Friday, July 11, 2008

Philmont LDS Mountain Trek 2008

I recently had the oppurtunity to go to the Boy Scout's Philmont Ranch in New Mexico. I have to say that it is a once in a lifetime experience. While my family stayed at the base camp training center, doing activities and being trained in the Church there, I got to go on a mountain trek and explore what the mountains there.

The experience was neat in the fact that you had a backpacking trip, along with activities to do. I tried real rock climbing for the first time as well as working in a blacksmith's forge. That only scratched the surface. We also had LDS devotionals each night, and I got to meet General Authorities like Pres. Dahlquist and Pres. Neider. If you ever get the chance go! Below are pictures from the trek.

This was picture taken on the last day. You can see the valley from here.

This was the reservoir where we held our Sunday service.

This is the rocky area where I took the first picture. You can see one of my rangers (counselors) Brock.

This is where we camped one night. It was nice for us because we didn't have to do as many bear precautions, a must with all the bears around.


I thought that this picture looked great and showed a trail we were hiking on.

Another valley picture.


When you live in Astoria its nice to see blue sky.


This is usually what our tent area looked like.

There was always a scenic valley picture and this was one of the best.


You get to see me in this picture, of the same valley.

3 comments:

Benjamin Gudea Pack said...

Sounds like scouting heaven! Glad you had a good time. Uncle Ben is the 11-year old scout leader and loves it. Benji is just now at his day camp. He gets to race a boat for the first time...exciting!

Bri-onic Man said...

Bro. J is jealous! :-) Very cool that you got to do that. If my parents hadn't moved, then I think I would've been able to tag along with my dad and gone to Philmont by now.

Hoffman Crew said...

thanks for sharing the info! we are excited to go there this summer!