12 Days in The Mountains

(From the Janesville Messenger, 8-31-08 and 9-7-08)

If you took a vacation this summer, chances are it included hot cooked meals, a comfortable bed and indoor plumbing. It likely did not include having to hoist bags of food 20 feet in the air, checking your toilet for spiders, or eating food covered in dirt...unless you were my 14-year-old son and I.

Rob and I took two weeks of our summer to participate in the Boy Scout High Adventure at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. For two weeks, seven of us from Milton hiked and camped in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, taking only what we could carry on our backs - packs as heavy as 60 pounds.

We have been planning to take this trip for two years since we first heard about it from other Scouts. The opportunity to do something special and challenging with Rob was too good to pass up – an ultimate father-son experience.

It was no picnic, however. We would be hiking at least 70 miles on rugged mountain trails, braving the elements and forsaking comforts and conveniences that we take for granted. Our sustenance would consist of dehydrated food – add hot water and serve. If the weather didn’t cooperate – and it often didn’t – our only shelter would be our tents or a convenient tree.

It was also the ultimate way of getting away from it all. No watch, no Blackberry, no contact lenses, no hot showers, no phone, no light, no motorcar, not a single luxury. I often didn’t know what day it was, and had no idea what was going on in the “real” world – nor did I care. The last significant piece of news we heard during our trip west was that Brett Favre had been traded to the New York Jets. This was good information for us to know while we were on the trail, running into crews from other parts of the country. When they found out we were from Wisconsin, their first question was always “What’s happening with Favre?” Their surprised looks were priceless – particularly from the New York crew that was convinced we were kidding them.

Philmont is a lovely place with just the right amount of danger that requires rigorous adherence to safety procedures. For one thing, parts of the trails – even on the easiest treks – are treacherous. Imagine having about six inches on which to step, where a misstep potentially means sliding 40 feet down the slope of a hill. If Philmont were a Wisconsin state park, guardrails would be everywhere.

Also, there is wildlife in the form of bears, mountain lions and rattlesnakes. The biggest issue is the bears, whose keen noses follow the scents of anything from food to camera film. Earlier in the year, one boy who left a packet of Gatorade mix in his tent learned his lesson the hard way – the boy was bitten and the hungry bear had to be shot.

So keeping the bears away from your campsite is Job 1. Every night, anything classified as “smellable” has to be bagged up and hoisted by ropes over a special bear cable that is strung between two trees 15-20 feet above the ground. The cables are part of a “Bear-muda Triangle” that is formed at each campsite, with the other two corners of the area being your fire pit and your sump (which is essentially a drain sticking out of the ground, used to dispose of your dishwashing water). For maximum safety, you are instructed to set up your tents 50-100 feet away from the triangle.

But the bear procedures don’t stop there. You have one set of clothes that you keep separate and only wear for bedtime – our ranger referred to these as “prison pajamas.” This prevents you from going to bed wearing clothes on which you may have spilled food. When it comes to food, you have to eliminate all traces of it. If you open a package of food, the entire contents have to be eaten – no exceptions. The rule of thumb, especially for our pickier eaters, was that if you weren’t sure you were going to like one of our culinary delights, you tried it from someone else’s open packet first. And if you should drop any food on the ground, no matter how small, it still has to be eaten. Personally, I ingested more dirt on this trip than during my entire childhood.

After you have your evening meal near the fire pit, you need to lick your bowl clean, as well as the serving spoon. With the cooking pot, a volunteer has to scrape the sides clean, fill it with water, and drink the whole thing. This was referred to as “human sumping.” The strict rules even apply to brushing your teeth; you swallow the toothpaste lather and suck your brush dry – no rinsing allowed. So they were indeed serious about keeping the bears away.

A typical day for our group started at 5 a.m. We broke camp, repacked our backpacks and ate breakfast, in hopes of hitting the trail by 7 a.m. and reaching our next campsite by early afternoon. We tried to get an early start every day because thunderstorms tended to form in early or mid-afternoon. The pattern soon became predictable - thunder would sound in ominous warnings before the wind would suddenly kick up and you could feel the temperature plummet. One dreadful afternoon, a gigantic storm drowned our campsite in three inches of rain, immediately followed by a long period of hail that covered the ground in ice, some of which remained unmelted the following morning.

We were told to expect temperatures in the 90s during the day and the 30s at night. It never came close to 90 – maybe not even 80 - but the nighttime predictions were accurate. Fortunately, we all had warm sleeping bags, which were often our only refuge when the temperatures plunged. It was hard for us to fathom that New Mexico could be much colder in August than Wisconsin.

When the skies were clear, however, the sights were amazing to behold. One early morning before the sun rose, I stood in a meadow and marveled at a sky full of more stars than I had ever seen before, all bright and twinkling. During the clear days, the sky was a shade of blue much deeper than the washed-out color we see here. It was a Georgia O’Keeffe painting made real, in life-sized high definition.

On a wilderness trip like this, modesty also takes a vacation. Your restroom is the great wide open. For number one, you find a rock and aim for it. For number two, you either dig a hole or use one of Philmont’s wonderful open-air wooden latrines, strategically located in full view of your campsite, a nearby trail, or both. These marvels of waste collection come in three styles – pilot to co-pilot (two seats next to each other), pilot to bombardier (two seats back-to-back) or the rare and luxurious “Red Roof Inn” (It has walls! And a roof!). One wonders about the dual-customer nature of each of these, because two men NEVER use them at the same time.

Think of the worst gas station restroom you’ve ever been in, imagine it being twice as bad and without walls, and that’s about what these are like. You do not simply seat yourself to do your business. Prior to seating, you must take a stick and run it along the underside of the seat, in order to knock down the potentially poisonous spiders that like to reside there. Apparently, many campers have had to end their trek early due to an unfortunate bite on their derriere (which, the rangers informed us, generates a big laugh on the camp radio). We were warned to be quick about our business because angry arachnids tend to climb back to the top after being knocked down.

Besides your trail food, your most valuable trail resource is your allotment of TP, known by the nickname, “white gold.” You don’t want to waste any, even if you drop a roll and it rolls 30 feet down the slope of a hill, causing you to chase after it while holding up your pants with one hand. I write that last sentence from experience.

So why would anyone go halfway across the country just to expose themselves to the elements, eat dehydrated food, use primitive potties, observe strict wildlife procedures, and perform the excruciating physical task of carrying a heavy backpack over 73 miles of mountainous – and sometimes dangerous - terrain for 12 days?

On Day 3 of the journey, we awoke at our usual 5 a.m. Before he left us that morning to continue the trek on our own, our ranger had us start the day by climbing to the top of Urraca Mesa, to a place he called Inspiration Point. The eight of us sat in silence and watched the sun rise over the miles and miles of New Mexico visible from our vantage point. It was so beautiful, I wept.

That is the best answer I can give you.