A Typical Day on the Trail

So what's a typical day like at Philmont?

There are two types of days on the trail at Philmont: going to a trail camp, and going to a staffed camp. One exception is a day hiking a major mountain such as Baldy Mountain or Mount Phillips.

A trail camp day: that is a day when we hike to a campsite with no activities and no staff members.
We will rise at about 5AM in the morning, the crew leader should be the first person up to get the rest of the crew up and going. First priority is to get the bear bags down so that everyone can get their personal gear, and find the breakfast food. Someone should get some water boiling if oatmeal is in the breakfast; adults might want to make some coffee or tea. Everyone should get their hiking clothes on, and start to roll up sleeping bags and sleeping pads. As soon as possible, individual tents should get taken down and rolled up. Then everyone should be eating breakfast. Crew leader, adult leader, and the navigator should be studying the map to see where we are going, and if we will pass through any staffed camps, or if we want to climb a mountain on a side hike.

Let's say we arrive at the trail camp at noon. We will drop packs, unload gear, pull our lunches from the food supply, and set up our tents. After lunch is finished, we'll gather up trash, and we'll hoist extra food and trash up into the bear bags along with our smellable gear. Then we can decide what to do. Some may just want to play a game, maybe foosball, some may read, some may want to do a side hike. If a staffed camp is near, the crew could decide to hike over and see if they can participate in an activity like musket shooting, farming, pole climbing, etc.

A staffed camp day: that is a day when we hike to a campsite with a staffed cabin with a special activity.
We will rise at about 5AM in the morning, the crew leader should be the first person up to get the rest of the crew up and going. First priority is to get the bear bags down so that everyone can get their personal gear, and find the breakfast food. Someone should get some water boiling if oatmeal is in the breakfast; adults might want to make some coffee or tea. Everyone should get their hiking clothes on, and start to roll up sleeping bags and sleeping pads. As soon as possible, individual tents should get taken down and rolled up. Then everyone should be eating breakfast. Crew leader, adult leader, and the navigator should be studying the map to see where we are going, and if we will pass through any staffed camps, or if we want to climb a mountain on a side hike.

Let's say we arrive at the staffed camp at 11AM. We will drop packs and form a pack line. The crew leader will report to the staff and everyone will wait for an invitation to come up on the porch of the staff cabin for further instruction. No one should go to the food exchange box until they are invited to by the staff. The staff will go over the rules of their particular camp, and we will schedule the activity of that camp. Activities can include pole climbing, musket or shotgun or rifle shooting, mountain biking, first aid, group challenge events like Outward Bound, cattle branding and roping, etc. We will be given a camping area assignment, and we will first go there and unload gear, pull our lunches from the food supply, and set up our tents. After lunch is finished, we'll gather up trash, and we'll hoist extra food and trash up into the bear bags along with our smellable gear. Then we can look at the schedule and decide how much time we have until our activity. In a busy camp, we may find there are 2 or 3 other crews ahead of us for something like shotgun skeet shooting, or musket shooting, so the crew can decide what to do while we wait an hour or two.

A day hiking up Mount Baldy: this is a special day where we hike up a major mountain without packs. Most ascents of Mt. Baldy are done without (loaded) packs. At 12,400 feet, it is stressful enough with just a day pack or an unloaded regular pack. We will rise at about 3 or 4 AM in the morning, the crew leader should be the first person up to get the rest of the crew up and going. First priority is to get the bear bags down so that everyone can get their personal gear, and find the breakfast food. Someone should get some water boiling if oatmeal is in the breakfast; adults might want to make some coffee or tea. Everyone should get their hiking clothes on. Usually we will stay in our camp for 2 days in a row, so we can leave the tents up, and empty our packs. If we need to pick up food (often the case) at the end of the day, we will have a few crew members empty their big packs and carry them on the hike, so that at the end of the day we can load up our next 4 days of food. We will hike around the mountain, probably to do panning-for-gold at the French Henry camp, so there is no need to climb the mountain again loaded with food!!

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