“We didn’t start the fire. No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it”-Billy Joel
There are moments in life when things unfortunate things just happen. The cause of the Ute Park fire is still unknown but obviously no one wishes that such a thing to happen. However, that was the reality we were faced with. As we gathered at our crew leader’s house to determine our next plan of action, so much seemed so uncertain. We realized that we were able to possible change dates or reroute of flights through Southwest but were unsure if our outfitter would give us a refund. After about an hour of talking, we decided that we would each look for an alternative plan and between the 12 of us, we could probably find something to do in place of Philmont
The variety of alternative plans we came up with included options to Utah, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming, California, and Montana, but unfortunately our outfitter in Colorado was not able to give us a full refund (they would have had to give hundreds from all the crews who got cancelled at Philmont and simply couldn’t afford it) so we were confined to somewhere within the driving distance of Denver. Three of the scouts, including myself, found a link to a trek, on a Subreddit, for the Four Pass Loop in White River National Forest near Aspen Colorado. The trek was about 50 miles and looked visually stunning. Seeing as it was our best option we decided to go for it and quickly contacted our outfitter who agreed to adjust our plans and take us to Aspen.
This trek involved making several adjustments to our plan. Seeing as it was shorter, we shortened the entire trip by 3 days. In addition, we added a rafting and ziplining near Cañon City, Colorado on the end of the trek. The biggest issue though was altitude. Philmont is for the most part around 7-8,000 ft in elevation. The four-pass loop, on the other hand, starts around 9,000 ft and gets as high as 13,000 ft and would include nights staying above 11,000 ft. In addition to the exhaustion one incurs from trying to breath at that altitude, it is a lot of colder up there so winter clothes were now necessary. The trail also required bear canisters for storing smell-ables due to high bear activity. These items would ad another 10 pounds to our packs. Despite this we made our final preparations. We packed, purchased the bear canisters, purchased Philmont food from our outfitter (because Philmont wasn’t using it they needed to get rid of it), and shipped our jet-fuel stoves to Denver (they cannot be taken on airplanes because they can explode). There was quite a bit of nervousness in the weeks beforehand, the trek was still somewhat unknown and the threat of altitude sickness (one scout had asthma) was on everyone’s minds. Despite the anxiety, we were all very excited for trek we found on Reddit, even coming up with a nickname for it: “PhilNOT.”
I’m really glad you guys were able to easily adapt to a different trek. I think it’s important to mention all the logistical concerns involved, as every trek is different. I have never heard of bear canisters. I also wonder why shipping companies would take the risk of taking fuel to Colorado either, unless they were taking it by ground.
I’m also curious to find out what Philmont food means.
Philmont food is the food for the expedition that we purchased from Philmont. When Philmont had to cancel all treks for the summer, they had all this surplus food(it consisted mostly of power bars, energy bars, granola, dried fruits, and freeze dried meals).
I’m glad everything worked out and I hope your friend with asthma is okay. What an unfortunate ailment to possess in regards to the passion of hiking.
My friend with asthma certainly struggled and that will be touched on later but he did okay, given the circumstances and didn’t have any serious attacks.
I often read about how altitude affects your ability to read, but I always wonder what one can do to prepare for this. Does one just keep going on different treks to allow the body to more easily adapt to higher altitudes or are there specific machines that can help with this transition? Also, does the food that you bring along become affected by the altitude?
Great question. There are 2 things you can do help with altitude sickness. The first is acclimation, I’ll talk a lot about acclimation in the next two posts. Before going on the hike, you have to adjust to the altitude for a couple days before hand and do certain exercises at this altitude. To properly acclimate it takes several months, which is what the Everest climbers do but for normal circumstances, a couple days are fine. The second is to simply drink lots of water and nothing caffeinated for about a week before heading on this trip. As for the food, it is freeze dried and does fine but a special kind of camping stove has to be used that works at that altitude.
Billy Joel, forest fires, hiking, and reddit… this was blog was versatile and detailed. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.