I wanted to post some reactions after returning from my first trek at Philmont earlier this month. Thanks to everybody on this forum for all that I learned leading up to our trek. There is a lot of valuable information here! Anyway, some of my thoughts, and I’d love to hear yours.
Favorite piece of gear:Â Dirty Girl gaiters, hands down! They are so light and kept my feet and socks clean the whole time. Really glad I bought them, and got several envious comments from other advisors along the way. It’s so nice to never have to get rocks out of your shoes, especially important for low-cut shoes.
Tents: We used four Philtents for the Scouts and the advisors each brought our own solo tent. Our ranger had no problem at all with that. There were no campsites that I’d consider even mildly cramped. We could have set up more tents very easily at all the camps we stayed at. Much more room than I was expecting. I used a Nemo Hornet 2 that I’ve had for a few years and would recommend it.
Stoves: We cooked with a remote canister stove (Optimus Vega) and used three 8-ounce canisters. We did buy a 4-ounce spare at Apache as insurance, but never used it. I highly recommend using a canister stove. It worked great! We only boiled about 3-4 quarts of water for each meal. If you read Camp Suds’ website, they work just as well with cold water. No need to have boiling water when washing the dishes. Unless you’re melting a ton of snow for water, there’s no need ever for a liquid stove, IMO.
Footwear: Several of us used trail runners. Definitely loved them! It seems like the guys with big hiking boots in our crew were the ones with foot issues. We stayed totally healthy except for blisters on a few guys. You definitely want Gold Bond powder to dry out feet and Leukotape-P for hot spots and holding moleskin in place. I don’t use liner socks personally, but the crew member with bad blisters did use liner socks, FWIW. Philmont had us participate in a research project about footwear. They polled us beforehand on our pack weight, shoe style, etc. and then afterwards checked to see what injuries we incurred. My guess is they are trying to test the common perception that you have to wear giant hiking boots.
Camera – Used my Google Pixel 3, which takes fantastic pictures. I used a 20,000 mAh battery that was fully charged at the Advisor lounge the morning we left for the trail. I got about 6 charges out of it and my phone had about 25% left as we rolled into base camp. Just enough! In addition to photos, I had our trek completely mapped out and downloaded to AllTrails, so I could use it in airplane mode. (There is a CalTopo map out there with all the camp locations, which you can export as a .gpx file, and then import it into AllTrails.) This was useful for keeping track of where we were, but we let the Scouts navigate. We also really enjoyed using the PeakFinder app, which you can aim at the mountains and determine all the names of the peaks. It kind of works like Google Star Maps does with constellations. I used that a ton! Make sure you download the data for the Philmont area ahead of time or it won’t work.
Water: We used Smartwater (1 liter) bottles and Nalgenes. I have been pushing Smartwaters, but some were skeptical and used Nalgenes. Even our Ranger was like “What’s with all the Smartwater bottles?” After a couple days, he noticed how many other people (including other rangers) were using Smartwaters and he said he would have to try them. People will tell you to bring something with a wider mouth for the drink mixes, but I found they worked fine with Smartwaters. By the way, I didn’t think I’d use the mixes, but was using every single Gatorade after a couple days. We each have four 1-liter bottles, along with a 2-liter collapsible bottle (most used the Evernew ones). We typically had four liters of water at the start of a hike. The 2-liter bottles were used for crew (cooking) water, and we filled them before dry camps and before the 13-mile hike over the Tooth on the last day (and really only drank maybe 4 liters that day).
<b>Eating:Â </b>Loved the Fozzils collapsible bowls, as you can easily lick them clean after eating. Bring some Tabasco sauce. I was skeptical, but it really hits the spot in those hot dinners.
Chair:Â Used a 2 ounce Thermarest Z-seat. Okay for a weekend, but I got tired of it at Philmont. Another advisor had REI’s new 16-ounce chair and loved it. I would certainly buy one of those if I had to do it again. Sometimes there are logs to sit on, but that’s not always the case.
