!!! We had to show him we were capable of the fundamentals of backpacking like hanging bear-bags and stuff like that. We passed with flying colors (secretly Mario, our crew leader, was given a pound cake for "his and my birthday" later we learn every Ranger gives a pound cake to there crew for setting up camp in under 45 minutes).

Later, that evening, Evan took us to the middle of that huge meadow and told us about the wilderness pledge, which basically meant we keep the leave no trace, to ensure that this meadow and other amazing sights of Philmont last for many other Scouts to enjoy as well.


Day 4 -- Our Ranger left us this morning to fend off the mini-bears, and many other scary things of the back country, by ourselves. This first thing we did after breaking camp (No, not literally breaking apart camp Will, like putting away tents and repacking all the stuff back into our backpacks) was hike up a huge peak we went from like 9300ft to 9900ft. That might not seem like a lot but it was really steep and hard to climb with full packs on, but it was worth the extra blood, sweat and tears, well maybe not tears but you get the point. The view was amazing! I would like to point out that it is higher then the Tooth of Time in elevation I thought that was pretty interesting when I heard it from Mr. Kunz and not just because he has a funny accent.

We got to our next camp, Miners Park at like 5 pm which is really late so all the rock climbing slots were filled but that was okay we figured we would just do it at Cimarroncito in two days. Oh I forgot to tell you this a Staff camp, basically crews can do activities, raid swap boxes and just hang out in very comfortable chairs on the porch, We had our "birthday pound cake" after dinner because Mario didn't want to carry the extra weight in his pack. It was really good, but still not as good as my mom's cooking ;). Afterwards we played cards and eventually went to bed.

And this concludes today insight on the PHILMONT EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!