Back in 2007, the Boy Scout troop that I was in went to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Philmont is a place for boy scouts to go backpacking, rock climbing, rafting and many other outdoor activities. For this, my crew and I went hiking. We choose a nine day sixty mile trek.
For the first two days on the trail, we were required to have a trek guide to make sure we knew how to read a map and compass. Also, what to do with our food at night and teach use the trail rules. I can’t quite remember if it was the first or second day, but our trek guide of all people ended up getting lost, we were told these guides had hundreds of hours on the trails they were guiding. Us getting lost added about twenty miles to our trip. Which was mostly up a steep mountain and that was probably our hottest, most difficult day. The morning of our third day, one of my friends twisted his knee. We didn’t really think anything of it at first and he stayed behind while we went to do a crew challenge, at the camp we were in that night. After we finished the challenge, we went back to the site to check on my friend’s injury. It was bad, his knee had swollen around the joint and increases two or three times its normal size. He couldn’t walk or even stand without someone’s aid. Our crew’s doctor said he had to be taken back to the infirmary at the main base, where he can get the fluids pumped out of his knee. A couple days later, we found out he had to be sent back home for further treatment. Everyone was pretty bummed. The next couple days, some of use even wanted to leave and a couple of the guys almost sent letters to go home. I can’t recall what changed everyone’s mind to stay, maybe just the realization that this was a once in a lifetime trip. Yeah we were fourteen at the time and have a whole lifetime to go other places. But the difference with this trip is it was our first and last large scale trek as boy scouts. We still did local treks on the Appalachian Trail, but it would never stand up to the Philmont trip. We also needed to finish this for our friend. After, we got over our friend being sent home, everything became a lot more fun. All seven of us became a like band of
