Camping Trip

      One of the most trying camping trips for me personally was a sixty-five mile backpacking trek at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico.  My oldest son, (who at the time was fifteen) and I went with our Boy Scout Troop for a ten-day trek in the mountains.  There were ten of us in our crew, and forty-eight total in our contingent, with ages ranging from fifteen to fifty years old.

     Leading up to this we took several camping trips to prepare.  Living in Ohio we didn’t have the luxury of climbing many mountains, but we did take trips to Pennsylvania to practice in the hills around the Allegheny River.  There still was a huge altitude difference that we could not recreate, and we would find out about once we arrived.  We would backpack with weighted packs to simulate what we would be carrying on our big camping trip.  Some of the other adults walked the stairs with packs on to get their knees ready for the camping trip, and watched their diet even closer than usual.  I had to drop some weight and get in shape.  Another factor I had to deal with was I had just recovered from hip replacement surgery and was going to be taking this camping trip seven months later.

      The biggest obstacle I faced was I had never been in a plane.  Here I was flying from Ohio to Colorado, trying not to reveal to anyone how nervous I was.  That part went over pretty well, as I talked to my son and others that made the time pass by fast.  After landing we boarded a tour bus.  We spent a few days getting acclimated to the altitude before heading off on our camping trip.  Armed with a map, compass and a guide for the first couple of days to make sure we where capable of going alone, we headed off.  Our assigned guide taught us the fine art of making sure there were no spiders or other insects hanging out in the outhouses we would encounter along the way.  We learned how to set up our site, keeping the eating and sleeping area clear of each other and how to hang our bear bags.  All smellable bags had to be hung from a rope high enough to keep bears and other wildlife from getting into them.  Purifying water was a big aspect of this camping trip.  We had several water purifiers and extra filters with us, but there is so much sediment in the water that we were forced to use an iodine based water treatment.  This was awful.  If it weren’t for the fact that the humidity level was so low, I could have gone a long time with out drinking that nastiness.  We tried to mask the taste with powdered Gatorade that we had to drink, but it didn’t work at all.  The only wildlife we encountered along the way were chipmunks and a rattlesnake.  I think we wondered a little too close to him as we were hiking over a rocky area.

       At times I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish the camping trip, but my son helped me through it with words of encouragement.  Our relationship grew and we became a little closer, and I could tell he was becoming a man.  I will never forget that camping trip.  Next to both of my sons becoming Eagle Scouts, this camping trip was the highlight of the scouting years for me.