Ask a Ranger Anything.

David,  Interesting to note our different water source experience. Maybe both my treks being in August and not getting out into the Valle at all has seasoned me :)

I certainly agree on the clothes, the climate of Philmont+summer lends itself to some pretty simple/few layers. Standout for me is rarely needing fleece! The windshirt is the killer piece of clothing at Philmont for me. I rock a older houdini and have been toying with a squamish as of late.

Brad, Congrats on the Aeon, that is a killer piece of gear. My end date is the 31st, but if I’m around in base I’d love to link up and see it. I can chat up your crew too to add some reinforcement to some of your UL teachings :)

Thanks, Matt!!

2018 Ranger Manual

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CGRUpo1C2SAAbYtY8

Pretty interesting and diverse stuff. Anywhere from decent tips on packing and great info on crew dynamics to a analogous bathroom reader of quotes and poems near the 3/4 mark. Don’t miss out on the “2018 edition” of pages stapled on the back, just a couple small addendum. (apparently there’s rabid skunks on the ranch and its worth an advisory.)

Some questions:

They have a multitool in the crew gear for lifting pot lids and gear repair.  They also list a pot lifter in the Philmont issued gear. Do they really expect us to bring a multitool?  I don’t think any of our gear requires a screwdriver, we’ll have knives, needle and thread.  What use is a multitool?

2-3 spools of 50′ x 1/8″ nylon cord for clothes lines and other things.  If we bring a dining fly with lines attached, how much cord do we really need?

I assume polycryo ground sheets cut to 5×7 size are good.

We have no dry camps.  If scouts have two 1 liter Smartwater bottles and one 32oz Gatorade bottle, can a crew of 8-9 (including adults) get by with each member adding one 2 liter collapsible container for crew water?

How much sunscreen and bug spray do you actually use?

Thanks!

Some just carry a multitool and use it as a pot lid lifter. Carry the smallest one you can find. Never carried and sewing kit and never needed one. Most carry some duct tape to patch rips in tents and such and a pole repair sleeve.

Their cord suggestions are for their dining fly. If yours already has cords the only other thing I suggest is about 25 feet of 1.5 mm reflective cord for clothes line, especially to air out your sleeping bag.
Your 5×7 polycryo ground sheets should be good.

Even with dry camps crew can get by with every member carrying 2 one-liter water bottles and one to-liter collapsible water container. Remember if you bring a Gatorade bottle (or put drink mix in any bottle) it is a smellable and must be Bear Bagged.

How much sunscreen you need depends on your skin type and how much sun tan you already have. Mostly just on your nose, ears and lips (face). In 8 treks we’ve only had mosquitoes once at Red Hills Camp. I’ve never had any ticks or chiggers in the Rockies. And I have backpacked on the CDT in Colorado and in Yellowstone several times.

“Philmont should be enjoyed, not endured.” Moonshine

My assumption is the crew will want to use the drink mixes, so if we bring Gatorade bottles and those are the only ones allowed to use drink mixes, it will be easy to get the right bottles up in the bear bags.

So two 1 liter Smartwater bottles, one 32oz Gatorade and another liter capacity should be good per person with no dry camps.

@ Brad

So you plan on having only 4 liters of water storage capacity per person? That seems kind of cutting it close.

Assuming you arrive empty, I don’t think 4 liters per person is enough for hydration, cooking dinner, evening hygiene, cooking breakfast, morning hygiene, and 1 to 2 liters for the first part of the morning hike. Do you plan on fetching and treating water a second time in the morning? A 4 liter platypus weighs about 68g. For my solo trips and for Scout trips my practice is to gather enough water once that covers the evening and the next morning.

You could easily work out how much water your crew consumes on the training backpacks.

If we are leaving a water supply down low to camp on a peak (good views), Sue & I figure on ~5.5 L for the TWO of us, for drinks on the way up, dinner, washing, breakfast and possibly even morning tea. That works for us, but we have long experience of doing that.

