Philmont 2011

So, I've been slacking on the blog. I've been in New Mexico for a little over 3 weeks now. The first week was a lot of paperwork type stuff with 5 of us crammed in a little office. Needless to say, we all got a little crazy cooped up in such a small room for so long that there was a lot of delusional laughs that were had! We also seemed to overdose quite a bit on coffee and cookies (thanks mom!)

I guess I should give a little rundown for those of you that don't really understand what I do. There are over 1,000 staff members at Philmont. I work in the Ranger Dept. There are about 200-250 rangers. We are the people that meet the crew when they first get to Philmont. We show them around base camp and prepare them for going on the trail by getting them food and gear and such. The next day we take them out for 2 days into the backcountry and show them how to hike, camp and all that fun stuff. On the 3rd day on the trail, the ranger leaves them and travels back to base camp, while the crew continues on for 8 more days. When the ranger comes back to base, they either have a day off, a work day (doing work helping other departments), or they pick up another crew and do it all over again.
In the ranger department, the chief ranger is the head of the department, under that is four associate chief rangers (this is my job this summer - we are called ACRs for short. The ACRs are in charge of approx. 6 ranger trainers (RT for short). There's 25 RTs and each of them are in charge of 6-8 rangers. When I say in charge of, I mean, they teach, observe, evaluate, and supervise.
My special duties this year are banquets and search and rescue.
I'm in charge of ordering food and organizing efforts for random banquets we have in our department throughout the summer. I'm also in charge of teaching search and rescue efforts to the ranger department. Because the ranger department is the largest on the ranch, we are used for any search and rescue efforts that are needed in the backcountry. I'm not going to go into all the details of that because it's kind of complicated. Anyway, here's some pictures of the beginning adventure of another summer in the fabulous New Mexico mountains.

Domelands Wilderness and Channel Islands National Park

So it's been a fun couple weeks. Last week I went on a trip with a group of 11 awesome sophomores to the Domeland Wilderness in the South Sierras. It was pretty fantastic. We did 4 days of backpacking, 1/2 day of climbing, and 1/2 day of rafting. All the instructors were supposed to raft together and one of the instructors was going to guide, but he got sick and lost his voice. Since he wouldn't be able to call commands on the river, we had to skip out on it. Oh well, we're going back to the same area this week and we get another chance to raft!
After the trip we had 4 days off so me and a co-worker went down to the Channel Islands National Park to Santa Cruz Island where we did some hiking and beaching. :)
Here are lots of pictures of the adventures!

We ran into a bit of snow the first day...

Domelands Wilderness in the distance.

My fantastic group.

Domelands Wilderness.

Creek crossing, and let me tell you... it was cold!

Rain in the distance.

I love the contrast of colors in this picture. 

The Kern River was flowing too fast so we luckily didn't have to cross it.

All the kiddies rafting!

My co-instructors and I psyched for our rafting trip!

Trying on shoes in Solvang, CA.

Awesome candy shop!

Bieber fever.

Wasting time before our boat ride to the island.

CRABS!

Seals playing in the harbor.

Excited... clearly.

Bye bye mainland!!

Johnny Depp is excited.

These little foxes were the raccoons of the island.

He was brave enough to go in the cold water.

Beach!

This lil guy was fearless!

Joshua Tree National Park

So, we didn't end up getting kicked out of Red Rocks since everything worked out with the government and such, which was awesome for us. I stayed at Red Rocks until Monday then traveled south to Joshua Tree National Park where I met up with my friend Kyle. I did some trad climbing with him and climbed my first multi-pitch for the first time! We did three pitches, it was high, but a lot of fun! Then on Wednesday I went through LA once again to hang out with my fabulous friends I have there. Now I'm back at the school getting ready for the next trip, which we leave for on Sunday. I'm headed to Domelands Wilderness in the Sequoia National Forest with a group of 11 sophomores and one other instructor for a 4 days of backpacking, 1 day of rafting, and 1 day of climbing.

Here's some pics of Joshua Tree...

Flowers were in bloom.

The top of the 3 pitch climb.

We made it! Me and my friend Kyle.

Relaxing after the climb and fixing my helmet hair. :)

Kyle conquering the White Rastafarian in Joshua Tree.

Joshua Trees.

Me climbing while simultaneously yelling at Kyle for taking pictures of me while he should be belaying.

Lots of Joshua trees.