Philmont Council Contingents

Burro's at Philmont

Every year there is a great deal of discussion about itineraries with burros at Philmont.  There are two programs that involve burros.  Harlan has Burro Racing, Miranda/Ponil have Burro Packing.  Burro Racing is a competitive activity that involves catching , packing, and racing a burro against other crews.  It is tremendously entertaining and everyone thoroughly enjoys it.

Burro Packing is the program that mimic's the old west's use of burros as work animals.  Depending on your itinerary, you will pick up one or two burros at Miranda and drop them off at Ponil or vice-versa.  Most itineraries will have a trail camp in-between that will have a "burro trap" which is a corral with water and hay for feeding the burros overnight.

At the camp where you pick up your burro(s), the Wranglers will teach your crew how to pack the packsaddles and panniers on the burros, how to tie the diamond hitch knot, and how to care for your burros.  Following this instruction, your crew will select your burro(s) and load them.  You can load your tents, dining fly, and food on the burros but not your packs!

The last time I personally went on a trek (1997), my son accused me of talking to the burros just like I did the boys -- I got in their face and we reached an understanding!  On that trek, we picked up two burros who were quickly named Pancho and Gaucho — they are in every photo taken when we had them.  We kept them for two days — from Miranda to Elk Meadows to Ponil.  I grew up working with pack horses and pack burros but none of the 10 youth or the other adult on our crew had ever been around large animals.  They learned a lot and still talk about it years later — I visited with one of the Scouts on the crew this Christmas.  He’s now in officer school in the Marines but he said he was wondering if Pancho and Gaucho were still around.

That afternoon, when my crew arrived at Elk Meadows, we located our campsite, dropped all the packs and gear, and unpacked the burros.  Our sister crew, having arrived before us, was camped across the gully and they were setting up their camp too.  A Scout and I took Pancho and Gaucho on to the corral to give them hay and water for the night.  About halfway between the campsite and the corral, we came across several of the sister crewmembers carrying their burro’s saddles, halters, stoves, food, dining fly, tarp, and other crew equipment back toward their campsite.  When we asked them why they didn’t just drop that off on the way, they said "the burros wouldn’t stop until they got to the corral!"  We got a pretty good laugh at their expense.

Sid Covington

Philmont Burro Etiquette

I know this topic has been beaten to death on this list, but I figured I'd through my 2 cents in. I worked at Philmont as the Roving Prospector for the summer of 2002. For those not familiar with the Roving Prospector, it was a job first created in 2001, and there has been one each summer since. This person gets paid by Philmont to wander aimlessly around the ranch with a burro and entertain/educate campers with stories about the mining days (or anything else we feel like talking about for that matter). Anyway, the main point is that I spent 3 months with a burro everyday except my days off. I had named him Sir Robert Animalia Chordata Mammalia Perissodactyla Equidae Equus Asinus Esquire (or Bob the Burro for short). For the first few weeks, I was ready to leave Bob at every camp I passed through. By the end of the summer, they had to pry him away from me. I was ready to load him on the plane and take him home.

Needless to say, I learned a lot about burros. There is one basic thing that everyone hiking with burros should know. There is no difference between the stubborness of a "been there done" that grumpy old fart (90% of advisors), the stubborness of a "I could do things better" teenager (90% of scouts), the stubborness of a "I know everything" college student (90% of the phil-staff including myself), and the stubborness of a "just let me eat grass and poop" burro (100% of burros). To be successful in life, most people have learned to deal with the first three groups of people. Basically, most problems can be solved by better communication. Since burros don't speak English (Bob had mastered horse, cow and burro speak, so I was impressed), you can't talk at them or yell at them. They also respone quite poorly to physical violence or rope tugging. They are herd animals, and they like to follow their friends. If you have a big group of burros and you lead one, the rest will follow him anywhere (assuming that you lead the one established as the leader). So to get a burro to follow you, you just have to establish yourself as the leader. Based on the odor and facial hair thickness of most people in the backcountry, that's a lot easier than you might think.

In short, be nice to your burro. Feed him, take care of him and don't yell at him. When you start walking, keep moving. Every time you stop, that's a signal to the burro that it's time to eat, so don't stop unless you want to take a noticeable break. To get the burro started, face away from him with your head down. That's the way a lead burro would do it. If you look at the burro and pull a rope, or if half of your crew is standing around behind the burro not ready to go, he won't realize that it's time to move. Stay on the trails/roads and avoid getting too close to high grass. If you were hiking through a field of cheesburgers and someone forced you to trek on to get to Supper #9, you'd be mad too. And remember, not everyone who has dealt with that burro in the past is as nice as you are (which is very unfortunate). Therefore, it may take a little while to gain it's trust. And most importantly, remember that your burro his your friend, but sneaking up behind him will get you a quick hoof in the crotch ... and burros kick hard.

The boring engineer formally known as "Prospector John",
John Wisinger