Fantastic trip! how old is your son and how are they traveling?
The Scout Troop owns 2 vans and a enclosed trailer. There are 7 in each van, 5 scouts and 2 adult leaders. 2 more adults are flying out to meet them in NM.. The troop is split into 2 crews for this trip. The Scout Masters select a crew leader for each of the 2 crews. The crew leader then selects an assistant. Each crew has one Boy Scout as crew leader and another Boy Scout as his assistant with the Scouts totally in charge. The leaders do the driving and that's it, period. The crew leaders handle the money, decide where they're going, what they visit, make sure the other scouts behave. This is supposed to be a character/leadership building trip as much as an adventure for the boys. The Scoutmasters laugh and say that this is there vacation where for a change, the boys wait on them. At Philmont, the Scouts have to have adult leaders along with them on the trails but the boys are supposed to run/do everything.
My son just turned 15 a month ago. He's the leader for crew #1. He's 6' tall and 200 lbs. so they gave him 2 of the youngest and weakest Scouts. They all have to be 14 years old or older and meet certain other requirements to go to Philmont. All these boys on this trip are 14/15 years old. The youngest bunch they've ever had without any older boys in the mix.
Their old former Scoutmaster is on this trip (72 yrs old and stepped down late last year). He swears this is his last Philmont trip....of course that's what he said 12 years and 3 other trips ago.
36 years ago he took over the troop as Scoutmaster. The troop had always been known as one of the best in the district but it was also one of the poorest and worst equipped. He changed all that. Under his leadership, and using his ideas, the troop has raised funds for the purchase of a house for a meeting place, bought excellent equipment, vans, trailer, canoes, etc.. When he took over he made the boys a promise. He promised that he would do his best to see to it that they could all take this trip every 4 years. He promised every boy that ever joined the troop that if they worked hard and stuck with it they too could go to Philmont. They have an auction once a year, sell Christmas trees in the fall and do other things to raise the money for these trips. They keep an account for each boy and most of them have more than enough money in their account to buy the personal equipment they need and pay all their trip expenses.
Most troops meet, tailgate camp and go for a week of summer camp. Our troop is known as one that does things. They do something at least one weekend every month and the boys are required to make 75% of all meetings and weekend events. They go backpacking every other month in between those trips they rock climb, canoe, etc.. They did a lot of 3 day backpacking weekends this spring leading up to this trip.
