Audra Neubaum '11

Summer is finally almost at its close for me here at the ranch. I have five more days of work and six more days of Philmont before I make my return to Illinois. Reflecting on the summer’s events, these past three months have not been without their excitement. Between the peaks, the tourist attractions, and of course, the wildlife, I will definitely have some good stories to tell.

This past week marked the first ever annual Phil-Carnival, which took place in back of the staff center under the pavilion. It turned out better than any of us had expected with a very high attendance and it pretty much went off without a hitch. Well, with the exception of the fact that we might have been draining power from the rest of the ranch since power everywhere seemed to flicker in an almost insignificant amount. We had an inflatable bungee run and boxing ring, which both required constant power to stay inflated; suma-suits, a pie throwing area and even a dunk tank. The carnival was not without carnival food either, since we had popcorn, snow cone, and cotton candy machines.

For me, that carnival seemed to mark a nice end of the season for me, but I’m also excited to get back home. I don’t know when I’ll be back but there’s something about this place that gives you that certainty that you will be back. I have a lot of hiking left in me yet to be accomplished. Whether it be next summer, or years from now, I know that there will always be a place for me here.

Hey everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t posted in awhile but life has been kind of busy in the mountains as of late. Since I last blogged Closing Campfire started up, which is always nice to be a part of. There’s just this added excitement to the campers once they get off the trail and truly appreciate the ten day experience they have just gone through.  So for now I’ve just been kind of switching back and forth between Opening and Closing Campfire.

A couple days ago, I had two days off and just decided to take it easy and head to Taos Pueblo, an art district a little over an hour west of Cimarron. There, some fellow staff members and myself had some of the most amazing pizza and pesto sauce I have ever had at a place called “Outback Pizza”. This is an interesting little restaurant as well because virtually the whole building has been drawn all over with paint, sometimes colored pencils, and other materials. You can see where Philmont staff members memorialized past summers with writings like “Cimarroncito ’99″ (a backcountry camp that does rock climbing) and “Philmont Staff 1992″. Visitors are encouraged to graffiti the building and even the bathrooms are covered in crayon and colored pencil drawings that children have created.

Other than that, there’s also been a lot of excitement around basecamp as well. Over the past few weeks we have seen a lot of bear incidences. The first, or at least most notable took place down at the Kit Carson museum, which I have mentioned in a previous blog entry. A black bear came into the enclosure where the Kit Carson staff’s goat stays and attacked it. One of the staff members, by the name of Henry, heard the goat’s screams and punched the bear right in the face, sending the frazzled bear running. You can check out the news report on this story at this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHi-TcdPQCU) on youTube. There have also been two sitings outside the snackbar, a small food convenience store we have in basecamp.

The bear problem hasn’t just been at Philmont either. Bear problems are being experienced all throughout New Mexico this summer. New Mexico had a very late cold spring, causing production of plants to be slim. Bears are omnivores so they mainly eat berries and other fruits that they can scavenge, as well as grubs and other insects. But when we had a heat wave a couple weeks ago, it killed off a lot insects, which means even less food for the bears. So now we are faced with a conflict in which some bears are starving but as always, humans are not to interfere. Its just a sad situation that will hopefully get better as the second half of the summer progresses.

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So after much training, I’m starting to get into the swing again of how things work at Philmont. After training got capped off with a few tours around the town of Cimarron, I have an even better understanding of the history in this area. The other day I eat at the St. James Hotel, which has been the main saloon since the days of unruly outlaws coming to cause trouble and shoot bullets into the tin ceiling of the hotel’s bar. That very same tin ceiling is still there, along with the poker room on the second floor where one of the hotel’s owners put the hotel up in a poker game only to lose it. The hotel owner then proceeded to shoot the guy who won the poker game, leaving blood spatter on the wallpaper that you can also still see today. One of the most famous characters of the wild west era was Clay Allison, who was known to dance on the bartops wearing nothing but his six-shooter and boots. He road horses in much the same way, and even had several run-ins with Wyatt Earp, who was born in Monmouth.

My department and I also went on a tour of the Kit Carson museum just south of basecamp, on the site where Carson lived for a period of four years.  Carson was a frontiersmen and a trapper who settled in New Mexico to take up ranching with a good buddy Lucien Maxwell. Carson also played an interesting role in the New Mexico voluntary militia, and for one of his last assignment he was in charge of relocating the Navajo to a reservation on the other side of New Mexico. Instead of just plain killing them off, like many in that day would have done, Carson was more humane. He burnt their land and killed their livestock  but caused very few human fatalities.

Besides visiting all of these wonderful places, I have still been working on trying to get the campfire as polished as possible. For many nights we were having trouble with the projector we’ve been using until two nights ago when we finally got it to work. Campers finally started arriving yesterday as well, and last night marked our first Opening Campfire, which went on without any problem, even though storm clouds had been looming overhead.

So its been a very busy past couple of days between training sessions and trying to get Audio Visual equipment together for the campfires and a keynote speaker. We’ve started rehearsing for Opening Campfire, the first of two campfires that campers see when they get to Philmont. We’re starting with a brand new script this summer and are currently trying to work through all the kinks of the campfire.

Last night was the keynote speaker, who actually turned out to be the assistant scout executive to the entire Boy Scouts of America organization. We had to set up for both that and the bluegrass band comprised of staff members that performed at the beginning. After the keynote there was a dance that featured the same bluegrass group that lasted clear past midnight.

So it’s mid-afternoon and this is my first day of work this summer at a place I’ve already worked at three times previously. I work at Philmont Scout Ranch and its owned by the Boy Scouts of America. Its situated in the middle of the old wild west, lying on over 137,000 acres of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern New Mexico.  The ranch was formerly owned by Waite Phillips, the oil baron who started Phillips 66. Philmont is now home to the 25,000 people who come there every summer to hike out the terrain on 10 day expeditions through the wilderness of this premiere high adventure base. Those on staff are able to hike and camp in the backcountry on their days off, although most staff live in wall tents all summer anyway.

Once campers start getting here on June 8th, my responsibilities in the Activities Department will consist of checking people in and out of the Welcome Center, running AV (audio visual), and managing activities for the staff. Until then, I have a lot of training to do including CPR, First Aid, Wilderness Survival, and Leave No Trace training.