Caveat: if it is stinking hot, we would reconsider the climb!

Cheers

Sewing kit is on their crew gear list.  I’d consider a large eye needle and some fishing line to be a sewing kit, I guess.

Maybe I should get the crew 2 liter collapsible containers in addition to the two 1 liter Smartwater bottles and Gatorade bottle.  Nothing says you have to fill it if not needed.

Brad P
We’ve never had a trek that didn’t have at least one dry camp so we have each crew member carry their two drinking water bottles plus a 2+ liter collapsible.

We don’t cook and clean-up in dry camps so we only need enough drinking water to get us through to our next water source in the morning. 4 quarts each has always been plenty.

That’s the advantage of carrying a very lightweight (68g) collapsible 2+ liter/quarter water container, while you only need it for carrying water into dry camps it isn’t a burden during the rest of the trek.

They are much better than carrying Philmont’s 2½ gallon (10 qt.) jug that weighs 20 pounds when full. 2 quarts times 7 campers equal 14 quarts spread over the entire crew and only more 4 pounds per crew member for a hike into a dry camp.

Roger: I am certain you and Sue are much more disciplined in water usage than Brad’s crew of youngsters.

Brad: Philmont now discourages if not forbids any method of cooking that is keeps the pots relatively clean and you need to budget some water for that as well.

They are much better than carrying Philmont’s 2½ gallon (10 qt.) jug that weighs 20 pounds when full. 2 quarts times 7 campers equal 14 quarts spread over the entire crew and only more 4 pounds per crew member for a hike into a dry camp.

I don’t know why they would suggest that rather than spread the weight among the entire crew.  Plus, you end up with a single point of failure for something rather critical.  If one 2 liter container fails, you can deal with it.  If your group 10 qt. jug fails, you’re in deep doo-doo.

Philmont now discourages if not forbids any method of cooking that is keeps the pots relatively clean and you need to budget some water for that as well.
Now THAT is just bad practice.
For the record, even at high camps we wash up everything after dinner in hot water with a few drops of detergent. I use a little (real) sponge and it takes very little water.

Cheers

Roger,
I don’t think Bruce was saying they don’t intend to wash pots, just that Philmont discourages any cooking method (turkey bags) that does not have food in your pots and “you need to budget some water for that (washing pots) as well.”

2019 Guidebook to Adventure, page 23
ITEMS PROHIBITED:
• Deodorant
• Radios/MP3 Players/Video Game Devices
• Hammocks
• Turkey Bags
• Bear Bag Pulley Systems

“For the record, …we wash up everything after dinner in hot water with a few drops of detergent.”

Detergent is prohibited at Philmont. It’s been banned in most wilderness areas for Low Impact reasons since the 60ties. Only biodegradable soap is allowed, preferably unscented.

Philmont issues Campsuds for (Dishwashing Soap, page 25) and expects you to only carry and use it for all cleaning purposes, camp and personal. Most of our adults and some Scouts carry their own small bottle of Campsuds for personal hygiene, even in showers when available.

Page 23, Soap 1 Biodegradable. For body or clothes. Small amount needed.

What a fuss about a couple of drops of dishwashing ‘detergent’! Again, for the record, our dishwashing liquid is labeled biodegradable. It is not an older ionic detergent which could, in volume, cause a problem. We do also carry old-fashioned soap for washing our hands.

As for the turkey bags – we never use them. My Ti pot cooks well and cleans (rinses) easily. I should add that we do not fry anything: that does make washing up harder. Our menu is designed to cook ‘cleanly’.

Mind you, I strongly approve of the ban on ‘ Radios/MP3 Players/Video Game Devices’! Those things intrude on other people. Me, I would also ban Scouts from carrying (or at least using) mobile phones as well. Users tend to become oblivious to the people around them and to talk very loudly into them. Obnoxious.

Am I too retro? Dunno, don’t care!

Cheers

Roger,
I just pointed it out because you called it detergent.

