Jack Luo — 18 min read

“Ahhhh, Philmont, a place where you heal using Sriracha Peanut Butter, also another place to climb 45 degree mountains and lighting position” — Jack Luo

If anyone asks me what my greatest achievement is, I probably will say Philmont, a few reasons. First, in the 12 day trek, we had backpacked 65 miles with 40+ pounds, and we had 11k feet elevation change which means we hiked through big mountains and valleys. Second, we learned a lot about conserving nature. We did a lot of conservation work by cutting down tree(It helps the environment) and building log cabins. Also importantly, how to survive in the outdoors, like going to the restroom out there, how to do your laundry, how to eat good food out there, and magic healing powers of siracha peanut butter. we and good cooperation techniques with the teams. But also I learned many life long lessons throughout the trek and met new people there.

Philmont planning was started all the way back in 2018 when we reserved the trek to the head of planning for Philmont, and as the event gradually get closer, we will have crew meeting to discuss logistics for the trek, hiking route, have lessons, and talk about different requirements necessary. There are things we should discuss more like the hiking route since we had a hard time planning during the trek, and also the importance of first aid since there are definitely more than one injuries during the trek. We also had some physical training beforehand including hiking 30 mile in 3 days, a few difficult day hikes. On July 26th, our crew went to San Jose Airport and check in getting ready to fly to Philmont, some group members were nervous, some were excited, I felt ready and having accepted the challenge, feeling pretty good about myself, our security check went pretty smooth and flight was ontime. Once we arrived, we took a bus ride to the base camp. After arriving, a lot of check in stuff was asked for, we got our medical forms check, make sure we are not injured. We also checked out the tooth of time traders and other places. Dinner was quite nice at base camp, considering that for the next 10 days, we will be eating trail food… The plate was the most balanced plate ever, actually following the USDA Standards. I was very proud of that. Either way, after dinner, we all were still tired from the plane, so we had a debrief and went straight to sleep.

Day 2 was a pretty early wake up, 5:55am, not much later, I found out that we are waking up like that everyday. Personally I love sleeping and can sleep to 11am — 12am everyday and hate waking up early, that might be one of the causes for me to have a violent headache during breakfast, so bad I basically lost my appetite. I felt so bad all I want to do is sleep, which I did. After awoken at around 10:00am, we did a safety training to make sure we don’t die out there in the wild, some things we talked about are bears, snacks, flood, and most importantly, lighting. After that, we got some free time to pack up everything, the ranger also did a gear shakedown to make sure we have the right gear. Lunch is served after with corn dogs, thinking that this is going to be the last proper meal before the trek start, I got seconds even with a full stomach. I looked out vastly into the mountains and felt the wind blowing against me, time to do this.

Our crew went on the bus that drives 6 miles down to the trailhead, in 10 days, we will reach the outskirts of the ranch, climb the second highest mountain in the area, and experience an unforgiving trek. After the start in the trail head, the ranger talked about red roofs, but before you know it, sprinkles started dripping down. Everyone yelled to get rain gear out as fast as possible, it was intense, and just 4 minutes after, the rain grew to a raging storm, we all went into the red roof, the bathroom of Philmont, and we listened to the bathroom etiquettes of Philmont. Quite surprised I can’t smell anything in an outdoor bathroom. After the talk, the storm slowly stopped, and we are ready to hike the first leg up a small hill of 1000 feet. At first everything was ok, the rocks are very colorful and there are many species of flowers around us as we climbed higher. But as we go farther, 1 trail becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, and our navigation at that time weren’t good, so we got quite lost in the journey and hiked an extra mile just to arrive at the right campsite. In the process we learned how to navigate with the map and use ute post and signs to determine our exact location, we also learned advanced orienteering techniques such as triangulation, stick shadow compass, and much more. After arriving at the campsite, we got a lot of ranger training including bear bagging, a common practice to get food and smellables away from creatures like bears. We also learned about the Bermuda Triangle, how to set up a rain shelter, and how to cook/clean up in the outdoors, I will say the first day was very successful. After a great dinner of spaghetti. We had a short debrief before we go to sleep at around 10pm.

