The Capitol Area Council is coordinating a contingent of 12 crews with 12 members each to Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico in the summer of 2001.  This web site is designed for these crews, their members, and other interested parties to share information about the trek.

Notes:

WE ALL MADE IT!

The contingent's three busses arrived at the REI parking lot around 12:30am on Friday, July 6!  Losing the freon on bus 3 slowed our return by a couple of hours (but gave bus 2 plenty of time to watch all of The Patriot)!

Meals at CiCi's Pizza in Clovis, NM and at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene were great -- BIG stacks of pizza slices on the plates along with returns for seconds at CiCi's and great cheese burgers/chicken-fried steaks with ice cream desserts at Hardin-Simmons.

Everyone seemed to have a good time and we returned with the same number of Scouts and adults we left with -- that's always a good thing.  Only minor injuries were encountered during the treks -- none causing anyone to come off the trail.  While there were some rain storms, none seemed to have kept anyone from doing anything.

If crews have photo's or trek logs they would like to post on the web site, please contact Mr. Covington.

All Crews are on the trail as of 10:30 am (MDT) Sunday 6/24.

• The contingent left Austin at 5:50 am (CDT) Friday morning.
• The trip took a little longer than projected because of servicing the bus restrooms, a fuel stop, and bus driver switch.  Meals at Texas Tech University and New Mexico Highlands University were as we expected.
• We arrived at Philmont at ~10:30pm (MDT) Friday night.  A number of the crews were assigned tents in "homebound" tent city, the rest were issued trail tents for the night.
• Saturday morning, the crews were assigned tents in "trailbound" tent city and began the check-in process.\
• Weather Saturday was beautiful -- dry, moderate temperatures.
• All crews completed the check-in by noon or shortly after.
• No itineraries were modified because of the forest fires that occurred a couple of weeks ago.
• Many crews took tours of the Villa Philmonte, some took naps!  Some money appeared to be spent in the Philmont Trading Post.
• Most crew members attended religious services Friday evening before all went to the "New Mexico History" opening campfire.
• Sunday morning, crews checked out of tent city and departed Camping Headquarters for their drop-off points.  Four or five crews had 8:30 departures, the rest were out by 10:30.
• Almost all crews had very short hikes for today (Day 1).  Most were less than 3 miles.  They should have gotten their campsites established early.
• Weather today (Sunday) started beautiful but thunderstorms came through beginning around 2:00.  It has rained off and on (lightly) since them (it is now 9:00 pm MDT).  Thunderstorms are forecast for the next three to four days.  The weather report is to the effect that "monsoonal" moisture is starting to come into New Mexico now because of the jet stream.  This weather does not usually begin until late July/early August.

Last updated Monday, September 11, 2006 03:06 PM