Around 22,000 Boy Scouts from all across the world travel to Cimarron, New Mexico every year to take part in what many call, “the ultimate scouting experience”. This “ultimate scouting experience” entails anywhere from 70-150 miles over 10-14 days.  Before the trip I thought to myself, How could 120 miles of hiking in 12 days be the ‘ultimate scouting experience’?  My question was answered within the first few days.

It was a wet, cloudy day when my crew, 625-B-02, set off on our trip into the backcountry of Philmont Scout Ranch.  The crew consisted of 8 kids anywhere from 16 to 18 years old and 4 adults who were each a parent of one of the kids.  There were two week-long job assignments that needed to be covered by somebody in the crew.  The first, most important assignment, is the crew leader.  Our crew leader was a guy by the name of Eddy.  Eddy was 17 and had always been a leader, making it an easy decision to make him the crew leader.  The second position was the spiritual advisor.  The spiritual advisor’s main job is to make sure everyone’s morale is high and lead prayers before every meal.  Drake was our spiritual advisor mostly because he fit that position better than any of the rest of us.  The other 6 guys on the trip, Daniel, Ben, Clayton, Nick, Slava, and myself, really had no week-long job assignment, but were given daily assignments like navigator, cook, and cleaner. The adults in the crew never really did any jobs, they were just there to ensure that everyone was safe.

We packed our bags with everything we’d need in the next week and a half then jammed them on the bus and piled in, unsure of what our trip was going to entail.  The crowded bus clanked over drainage grates and rattled as it bounced around on the unpaved trail.  Everyone on the bus yelled and shouted in excitement for what was to come. We’d waited over two days in suspense on the trip out there and were more than ready to get going.  After going over some navigation basics like how to read a map and triangulate our position in the starting point named Ponil Turnaround, we strapped up our bags and started off into the backcountry. 

“We don’t have too long of a hike today,” Eddy said, “and we should be in Bent campsite by 4.”  Eddy was right.  We finished up our hiking around 4 without any troubles other than a rather wet stream crossing.  A couple hundred feet west after the sign for the camp, we hit an opening in the dense trees.  The site was of a rectangular shape about 400 feet long and about 200 feet wide with hills covered by trees on both sides.  A trail ran down the middle with tall grass growing on both sides of it.  The site didn’t have a source of water other than a creek that ran about ten feet behind where we set up our tents.  As you could probably guess, the creek was named Ponil Creek and was around 6 feet wide and about 4-5 feet deep in some areas. 

After setting up camp, which consisted of setting up tents, making the rainfly, and hanging the bear-bags, we began to make dinner.  “Let’s make sure to actually boil the meals this time.  We all know how crappy the ones in the warm-up hikes were,” Daniel said as he looked at Clayton, who was the chef for the night. 

“Oh shut it Daniel.  You don’t have to eat if you don’t like how I make them,” Clayton replied with a smirk.
After all of us shut up and ate the less than delicious meal, we decided that we should turn in early for the night.  I headed to my tent with Daniel at my side.  The tents we were issued were very lightweight hiking tents with one major drawback: they weren’t very waterproof.  After a few minutes of laying down and talking to Daniel I fell asleep.

I woke up to lightning flashing and rain pelting the sides of the tent.  Thunder boomed and echoed throughout the canyon, shaking me to my core.  A few minutes later Daniel was up too.  I turned to Daniel and asked, “Who pissed off mother nature?”.  He looked at me and gave me a worried smile. 

“I hope this doesn’t last long,” Daniel said, “I don’t like the idea of being stuck in this valley.”
Rain poured down for what seemed like hours on top of our tent as Daniel and I, along with the rest of the crew, waited it out inside the thin hiking tents.  Eventually the rain had begun to penetrate the fly on the tent and every drop that hit the outside produced a splatter of water inside the tent.  Every drop also produced a sound like a small cap gun.  As you can imagine, hundreds of drops hit the tent every minute which made it nearly impossible to hear Daniel sitting next to me when he asked, “I wonder how much longer this is gonna last?”. 
I looked at him and replied “Hopefully not long because I’m not sure how much more this light tent can take”. 
After a few more minutes Daniel and I heard people yelling outside of our tent.  The rain continued to pelt the tent making it impossible to make out any words, so we just sat there hoping the yelling wasn’t about anything important.