Wake up was surprising early at 5:30 the next day, most scouts didn’t wake up until 6:15, and clean up wasn’t slow, but not fast either, a lot has to be done and we forgot a lot of important skills for in the outdoors such as leave no trace, how to set up tarps and dining fly. And we left at around 8:00 to go for a 2 mile hike to Abreu, we arrived there by 10:00 while navigating with the map and the people living there explained the program here and what we can do, we opted for a rootbeer rest in the new mexican homestead, the porch was quite nice and the root beer was relatively cheap, only 1 dollar for a full cup of homemade root beer. We chilled for 1 hour before departing to our next step, during the hike, the youth hiked too fast and the adults end up got so behind we can’t hear them screaming, we had a talk on pacing and why it is extremely important to stay as a group. Looking at that, we reflected on our mistakes and eventually realize we also got lost, we had to hike an extra 0.75 mile and finally arrived at around 2pm, we were tired and quickly sit on the porch for the rest, after which we went to the campsite to set up everything, everything was smoother from that point on, we had first aid, leave no trace, sump, nature training with the ranger as we started prepping our first hot dinner. The procedure was ok, not that bad, but our cooked food is a bit dry. Even with that, clean up went much better and we had lots of fun playing Mafia afterwards in the evening, it was a very fun game and after which we had a good long PLC and slept at around 10:00pm, we reflected that we want to do much better and have a successful hike tomorrow.

Wake up with better when we had someone calling outside the tent doors at 5:30am. More people are up earlier which definitely was an improvement, pack up with slower than usual and we had a hot breakfast today which meant we have people cooking, cooking took a long time since it’s cold in the morning and we still don’t really know how to prepare a well made meal. By 8:00am we were basically done but had to do some stirring which delayed our program by 10 minutes, either way we got out and did a search and rescue mission, in which we learned 5 finger rules, what to help them with, how to calm people down and know some pretty cool secret codes for the radio, we also got exposed to the phonic alphabet which also sounds very cool. After the program, the breakfast we prepared became cold and it tasted pretty bad, many thought this was the worst breakfast cooked. Either way, we had to say goodbye to our ranger who got a bit sick, we presented him a crew shirt and a class B, and said goodbye after he left for someone. Either way, we started our 6 mile hike very late at 9:30, which means the sun is already very high up, which also means it’s very hot. The incline to the vista point with very cool and we took a few pictures along there and there, and after that, we hiked across the ridge with minimal assistance. Throughout the hike, the weather becomes very hot, something common in new mexico, but something else that is common that didn’t happen? Lighting storms, it was surprising sunny for the last 2 days. As we think about those things during lunch. We had some fun conversing about minecraft. We arrived at fish camp at around 4, and we decided to do some fishing, everyone brought a fishing license and started fishing, it was very difficult since lots of people are there, and there are few fish in the river. Most people give up after 15–20 minutes, and got back to set up, I gave up after half an hour and went back too, set up and cooking was much better although we still got a lot of critiques from adults. Dinner was pretty good and we decided to have a short debrief despite the short hike tomorrow. Sleeping felt so good near a river.

It was that time again where we wake up, well guess what, we were faster, since we have a cold breakfast, but we were pretty fast, leaving at around 7:20am, one of the earliest in the trek. The hike today was easier at 4 miles, but there were lots of river crossing which got people wet, but more importantly, throughout the trek, I really want to mention how nice other crews were when we passed by. They seem to come from all over the United States such as Texas, Florida, Maine, Wyoming, some even came as far from Canada, there were warm feelings when we met other crews, I mean they are the only other people other than staff that is in Philmont. After many river crossings, we started a pretty steep uphill climb, throughout the climb, it didn’t feel as bad as expected since we were talking about not having 15 minute breaks and played a pretty fun number game, that lead to the realization that playing games will hiking makes the journey a lot easier. At last, we have made it to Apache Springs, the sheer size and the wide array of programs wowed us. And we decided to shoot a bow and arrow. We also received our second badge of food which we will carry on our bags for days. Talking about them, they have been 40 pounds in the past few days, quite tiring to be honest. Our day without a ranger has been ok, yet I am quite happy that the go crew is here, in fact I can say Apache is the best because of them, talking about that, we started a very fun conservation project where we cut down trees, I cut down 2 trees and make a wood circle for memory. Around when the second half is about to end, it rained and at this point, we knew it was going to be a lot of rain. We got back and ate what was considered to be the best dinner, beef stragove, which is cooked by, obviously me. After dinner, we tried to start a fire, but kinda failed, and then tried again, it became lit. It was great and we slept afterwards.

