Philmont Expedition 727-E1-1994 – Troop 118, Cornwall, NY
Disclaimers and Introductions
What follows is a more or less accurate account of Philmont Expedition 727-E1-1994, crewed by a group from Hudson-Delaware Council Troop 118. It’s been 25 years, so some details have faded from my memory. But between my photographs (from a cheap 35mm camera prone to jamming and a single-use panoramic camera that did not survive the trip unscathed) and my notes from the trip, I should be able to reconstruct the events with some degree of accuracy. I have not consulted with anyone else mentioned in this story and will note whenever possible where there is some uncertainty. Events have not been embellished for effect or fabricated to fit a narrative. Unnecessary or unclear details have been omitted to avoid confusion or errors. Opinions and recollections are entirely my own and are filtered through my personal biases, documented here as best I can.
This is the true story of nine people going for a hike in one of the most challenging environments BSA has to offer, Philmont Scout Ranch. Tens of thousands of people make similar trips every year; this story is not particularly unique or notable. There will be no movie made of these events, there are no shocking twists or cinematic action sequences. It’s literally a bunch of people walking in the woods. There is danger at every turn and there are frequent reminders of mortality and the consequence of human error. But everyone made it back alive and unharmed.
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Pre-Departure: Background / Preparation
25 July 1994: Now you see it… / Day -2: Flying Away
26 July 1994: Pizza Problems / Day -1: In the Clouds
27 July 1994: On the Rocks / Day 0: Calm Before the Storms
28 July 1994: Friendly Fire / Day 1: Hitting the Ground
29 July 1994: March Madness / Day 2: Ashes to Ice
30 July 1994: Delayed Gratification / Day 3: A New Beginning
31 July 1994: Rain and Shine / Day 4: Best laid plans…
1 August 1994: Man(hunt) Up / Day 5: Midnight Horse at Clarks Fork
2 August 1994: Tower Inferno / Day 6: Highway to Nowhere
3 August 1994: Trails and Tribulations / Day 7: Hump Day
4 August 1994: Spiked, Set, Bumped / Day 8: Eve of Baldy
5 August 1994: A Hike Up Schunemunk / Day 9: Baldy
6 August 1994: Growing Pains / Day 10: Burros and Spar Poles and Bears
7 August 1994: Everything Falls Apart / Day 11: Finish Line
8 August 1994: Have Canoe, Will Paddle / Day +1: Along for the Ride
9 August 1994: Day +2: Homecoming / Aftermath
The toaster oven. It’s one of the greatest achievements in kitchen appliances. Slightly bigger than a toaster, much smaller than a conventional oven, the toaster oven is a versatile tool that can handle most small tasks of cooking and reheating. Except for time spent on travel and a brief cereal phase a few years ago, I’ve used a toaster oven just about every morning since I was a small child. So when mine stopped working one morning, it was a serious problem that required quick resolution.
Some content to fill the void
It’s been a while since I posted anything over here, so here are a couple of posts from the other site that might be of interest. It’s a good time to be thinking of spring and the start of baseball season. It’s also a good time to work on getting ready to photograph baseball games. These tutorials should help you to get the best results in some tricky situations.
Getting an Eye on the Ball: What it takes to capture action over the plate
Making Time Stand Still at 80+ Miles Per Hour: The light and camera it takes to freeze the action
(And why it could be the last)
I’m not feeling terribly motivated to cover this subject these days. It’s not the lack of readers (I assume you’re all spammers, bots, and hackers, leaving the actual reader count at 0), it’s the lack of subject matter. Waves of figures are released more and more infrequently, with anything other than launch waves released in quantities so small that you have a window of two or three days to find them before they’re gone forever. It’s gotten to the point that Toys R Us employees commiserate with me for no apparent reason. Do I really leave there empty-handed that often?
Yeah, I guess I do. Why even bother looking if there’s no chance of finding something to buy? I don’t even bother with Wal-Mart anymore, they’re stopped carrying so many toy lines that it’s not worth it. Well Target, looks like it’s just you and me, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be in this game. As insurance against my impending disinterest, I’ve split my annual recap into quarterly recaps so that I only have three months worth of material at most to finish off when I throw in the towel. The awards are still annual, if I make it that far. And now, The First Quarter of 2012: Waiting for Restock.
I considered blacking my web sites out today, but since I was the only person likely to visit them and I don’t need to be convinced that SOPA is a very bad idea, it seemed rather pointless. Instead, I thought it would be more productive to summarize why SOPA and legislation like it is a bad idea. The argument boils down to three main points:
1. Overly broad powers to block (censor) content are almost certain to be abused by government and/or corporate entities.
2. Altering the technical underpinnings of the Internet for political reasons without understanding how they work is likely to cause major problems for the flow of data, regardless of its perceived legitimacy. This, however, is likely to be routed around, leading to the third point:
3. Any effort to stop piracy with legislated technical measures is likely to be rendered ineffective by pirates almost instantly and will only inconvenience legitimate users (see also: Macrovision, CSS, etc.).
2008, 2009, 2010… Why I keep doing this is anyone’s guess. It’s been a frustrating year, with distribution (or lack thereof) making it difficult for grown men to spend money on toys. As the stores try to recover from yet another holiday shopping stampede, here’s a look back at 2011 in a meager 15,000 words (if you’re the TL;DR type, FO;DC).
2008, 2009, and now 2010. This year marks my tenth year since getting back into toy collecting, so screw the whole “when does the decade begin/end” argument, I’m going with 2001-2010 as my arbitrary decade boundaries. As such, here are a bunch of decade awards, mostly having to do with Transformers, since everything else has been a diversion during the times when the Transformers line has sucked. Much of this is just an excuse to rant about petty perceived injustices over the last ten years. The rest is a bunch of random text cleverly disguised as something with a point to it. Links are provided where appropriate; more links may be added at a later date.