Personal:Â Sea to Summit Wilderness Wipes for “showering” each evening were awesome, highly recommended. Much easier than bandana showering or other methods. Showers at Sawmill and Cito were awesome, but not until well into our trek. Small camp towel is all that’s needed after a shower, so pack light here.
First aid:Â Surprisingly, we used quite a few throat lozenges. Glad I put those in the crew FAK. Used a ton of Leukotape-P, moleskin, some triple antibiotic/band-aids for small cuts, Ibuprofen, nail clippers (very important to have), antacid a couple times, foot powder, and that’s pretty much it.
Extra personal gear:Â Plan ahead so you can leave fresh clothes in the locker at base camp. You don’t want to wear gross clothes after you shower on the last day.
Camp shoes:Â I debated a lot whether to bring any at all. Ended up going with Crocs Swiftwaters. Unfortunately, they do let in small pebbles and sticks in the holes on the sides. However, I’m really glad I had them for stream crossings to keep my trail runners dry. I would have brought my Tevas, but was trying to set a good example and bring something close toed. I ended up letting my son toss them over the entrance gateway on the last day!
Deet: We had two small bottles and weren’t expecting to need it at all. Wrong! So many mosquitoes in a couple spots. However, I found that I’d rather put on my rain jacket and tough it out than cover myself in deet.
Summit pack:Â Almost didn’t bring one, which would have been a huge mistake. You will want to carry around your coffee cup, extra waters to fill, rain jacket, etc. to advisor coffee, conservation, and lots of other places. Make it lightweight, but don’t skip it.
Cold weather gear:Â Just my experience, but I didn’t need it. I easily might have, but with the weather we had, I could have gotten by without my puffy. Didn’t wear my light gloves at all. Used my knit hat a couple times, but would have been fine without it as I had a Buff. Loved the Buff, another favorite piece of gear. Used base layer once on a cold night, but had other clothes I could have used instead. I can’t recommend leaving any of this at home because you could get a really cold night or two.
Trowel:Â REI snow stake, worked fine. I think we maybe needed it 2 or 3 times. Most times we used the latrines or Red Roofs.
Ground cloth:Â Polycryo window kit. Each kit can be cut into two ground cloths that perfectly fit the Philtents (with a little extra on one side that you can throw away). We had one inexplicably rip in half, but the Scouts didn’t notice it was torn until too late. Our Ranger flat out told us that we didn’t need a groundcloth at all because the bottoms of the Philtents are waterproof.
Philmont Supplied Gear:Â
- The Philtents were great. A little heavy, but we didn’t put 10 nights of wear or have to transport our own crew tents. They stayed dry amid heavy rain a couple times.
- Cooking pots – we used two 8 quart pots. They would not give us the 6 quart since we had 11 in the crew. Big and heavy, but not a huge deal.
- Micropur tabs: We used them exactly once, at Wild Horse trail camp. Other than that, we had access to potable water from a spigot. An advisor coming off the trail the day we arrived gave us a Sawyer Squeeze and told us to bring it because some of the spigot water is sulfur-y. That proved true. The Squeeze will thread onto the spigot, not perfectly, but good enough. That helped with the bad taste a couple times. The worst was the water at Clarks Fork – totally cloudy and nasty. The Squeeze cleaned it right up. This isn’t essential and we had not brought a filter, but it was worthwhile and I’ll bring my Squeeze next time.
- Toilet paper: You can get it at any staff camp and I recommend carrying more than you think you’ll need. Better safe than sorry!
- Dining fly: At first I thought it was totally useless, but it completely saved our butts when we had to set up camp in a driving rain. Holding it by the four corners allowed us to set up tents one at a time and not have everything get soaked. I think most times you don’t need to set it up, but if you do, by all means take it down before the end of the night. It saves one thing to have to do in the morning. If somebody has trekking poles, use those with the fly and don’t bring the Philpoles.
What did everybody else learn from their treks?