Hola, un dia nuevo, un dia bien. Well wake up was probably the best today since we slept so well last night, we left at around 7:15 and clean up has become so good. We decided not to have hot breakfast since we don’t really have time. And guess what, I am the navigator for today, which means I get to be in the front, but it also means I get to talk to the crew for another second before leaving for the fields. Navigating in the fields is so fun, even if we got yelled yesterday for not going to the field(Heh heh). Well basically what you do is you through a huge field that is like 2 miles wide, and no trail, you have to use purely compass, I found that challenging and hella fun. But the building at the end never seems to get to us. Well when it did, it was already around 10. We heard about a sad story about an extremely smart dog called lobo, people will hunt for this doggie because it killed too many stocks, by the time he got captured, people don’t want to kill the doggie. Click here to read more. Well that was a very touching story and the presentation was absolutely beautiful, and did I mention that there were real holes created by rats, real wolf fur, real deer fur, etc. It was one of the coolest presentations and also kinda sad. But we had to leave, so at 11:30, we left and I navigated further. I think the navigation so far as been very successful, even if I go on a smaller trail, it still goes to the right place which I am proud of. After hiking in a lot of mud. It started raining, we got our rain gear on, despite the uncomfort, we still had to hike on. After the rain stops for a bit, we ate lunch, but guess what, rain came back to get us wet, well it was a lot of rain until we walked past the storm, and now we are going quite uphills. But the good news is, we are almost there and it is around 2:30, bad news is that now we have to find a gate for the fence, that took us 45 minutes and it was quite tiring, we finally got to the campsite, seeing some poison mushrooms, at around 4pm. After we settled in campsite 2, we went to campsite 9, the furthest one out. It was one of the best campsites, setup was quite smooth and dinner was pretty good. Guess what, since we want more campfires, we got another one up, did debrief, and well, go to sleep.

To be honest I am surprised on how not tired I am. Wake up was 5:30, which is quite early, today I am pacer, and a few things I learned. I can’t change what others think of me, I can only make myself better, and also that teamwork is so important to complete challenging tasks like Philmont. Well, bear bags were down, thinking back, we got yelled at pretty harshly and our leaders change, so now we have a new leader. My Journal Entries was pretty good, and my QM responsibilities has generally become better. As pacer, I get to be the very front person. At first the pace was very good, and everyone kept up all the way to cleared creek, it wasn’t hard so I say good job everyone. We did tomahawks, that was fun except we only got 3 shots. Thinking back, if we have came here earlier, we could have more shots. We filled up our water and started our steepest ascent up, at points we are walking 0.3 miles per hour because of how difficult it is, the sun is burning at 10am, and we can’t even see the peak which means it is very hard for us to find out where we are. Pace gradually get faster and we face the challenge of carrying a lot of water to a place where there is no water. After a lot and a lot of hard work, rock climbing, we finally made it to 11000ft, that was a big accomplishment, that is a place where there are only 63% of oxygen present in sea level, so basically we have to breath twice as hard, we had crew members getting altitude sickness, either way, after more hiking, we made it to Mount Philips. The view was absolutely gorgeous and we ate lunch on top of the mountain, but then someone decided to pee off the mountain which close off the only circle of blue skies in the sky. We hurried and start rushing down, when we help others, we realized how much faster we can go. I personally think the hike up and down is definitely an experience on its own as I grew a lot from it. Rain poured down so much, and we got lost again, in a hurry, I got the pace too fast, next time I should think because adults are quite behind. Either way, after hard work, we make it to the third highest peak camp, and chilled there, we were so tired, we didn’t cook dinner, just ate, have a quick PLC and went to sleep.

