This will be my last post on this blog. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'll be on a bus for the first leg of my journey home. I've swept out my tent, packed up my bags, picked up my patches and I'm ready to come on home. Tonight I'm headed to the closing campfire and I'll see if I can keep myself together during the last time I'll be singing the Philmont Hymn. I'm going to get up tomorrow at 4 am so that I can watch the sunrise one more time over by the Welcome Center.
I guess this would be a time to reflect on the past summer and see how things went. I had some really awesome crews and only one bad one (it'll be funny if any crews I took out reads this, and they'll wonder if they were that bad crew. Chances are, if you can find me on facebook, you weren't.) But as the last days were winding by, I felt myself confused in my own self-reflection. I was always trying to think how I was affected by Philmont and even at the very top of the Tooth of Time, I found myself unable to do so. I kept wondering what the problem was. The more I tried thinking about it, the more frustrated I became. This is one of the best places in the world, why was I having this issue. I thought about the trees, the rocks, the mountains, the valleys, the views, the weather, everything about Philmont, but it had little meaning to me. Why? Because I was thinking about the wrong thing.
Philmont without the workers or the participants, is just a pile of rocks that kind of looks cool. It's the people you meet and the crews that you bond with out in the wilderness that truly brings this land alive. Without their spirit and without their "thuz" (short for en-thus-iasm) this place doesn't amount to much. All of the crews that I had out here had a great time on the trail, but there is one crew that has stuck out in my mind for facing the most hardship out at Philmont.
Crew 6-23- November, had a seriously rough trip from what they told me. It didn't start out easy either. One mile into their trek, they lost an advisor. She had two sons who were out there with her, so this is already a devastating blow. This set this crew back quite a bit, but they hiked on and held their heads up high. After a rough hike up to Urraca, they still had smiles on their faces as they did the program and went to the evening show. I knew they were having trouble adapting, and they knew that they were having trouble adapting, and as I left them, I was hoping that they would have better luck with their next hike.
The next time I saw this crew, I was at a work day at Beubien. I had to be picking thistle, but they happened to be at the camp when I was driven up in a truck. I didn't have much time to talk, but it was then when I found out they lost another advisor hours after I left them at Urracca. But still, they had a positive attitude and were still ready to go on. I could hear their last advisor shout as I was heading towards my duty for the day, "Hey Pat! I'm the sole survivor!!"
I didn't see them for the rest of their trek until I got back into Base Camp and boy, did they have some stories to tell. They lost their crew leader the last night of their trek, they were woken up in the middle of the night with boy from another crew screaming, "BEAR! BEAR! OH GOD! WHY ME?!?!", and all sorts of different catastrophes, but they all had smiles on their faces. They actually changed their names to 6-23-Notorious, for all of the bad luck they were having. On of the boys even decided he was going to do OATC, a special trek we offered. I was perplexed by how they could mange this. From the sounds of it, they had an absolutely miserable time. But with the way this crew worked, they always saw the glass as half full.
This is what Philmont is all about. This is what I reflected on last night. The people who interact with the land and each other really bring this land to life. The land affects us like metal being purified in a crucible or a blacksmith hammering out a nail. "Every Boy Scout Troop needs a forest to get lost, miserable, and starving in." It's through the conflict that we get stronger and become better people, and it's the joy that the land brings to us, with it's beautiful sights and sounds and magnificent wildlife, that makes the trip all worth while, but the land isn't enough. With the people we either bring or meet out here, we share moments of friendship and fellowship and also persevere through the tough times together. Whether it's making up games to play on long hikes, or huddling under the rainfly during a torrential rainstorm while singing Katy Perry or Queen to keep warm, each moment of this common experiences really brings people together.
This is really all the time I have left for this post (and I really wish I had the time to write down how each crew affected me, but I have to keep it short. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting). Thanks to everyone for making this summer as awesome as it was. I'll be finding my way back home on a 18 hour journey. I'll see you all very soon.
Enjoy,
Pat
