BSA Troop 3, Corpus Christi Texas

After we left Beaubien, we headed toward Mount Phillips, the highest point of our trek at 11,700 ft. We spent the night on top of Mount Phillips. What a humbling place. To be able to look out over all of God;s creation and realizing how small we really are.

From Mount Phillips we back packed down to Cimmeraoncito. We stopped on the way at an old abandon gold mine and did a little exploring. At Cimmeroncito the Scouts got to do a little rock climbing with ropes. They also tried to capture a mini bear, but I think the mini bear was a little smarter. It kept stealing their bait.

We left Cimmeroncito and headed to the Tooth of Time, our final destination before going back to Base Camp. Along the way we stopped at a beautiful lake and ate breakfast. You can see Cathedral rock behind it.

When we got up to Shaffers Pass we crossed over to Tooth Ridge, a six mile boulder field. This was a very difficult hike. It got really scary when a thunder storm hit us while in route. Lighting and thunder occured at the same time arround us. All we could think of was we have to get off this ridge. We all survived and set up camp at the Tooth Time that night. We could see Base Camp below us. I think everyone was excited and a little sad. We knew our trek was almost over. 

The Philmont Experience

The Philmont Scout Ranch has 137,493 acres of rugged mountain wilderness ranging in altitude from 6,500 ft to over 12,000 ft. and provides a tremendous experience in high adventure for Scouts of all ages. The Philmont Scout Ranch is located at Cimarron, New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The center piece is the Tooth of Time Mountain.

Our Crew, Scouts; Taylor S., Michael A., Stuart M., Robert A., Brice T., Eric M., Trey S., & Chase C. and Adult Advisers; John Fowler, Rex Morris, Craig Ansel, & Bill Schmidt, departed Corpus Christi on Sunday, July 6, 2008. We arrived at Philmont Scout Ranch on July 7th. After a day of orienteering and briefing we were ready to begin our 10 day 67.5 mile backpacking trip.

On the first part of the trek, the adult advisers discovered that they had lungs but we acclimated by the second day. On the second day of the trek, we came upon an old logging camp. There the scouts learned how to gaff a tree. That night the boys were treated to some misucal entertainment by resident loggers.

The next day we broke camp and hiked toward Black Mountain. We traveled up the Urraca River. There were 57 stream crossings.  At Black Mountain, the crew came upon an old Civil War out post.  The soldiers there were glad to see us.  They taught us the fine art of black smithing and how to shoot black powder muskets. It was a lot of fun. 

The next day it was on to Beaubien, the heart of Philmont.  We camped two days there.  While at Beaubien we helped on a conservation project and were treated to a chuck wagon dinner.