Whoo writing this is definitely challenging, but we are halfway done yay. Well we slept in a tiny bit today, I believe it is day 8, did the usual morning routine and left the high peak, what is good is that most of the hike today is a downhill, even when it is gradual, I was so tired I didn’t really see the view at first but it was extremely cool to see. I realized how beautiful a back country can be, we kept hiking down to Sawmill, where we filled up so much water, the hike was pretty smooth and overall great. But as we arrive to Sawmill, we saw a bunch of black trees, and realize mother nature is angry with us. Well another skill learned to get conservative with resources you got. In Sawmill we had used metal casing, gunpowder, and primers to create gun bullets, the process is very cool and made me think that the USA has more guns than people. After making the bullet, we got to shoot it, and the gun was much louder than expected, even with ear protection, you can still clearly hear the gunshot, after that fun, we got back to the campsite early and quickly set up, the dinner was good and we finished everything earlier. We had a pretty early PLC and went to sleep. It is the first time it felt like a short day, but rain kinda ruin that by raining when we are sleeping, but the idea that you are dry in the tent and when you hear the rain, you feel very warm and comfortable.

Well time surely passes quickly, and we are up at around 5:15, it was so dark all around you barely can’t see anything, I got up and of course the stupid me forgot a flash night, which meant I had to use my night vision to see around, after some finding, I arrived at the poach, and well it is still dark. We stand there as the sky gradually turned to dark purple, then dark blue, blue, light blue and the clouds are changing a lot of colors, suddenly the sun pops up and everyone is happy, one because the sun is up, and two because we got chocolate milk and they taste very good. Sawmill also got us some new food, so we gotta get that and with a bit of effort, every meal is organized and will get assigned to the right person. Ah, and we have people going back to sleep, people showering, and people well, and cooking. It was a relaxed day, in fact, we stayed until 11, we had a hot lunch yesterday, a hot dinner, a hot breakfast, and proudly or not, (hot) lunch? Well we decided to hike more today because it was too easy. So we hiked all the way to cyphers mine, and that took quite a long time, and we did lots of program there, like touring a real gold mine, forging metal, and panning for gold, our crew actually found some gold. And our conquest for eating da sriracha peanut butter is also achieved. We decided to cook dinner at Cyphers mine which turned out to be surprising well, it was the second best meal ever and well, chicken fried rice is great. After dinner it was a late hike, the weather is cool but it got quite dark, we arrived at the campsite at around 8 near a river, it was one of the smallest campsite we ever had and we had to set up everything, that took some time. But eventually we got it, rain is kinda starting, so we finished PLC and went to sleep.

OMG it is like day 9, and we have 6 pages, more more more, just kidding, well wake is at normal, 5:30…, Desetup was pretty tough as bear bags were kinda stuck. On no, and we had an ok breakfast, we quickly left the campsite basically at 7:05. And we quickly started walking along the beautiful river, the trail was much longer than what we expected and there was some confusion in the navigation. But we quickly got back on track, and sooner or later, we arrived at the hunting lodge, and all we did there is to tour the hunting lodge. It was less cool than Lobo, but it is still pretty cool, we learned about many animals including snakes, antelopes, elk, bison, etc. And we also talked about how an old cabin like this(Around 1920) is preserved. After which, we hiked a short 2 mile up a 400ft hill, the hill seemed small and big, then we see a rock face. And that rock face is huge. Guess what else is huge, Cimarroncito, there is a chapel there, a trading post, a shower house, gym, everything you want, according to the people there, this place was the original philmont headquarters, then I questioned myself, then where is the road connecting Philmont, at least I can’t find it. In Cimarroncito, you actually get to rock climb a 80–90 degree slope, that was extremely fun, but something funner is the rappelling, jumping down rocks without falling down to death, best thing in the world. Afterwards, we had a shower, a hot shower, but when hot shower comes, so do thunderstorm, and storm clouds moved right over us which forced us to do lighting positions for 30 minutes in the rain, it was extremely painful, but it is for safety sake, it is extremely dangerous in Philmont when lighting is present, soo… Well after that we had more and more cooking done, and dinner is great as always, fire is great too. PLC, I think the trek is very valuable and challenging, it made me forgot about technically and pushed me to become a better person overall. I desired more friends, and I kinda miss them tbh.

