Philmont - Getting There - Sunday and Monday, July 30 and 31, 2006
The first day of the trip we meet Troop 266 at 5:00 AM in
San Gabriel and travelled to LAX. We had about a 2 hour
wait for our flight to depart. The flight only lasted about 90 minutes, and we were
picked up quickly by a van from the Best Western Rio Hondo Inn
in Old Town in Albuquerque.
The Best Western was an excellent motel, and there are many
interesting sites (museums and fast food
restaurants) within walking distance.
Main Event Transportation took us in a 15 person van and
trailer for the 3.5 hour ride to the Philmont base came. The
van was actually better than taking a real bus as we
cruised at 75 miles per hour.
At Philmont we checked in, and started to prepare for our
trek, which would start the next day on Tuesday. We were
kept busy the whole time picking up our troop gear, getting
chedked out at the medical area, picking up our food, and
having our personal gear checked out by our Ranger.
Dan, our ranger, did an excellent job getting us prepared
for
the trek. He spent quite a bit of time reviewing hiking
skills, and he did it in an interesting way.
The camping headquarters was huge. The incoming and
outgoing troops are kept completely separate. Each group
has it's own section of tent-frame cabins (each section had
about 200 tents and 5 shower/restroom buildings). The
2 groups ate at different shifts, and each group had a
separate campfile in the evening. The campfile for the
incoming group was well done, and it was more of a
historical, informational event.
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