We sat for what seemed like another hour of continuous rain and more yelling that we couldn’t understand.   Suddenly Daniel and I felt our sleeping pads raise off the ground.  I shined a flashlight outside the tent to find about 6 inches of water running around us, and under us.  Daniel and I continued to wait it out, worried that our stuff would get wet or float away.  We heard a yell from our crew ranger, Ian, that we could heard all too well: “Get ready to get out of the tents!”.  I slowly put our shoes on and grabbed my rain gear and a couple flashlights and prepared to open the door to the tent, unsure of what we’d face outside. 

The rain picked up to a level that I’d never seen or heard before.  The water continued to rush under the tent as well, faster and faster until the stakes gave way and our tent began to float toward where the creek ran.  We heard one more yell from Ian that we had no trouble understanding: “GET OUT OF THE TENTS!”. 

We unzipped the tent and ran for higher ground.  The water, which was now around 8 inches deep in some areas, felt colder than anything I’d ever felt.  Within the first couple steps my shoes were completely soaked and I lost all feeling in my feet.  At the same time, rain continued to fall on top of my thin rain coat.  I’m going to die of hypothermia out here, I thought to myself as I shivered.  Luckily, we reached higher ground that wasn’t under water and had a little bit of cover from the rain in the form of a big Ponderosa Pine.  Under the tree we passed out anything and everything that could keep people as warm and as dry as possible. 

Finally after about half an hour under the tree the weather calmed.  Luckily Drake’s dad was able to start a fire with a small camping stove and we kept warm by that until the sun rose. 

When the early morning fog faded, we could see the effects of the violent storm.  The “creek” that ran behind our camp was now about 20 feet wide with flood waters from all throughout Ponil Canyon.  The woods that surrounded our site were swept away by rocks that fell as a result of the flood.  Anywhere from 1,000-1,500 trees were downed as close as 200 feet from our site with rocks that weighed hundreds of pounds scattered throughout them.  Upon seeing this, the group collectively realized that we could have easily been dead underneath those trees if we decided to camp just 200 feet farther up the trail.  In addition to that, one of our scouts could have easily been swept away with their tent and washed into Ponil “Creek”.

My crew accessed the damages, which ended up being a lost glasses case and a ruined tent, and decided to go on with the rest of the trip as planned.  However, we were not able to leave Bent campsite and head to Pueblano, our next site, until the following day.  We were forced to sit around in Bent all day staring at the destruction from the previous night.  The majority of the day was spent around the fire drying our wet shoes, socks, clothes, everything.  Toward the end of the day, as we began to try to set up the wet and dirty tents from the night before, we were approached by two muddy rangers.  The two said they’d hiked 10 miles through trails that were completely eroded by the flood and climbed down one of the biggest changes of elevation in the area.  They told us that we would have to do it the next day after we got a good night’s rest. Finally,  they told us  that a 14 year old from Albuquerque was just found near Bent campsite face down in the muddy water.  The whole crew, completely in awe, never brought this up for the remainder of the trip.  I didn’t forget about it and I know the rest of the crew didn’t either, it just never came up.

The next few days were some of the wettest days that New Mexico had seen in years.  After seeing that it was raining again for the third day straight, the entire group’s productivity stopped.  I sat under the rainfly with Nick and Eddy discussing our plans for the next day: “Do you guys honestly think that the group is ready to climb Mount Baldy?” Eddy asked us.

“I don’t know man,” Nick replied, “we didn’t even make dinner, the adults haven’t left their tents all night, and all our equipment is soaked.”

“I think it’s gonna have to be a morning decision,” I added.

“I agree.  Let’s just see tomorrow,” Eddy decided.  We went our separate ways and headed to bed for the night.
The group woke the next morning and climbed the tallest mountain in the 140,000 acres that make up Philmont Scout Ranch.  The first few days of this trip were some of the hardest challenges I’ve faced in my life and upon reaching the top of that mountain, another flood hit our crew.  A flood of tears.  Tears of joy, sorrow, grief, tears that had absolutely no reason behind them, flowed out of us.  As I looked out across the New Mexican land from my perch 12,400 feet above sea level, I thought about that young boy who died on his final night of his trip.  I thought about how low our morale had been and how much I had wanted to give up the night before.  I thought about what this trip would’ve been like if I never made this grueling climb.  And finally, I thought to myself, This is the trip of a lifetime.  The ultimate scouting experience.