Time really past fast, day 10 is here, and we are leaving Cimarroncito quite early, at around 7, around the same time they open climbing again, and surprising, the hike today was very, very short, only 3.7 miles to Clarks Fork, and you know what a better thing is, we are going downhill, all the way back down to around base camp elevation, as we hike down, we saw a beautiful lake along with demo forest, unfortunately for us, the guy managing demo forest is not here, so all we did was to read signs. It was pretty interested and the signs go deep into many topics. After that, we got a bloody nose in our crew and heard that tomorrow’s trail is known as the Trail of Tears. We begun thinking and looking around, and we noticed big mountains, realizing we are climbing those tomorrow, we started worrying, thinking that the hike tomorrow will be very long and tiring, but before that, we arrived at Clarks Fork at around 10:30, which means plenty of time for riding a big horse, my horse rocket, is a smart horse, it knows to stop when needed, to go fast when needed and cuts people when needed, it is just such a funny horse thinking about it, and I kinda miss the way, how he finds a different way from all the other horses that was around, that horse ride was definitely very fun, definitely traveled more than 1.5 miles. After that we got to taste horse food and see the hustler feeding the horse, ew why will anyone eat horse food. Well afterwards. It started raining so we moved under the porch, well except me and Bryan who went to cook in the dining hall. That was a great experience even though so much smoke got into my lungs. And of course when it rains harder, my stuff got torn, and all my journal entries on gone, well I still remember so I can create this blog/reflection. Dinner was quite good, but the portion is small, but again, the peach cobbler is the best. After dinner, we went for a western style looping, I almost won the pudding cup… And we went to the campfire afterwards, it was great, me winning a cup that stays in Philmont forever. But it is forever my cup? :) In New Mexico? Which means I own something in NM? Interesting, well we went straight back to sleep for a surprise tomorrow.

Surprise, surprise, final day, no more programs. We woke up extremely early at 4, and somehow everyone can get up, personally I think that is very impressive. We got everything packed and left at around 6. Still kinda sad the journal is gone, it will make the story so much longer and better, well I wrote a lot, and I won’t write as much, since in the beginning you climb up, and you finally have 15 minute breaks since we were so tired, talking about that, we also have the slide flute to pass the time and have fun, that thing makes beautiful sounds. After the climb up the ridge, we followed along which is very hard, it took some time, but we got to tooth of time base camp, literally everyone were there, and my advice is no bags up since the hill up tooth of time is so steep, so using hands is the best. Even though it was a difficult climb with at least 20 rests. We made it on top at around 11:00am, took a lot of pictures and went down, and went down(Well, we ate lunch before that). The hike down was cool but then someone got injured. Kinda sad on the last day of the trek. After many switchbacks we understood, this is such a long hike… And it is extremely hot too since there is no shade at all in the last 4 miles, crew 2 dehydrated and we did ok. But once we reached the gate, we were so happy, base camp is here again. Now, we return and wash equipment, which is easy, and got dinner, shower, laundry, free time, yay, got our stuff back, and brought souvenirs and belts, we also branded wood and other items, woo so happy to sleep in tents, PLC were short and we started packing up half of our stuff this night.

It is 6:00, finally not 4:00 or 5:30, we cleaned up, swept the tent, ate breakfast, and left, weeee to San Francisco. I think overall this experience has impacted me a lot in many ways and changed me from a little boy to a grown man, I wish future generations also go to Philmont since it is the world’s largest youth camp and one of the best outdoor camp out there. (Noo, it is only 9 pages)

Originally published on Medium.