Dear Friends:
In March, I had the unique opportunity to accompany the young men in our Ward on their annual "high adventure" outing. In Texas, they usually hold this activity in June - when school is out and the temperatures aren't at face-melting level. This year, we convinced the families in the Ward to let the young men go on a high adventure during spring break. It was the best decision we could have made ; )
Our destination this year was also unique. We decided to take the youth to Philmont - one of the most awesome Scouting facilities in the country. It's located in New Mexico. Philmont holds a special place in my heart, as my family spent a week there last summer, attending an LDS Scouting leadership conference. It was one of the best trips...ever. I was really excited to go back to the same area and have the youth - and leaders - understand why I love the place so much.
Our theme for this trip was taken from a scripture. Doctrine and Covenants 4:2, to be specific. The scripture reads
"Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day."
This challenge to "embark" was the foundation for a lot of the discussions that would take place, throughout the week. We had awesome shirts made for the trip. Here's the logo design that one of our leaders designed:
Besides helping the young men understand how to truly serve God, we wanted this to be an actual adventure. Hopefully, the physical challenge that Philmont would present to the boys, would help them understand that they can do hard things...that they are capable of reaching beyond their comfort levels. At Philmont, the BSA was running a winter program, so in addition to the usual rigor of camping and hiking in the back country, the element of "cold" would be part of the adventure ; ) For a bunch of kids from Texas, seeing snow and feeling cold isn't part of the usual high school experience ; )
We started our adventure early on Monday morning - gathering everyone at 5am. The reason for the early start, was the 12-hour drive to New Mexico.
We took turns driving, so nobody would get too tired. I can tell you that there isn't a lot to look at, when traveling through east Texas. Fortunately, there are hundreds of wind mills across the flat land, which are actually beautiful to look at:
Late that day, we finally made it to Cimarron, New Mexico. Just outside the city lies the Philmont Scout Ranch:
It's the largest high adventure facility for Scouting in the U.S. It covers 137,000 acres - about 214 square miles - of rugged mountain wilderness in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) range of the Rocky Mountains in northern New Mexico. We were happy to finally arrive, as it meant a decent meal:
The dining hall is awesome - in addition to a hot meal, you can have unlimited breakfast cereal. A young man's dream ; )
We got everyone settled into cabins for the night, where the promptly collapsed in bed. Funny how doing nothing in a car all day is so tiring for the boys ; )
As one of the youth leaders, I had a specific responsibility during the entire week. I was asked to lead devotionals each day. I centered the topic each day on a different part of the "Embark" theme (see above). I also tied each one into a specific section of the Duty To God program, so we can help the young men see how inspired that program is. We arose on the second day, and had an early devotional. Even though it was cold, we held it outdoors. Here's a picture of me, talking to the group:
During the devotional, I talked about the fact that, as we embark in the service of God, that the adversary will attempt to raise roadblocks in our way. In some cases, Satan may try to have a very bad thing appear to be good - just to make it more tempting. To make the point, I arranged to bring an object lesson involving lemons. I did a ton of research before creating the content for the devotional. In my research, I found these things called "magic berries" that, when ingested, inhibit many of your taste buds. They tend to target the receptors that register "sour" tastes. So, a instead of a lemon tasting very tart, it would actually taste unbelievably sweet. The berries have been reduced to pill form:
I asked one of the young men to come in front of the group. I asked if he trusted me ; ) He said "yes" and I had him dissolve one of these pills on his tongue. After a few minutes, I cut a lemon in half and had him eat part of it:
You should have seen the smile on his face, as he yelled out "that's AWESOME" to the rest of the young men. Indeed, the pill had worked, and the lemon tasted like the best lemonade you'd ever had. The object lesson worked, and the boys will never, ever forget it.
Following breakfast, we had to "gear up" for our trip to the back country. Many youth don't have the proper winter gear that's needed in temperatures that will dip into the teens. Philmont provides "loaner" equipment in many cases, so we went through a complete gear check with the boys:
Once completed, we were ready to move out! Some of these boys had never been on a significant camping trip - certainly none of them had camped in winter conditions. The weather down at the main facility was cold, but pleasant. Over the next few days, that would change...
I had to laugh when this game showed up with his gear. I could tell that he wouldn't last 5 minutes on the trail, outfitted like this. I chose to allow him to endure the learning experience ; )
After being driven part way into the canyon, we had to make the rest of the journey on our own. We finally arrived and the boys were quite hungry...
The food for the trip was selected for simplicity and portability. Every person had three large bags of food. It consisted mostly of granola bars, high-calorie bars and some proteins. Each evening, we had a hot meal of the freeze-dried sort:
One of the more "intriguing" proteins
Our base camp was in a gorgeous meadow area. Unfortunately, it had been used by cattle...so most of the area was a combination of snow and "other" material:
We assembled our tents - these would be our homes for the next 4 days. This is my tent...I placed it well away from most of the boys, as they tend to be loud when you want to fall asleep.
Some folks were already tired, so they made the best of where they were...
As I watched the young men through the week, I was amazed at how competitive they were. Anything could be turned into a game. It's actually a blessing, as we held all of their electronic devices for the week, and made them produce their own entertainment. A game of "Philmont Ball" was created with a whittled peg and a tree branch. Here's a successful attempt at playing the game:
There was still enough snow on the ground to have some fun. We buried some of the boys in it:
We also decided to create a snow cave, or a "quinzee" as they're known in the mountains. It started with a lot of people shoveling snow into a giant pile:
That night, we experienced our first hot meal...and had to prepare several at a time, on top of a tiny backpacking stove.
When you're up in the mountains, you always need to be aware of the danger of bears. Even though we were there at the very end of the winter, some bears might be emerging from hibernation. To be safe, we used standard practices, which means that all food and "smelly" items go into "bear bags" and are suspended high into the air. That way, when bears approach a camp sight, there's nothing for them to feast on:
Well...that's it for the first two days of the trip. More to come later! Thanks for reading...
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