Point taken. We tend to still fall it ‘detergent’, even though it has significantly changed in formula. “Washing up liquid’ might be a better term (but it’s longer).

Cheers

I should have provided more context. The various cook in the bag/ cozy methods were creating too much trash in the backcountry. Philmont has trash collection points in the backcountry but the trash is hauled out with pack animals and sometimes 4WDs.

I have heard some crews have shown their Rangers (who guide and orient the crew on the first two or three days of the backpack) the effectiveness of various “cook in tupperware” techniques. The irony here is that the cheapest, lightest “tupperware” available in your average grocery store is the branded “zip lock” round food container with the blue lids.

But we can’t have individuals re-hydrating their meals, because, reasons.

I (sort of) get it.  They put patrol method above better backpacking skills.

Don’t Scouts clean the dishes?

I see a lot of adults worrying about it. Doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Don’t Scouts clean the dishes?

I see a lot of adults worrying about it. Doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Yes, they do, but I’d like them to learn techniques they can use after scouts.  I think they’d enjoy backpacking more and want to do it more often if they did things differently.

We will follow Phimont’s rules and not try to evade them.  Doing otherwise would also teach scouts the wrong thing.

Their place, their rules.  Just trying to find the best way to do it following their rules.

@Brad In my experience, except for the Philmont bear protocols, the experienced Rangers have some flexibility when working with the Scouts.

For example, if your crew has practiced cozy cooking in reusable containers, as long as the cook is boiling the water, filling the containers with the entree and hot water, I would think that would still be following a patrol method.

I have just heard reports that there was push back on tupperware/cozy methods because crews were bringing three or four Jetboils and individualizing the cooking into groups of two Scouts.  Others on BPL might have more direct experience to report.

Our troop backpacking stoves are MSR Reactor stoves with 2.5L pots.  In 2013, we used ziplock bowls. We boiled the water first and sanitized the bowls before using them.  The entree was then split between the two buddies and meal rehydrated in the bowls.  Clean up of the bowls consisted of the scouts cleaning the bowls as much as possible – scraping and eating everything in their bowls, and then filling them with some hot water and a drop of camp suds.  Swish the bowls around and then dumping the soap water down the sump. Another bit of rinse water in the bowls and they were clean.  We practiced this on our shakedowns and were successful.  Everyone was issued the same bowl.  So they were more like crew gear, not individual gear.

Am I to assume this practice will be prohibited at Philmont when we arrive this year? Reactor stoves can only use reactor stove pots.  Not the 8 quart pot issued at Philmont. We left the pots in the locker when we headed out in 2013.  I do not want to get to Philmont and have to purchase new liquid fueled stoves.

I am very interested in reading your thoughts on our cooking system, which worked very well for us.

Thank you very much for responding to everyones posting and providing insight into Philmont.

Attended 1982 and 2013. It took a long time for me to get back to Philmont.  Now I am just getting the crews to Philmont and back and letting other adults experience the joys of Philmont.

Stephen

Steven, I’m not sure who you are asking???

We have always used Philmont’s one large cook pot technique so have never challenged the issue.

Rangers vary like everybody else. Some hold to the rules and some don’t. Some on this forum say their Rangers were very lax. So, I couldn’t say what your Ranger may allow.

Thank you for the reply. I was asking the Ranger on this forum for his point of view.  Since our backpacking “cooking” consists of rehydrating meals, we went with the Reactor stoves since they are great at boiling water.  We were not trying to simmer, or pan fry, etc..so that is why we chose not to get liquid fuel stoves and cook on pans/big pots.  The only thing that has gone in to our Reactor stove pots is water.  As I said in my posting, the only pot that fits a reactor stove is the specially designed reactor pot with a design at directing all the BTUs coming off the burner into pot of water for efficiency of fuel. As a former boiler engineer working on two supercritical (3600psi) 750 megawatt boilers, I can really appreciate the design for fuel efficiency with the Reactor stove.