1. Raingear - Take good stuff. We got some rain every day except two. Everyone should have a nylon pack cover (ie. Jansport or REI type). Good quality nylon rainsuits worked well. We did not use backpacking panchos.

2. Tents - We used a combination of Philmont tents and personal tents. The Philmont tents were fine. My Eureka Timberlite 3-man with a vestibule was great because we could leave our boots and wet things in the vestibule when it was raining.

3. Stoves and Pots - We used three Coleman Apex I stoves and did "troop cooking". I would recommend three stoves as optimum for a full crew. You need two but the third comes in handy and acts as a spare also. Since they were all the same everyone was trained. The Apex stoves seemed to take a lot of abuse and withstood dirt OK. One 22 ounce fuel bottle per person was plenty to carry. White gas can be resupplied at the trading posts in the backcountry. Practice with your stoves before you go. We cooked all meals in big pots as they recommended at Philmont and it saved a lot of cleanup and hastle.

4. Travel & Stowing Backpacks - We flew to Albuquerque on Southwest for $113 per person round trip. That was great. We took Chaffee Transit chartered vans between Philmont and Albuquerque. They were OK but the vans were not in the best condition and the AC didn't work. $850 was the total cost for the two van trips. Check with other van or bus lines before using Chaffee. We all used external frame packs and most of us used two large duffel bags to get to Philmont. We stowed the empty pack inside one large duffel bags along with a little stuff. We carried everything else in the second duffel. This worked well and the backpacks were protected from damage during handling. (Note added 12/97: Now some airlines can wrap backpacks in plastic wrap. This is supposed to help protect backpacks from damage also.)

A note about taking stoves on airlines: Many airlines do not allow backpacking stoves on airlines. We aired our stoves and bottles out for two weeks prior to going and did not get hastled. However, than is not necessarily a recommendation. You could contact Philmont and find out what most troops are doing.

5. Arrival - Arrive the night before your trek starting date so you can get started early getting oriented and checked in with your ranger. We paid $6 extra per person for the night and extra breakfast. It was worth it.

6. Traveling light - Travel light but the rangers will try to get you to leave your pocket knives, flashlights, sun block, deodorant, and other things behind. We wish we had taken more soap and pocket knives. We didn't take deodorant and it isn't as bad off as it sounds. Regardless, adults carried 50-56 pounds each and the boys carried 25-45 depending on their size and fanaticism about weight. If I had it to do over again I would go lighter yet. In fact, I would try to go with 35 - 45. The adults took a lot of extra weight in redundant items like first aid kits, repair kits, water purifiers, etc.

7. Meals - We thought the food was generally good. The boys said that after a while it all tasted the same. The adults were happy with the quality and we did find out that Philmont has been working hard to improve the food. The quantity was good for most of us. Some boys wanted more for lunch but I usually ended up giving some of my lunch away. A lot of food trading takes place at Philmont and becomes part of the fun. Take along some spices like garlic salt, cayanne pepper, hot sauce, etc. Also, consider taking along a few onions or cans of meat for a "special meal" along the way. We found it to our advantage to avoid cooking complicated breakfasts so we could get on the trail earlier and make our itinerary. We traded our hard-to-cook breakfasts for oatmeal, cereal, etc. Also keep in mind you can eat a trail lunch for breakfast and avoid cooking. Then you eat the breakfast for lunch when you have time to cook.

8. Getting an early start - We had trouble breaking camp in less than 1.5 hours. It usually took 2 hours. Some of the boys like to stand around and watch rather than get up and get packed. It seemed to help when a self-motivated adult got up early and boiled water for breakfast before everyone else got up. The absolute fastest way to get started is to break camp without eating and stop for a cold breakfast on the hike. However, this is not fun and hiking without fuel in your body can create a problem.

9. Choice of itinerary - We had itinerary 8 which was all in the north country. We really liked it and had a lot of activities. All of the activities were good. Our camps and activities were:

• Dean Cow - Rock climbing & rapelling (very good)
• Indian Writings - Archeology (very good...one of my favorites)
• Ponil - Western Lore, Chuckwagon dinner, Burro packing, Cantina (excellent)
• Pueblano - Continental Tie & Lumber Company (spar pole climbing) (excellent)
• Miranda - Black powder rifle, Mountain man (very good)
• French Henry (camp at Copper Park) - mining, gold panning, blacksmith (very good)
• Baldy Mtn (camp at Copper Park - Excellent, worth the climb
• Head of Dean - Challenge course (OK, would have been better at the beginning)

Important Note: It really helps when you can make it to you next staffed camp before 12:00 noon. If you arrive while the staff is at lunch you may have to stand around until 1:00 or 1:15 to get your campsite assigned and a starting time for the activity. If you do black powder rifle, take something to use for a target that you don't mind blowing away such as an old hat or scarf. We also recommend an itinerary that includes Ponil. Besides the trading post their is a lot to do their. The Cantina evening show was pretty good.

10. Hiking up Baldy Mountain - We day hiked up the steep side from Copper Park to the Summit in 2 hours (3.4 miles round trip). We had been warned not to go that way but did anyway. If the weather is good and the trail is not muddy it is a good hike without full pack. Some people tried to do it at night to watch the sunrise from the summit. We thought that was crazy, but one 4H crew of male and female hikers that camped near us at Copper Park did it successfully.

11. Conditioning Hikes - We took three conditioning hikes at high elevations to prepare for Philmont. THESE ARE ESSENTIAL TO PREPARE FOR PHILMONTS RUGGED ITINERARIES. I would consider the recommended conditioning program from Philmont to be a MINIMUM. Adults should have 6 months of regular aerobic conditioning prior to going to Philmont. We recommend the last two training hikes to be on trails with challenging elevation gains (In the LA area that would be places such as Icehouse Canyon near Mt. Baldy or the Vivian Creek Trail at San Gorgonio). Use Richmoor packaged dehydrated meals on the practice hikes to get some practice cooking them (Richmoor provided Philmont's food to Philmont specifications in 1993...not sure if that has changed) . However, for Richmoor trail lunches, double the amount. That is what Philmont does for lunches.

12. Crew Ability - The crews which were having problems were usually because someone on the crew was substantially less capable than the rest of the crew. Consider taking a "qualifying hike" one year before going to see who is not ready to go (for example: one troop takes a 20 mile day hike to see who is in good enough condition). We had a crew size of 11 which was just about optimum. Keep in mind that you carry food in increments of 4 people so that a crew of 9 carries the same food as a crew of 12.

13. Boots - Two of our crew forgot to take their boots to the airport. One remembered and someone brought his boots to the airport. The other had to have his boots shipped federal express. They sat in the registration office for 7 days before he finally got them. DON'T FORGET YOUR BOOTS.

14. Spending money - You only need $15-20 while hiking. However, you can easily spend $40-$100 in the trading post before you leave buying souvenirs and gifts.

15. Navigation - At least two people need to be excellent orienteers and check each other on directions. Some of the maps are not accurate and some/most of the trail forks do not have signs. There are trails you run into that are not on any of the maps. We went the wrong way two times. One of those times I was outvoted by the rest of the crew on which way to go and it cost us about a mile round-trip before the mistake was obvious. Now that GPS units are available, confirming navigational decisions should be a breeze. Practice with a GPS for at least 20 hours before using it on a real hike. Learn to use the UTM Grid in conjunction with USGS Topo maps. It is much easier than degrees-minutes-seconds.