07/02/2026
Twelve days, 140 miles, and 40-pound packs on our backs. If you want to test what a group of Scouts from Russellville is actually made of, drop them into the middle of 140,000 acres of rugged New Mexico wilderness at Philmont Scout Ranch and see what happens.
We just got back, and honestly, it’s hard to even put the last two weeks into words. We pushed our bodies from 6,000 feet all the way up to 12,441 feet above sea level. Every single day was a grind of heavy lifting, sore muscles, and unfiltered nature. But what this crew accomplished out there is something none of us will ever forget.
Looking back, the things we got to see and do still don't even feel real. We stood in a canyon and put our hands near an actual, confirmed T-Rex track left in stone millions of years ago. A few days later, we were down in the dirt with trowels at an active Puebloan archaeology site, pulling up pieces of pottery and tools that hadn't seen the sun since the 1200s. We got a taste of the old frontier too, swinging sledgehammers to build a railroad section, logging like mountain men by climbing 70-foot spar poles with iron spikes on our boots, and learning how to wrangle a stubborn pack burro we named Dale that absolutely had his own ideas about which way the trail went. We even gave back to the ranch, putting in the hard sweat to clear roots and roll boulders to build 150 feet of brand-new trail.
The elements didn't make it easy on us. We spent nights huddled in our tents while massive mountain thunderstorms rolled right over us, lightning cracking right above our heads. But the next morning, we’d be walking through peaceful valleys filled with thousands of aspen trees, or wading into South Ponil Creek to pan for gold. We got to shoot heavy black powder muzzleloaders that packed enough kick to bruise your shoulder and filled the air with sulfur smoke, and later went deep underground into the old Aztec Ponil II gold mine.
But the absolute peak of the trip was Mount Baldy. We woke up in the freezing cold at 1:00 AM, strapped on our headlamps, and left camp in the pitch black. Climbing up the loose shale of the Baldy slide at 12,000+ feet when you can barely catch your breath is pure mental warfare. Your legs burn, your lungs scream, and the wind is trying to knock you flat. We made it to the 12,441-foot summit just as the sun cracked over the horizon, painting the entire Rocky Mountain range in gold. Standing up there together made every painful step worth it.
Behind all the highlights was the daily exhaustion of keeping ourselves alive. We were burning nearly 4000 calories a day, we drank 37+ liters of water just to stay hydrated in the dry air. And every night, we had to hoist 150 pounds of "smellables" and food high into the air on bear wires so we didn't wake up to a black bear sharing our tents.
We came back to Arkansas with ruined boots, sunburns, a lot of blisters, and minds completely changed. Incredibly proud of Crew 182. We left Russellville as a group of individuals, but we came back as an unbreakable team.
