Philmont Scout Ranch - Cimarron, New Mexico

I first visited Philmont Scout Ranch on a backpacking trip as a member of a group from the Sherman Area Council, Boy Scouts of America in the summer of 1948. I returned to Philmont the summer of 1949 for a second two week trip. I worked at Philmont in the Junior Leader Training Program during the summers of 1951, 1952, 1953 and 1954 while I was in college. This program included backpacking with the training groups.

This September 1956 National Geographic Magazine article Philmont Scout Ranch Helps Boys Grow Up PDF describes Philmont as it was when I was there.

Philmont Scout Ranch is a ranch located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of the Rocky Mountains covering 140,177 acres (219 square miles) of wilderness in Colfax County, New Mexico, near the village of Cimarron.

It is about 20 miles west-northwest of Springer, New Mexico, and 35 miles southwest of Raton, New Mexico. Philmont's land area is about 12 miles across (east to west) at its widest point, and about 30 miles long (north to south).

When I was there the ranch was smaller. Donated by oil baron Waite Phillips, the ranch is owned and operated by the Boy Scouts of America. It is a National High Adventure Base where crews of Scouts and Venturers take part in backpacking treks and other outdoor activities.

Phillips sometimes allowed others, including a few Boy Scout troops, to visit his ranch. He was so impressed with the Scouts that in 1938, during the Great Depression, he donated 35,857 acres of his land to the Boy Scouts of America. His only condition was that the property be used "for the benefit of the members of the Boy Scout organization".

He donated a second, larger section of land later in the 1930s, requiring only that this section pay its fair share of taxes on any portion devoted to competitive commercial operations.

In 1941, Phillips added more Philmont property, including the Villa Philmonte, bringing the total to 127,395 acres. Contrary to popular belief, Phillips did not donate his entire ranch to the Boy Scouts, but only that portion of the property that provided the most recreational value. The total donation comprised about 40% of the ranch. To help fund maintenance of Philmont, he also donated the Philtower office building in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This 127,395 acres was the area encompassed by Philmont when I was there in the 1950's.

In 1963, vice-president of the National Council Norton Clapp contributed funds to purchase another 10,098 acres of land within the Maxwell Land Grant, consisting of the Baldy Mountain mining area.

In 2015, the Boy Scouts of America purchased 2,684 acres that was once operated as a camp called Cimarroncita Ranch.

In 1989, the Boy Scouts obtained a renewable special use permit to the Valle Vidal Unit of the Carson National Forest from the United States Forest Service. This allowed Scouts to hike and camp in the area.

Philmont operates three staffed camps—Whiteman Vega, Seally Canyon, and Ring Place—and two trail camps in that area. Those camps serve around 3,000 Scouts each summer. In return, each camper is asked to contribute three hours of conservation work in the Valle on projects approved by the Forest Service.

Rich Cabins, a historical farming cabin on Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch (which is adjacent to Philmont), is operated as a staff camp.

By land area, it is one of the largest youth camps in the world. During the season, between June 8 and August 22, an estimated 22,000 Scouts and adult leaders backpack through the Ranch's extensive backcountry. More than 1,130 seasonal staff are responsible for the Ranch's summer operations.

Philmont is also home to the Philmont Training Center, the National Scouting Museum and the Seton Memorial Library. The Training Center is the primary location for BSA's national volunteer training programs. Philmont is a working ranch, maintaining small herds of cattle, horses, burros, and bison.

The only documented Tyrannosaurus rex track in the world was discovered within the camp's boundaries in 1993 in North Ponil Canyon by the Anasazi Trail Camp. It was formally identified in 1994.

There are no mountains to the south or east of Philmont. The interior of the ranch is mountainous but a small part of the eastern area is prairie.

Philmont's lowest point is the southeast corner at 6,500 feet and the highest point is the peak of Baldy Mountain, located on the ranch's northwest boundary, at 12,441 feet. Aside from Baldy, the ranch contains a number of prominent peaks.

The South Country is home to a series of six difficult peaks, namely Mount Phillips, Comanche Peak, Big Red, Bear Mountain, Black Mountain, and Schaefers Peak, as well as Trail Peak, which is popular for its nearness to Beaubien, and the wreckage of the crash of a B-24 bomber in 1942 near its summit. Of the ranch's various peaks with trail access, Black Mountain is widely considered the most difficult, followed closely by Baldy and Big Red.

The most recognizable landmark is the Tooth of Time at 9,003 feet, a granite monolith protruding 500 feet vertically from an east-west ridge. Tooth of Time Ridge, and the latitude line on which it sits, marks the boundary between the central and southern sections of Philmont. The boundary between the central and northern sections is around U.S. Route 64, which runs just south of the narrowest part of the 'I'-shape, which is only a few miles across. Other prominent landmarks on the ranch include Grizzly Tooth, Window Rock, Deer Lake Mesa, Wilson's Mesa and Urraca Mesa.

The following is a mixed set of pictures related to Philmont Scout Ranch. Those which I took are labeled "Mountain Mouse Photo". These were taken 1951-54 while I was a Junior Leader Training staff member. Other pictures come from various sources which may or may not be shown./p>

Philmont Scout Ranch has a herd of about 150 North American Bison (aka Buffalo) in a pasture about 3 miles south of Cimarron on the west side of highway 21. I visited the herd with the long time manager who originally worked for Waite Phillips. He told us that the bison were so heavy that they could stand next to a pickup truck and butt it from a short distance and turn the truck over.

The original ranch house - Villa Philmonte - is a museum. The Boy Scouts of America National Training Center has been attached as an extension of the Villa. More information here.

Villa Philmonte 2013 Tour by Grant Vaugn - Excellent set of photos

The Philmont Training Center (PTC), located at the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico, has been the National Training Center of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) since 1950.

The PTC offers week-long training conferences from June through September for council, district, and unit volunteers, BSA professionals, and youth leaders with several conferences taking place each week.

The PTC also offers activities for family members including hikes throughout the week and a week-long backpacking program called a Mountain Trek for youth ages 14 to 20.

Kit Carson Museum at Rayado (also known at one time as Carson-Maxwell Base Camp) on Philmont Scout Ranch lies on part of a land grant given to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda by the Mexican government in 1841. Also known as the Maxwell Land Grant – Largest Land Grant in US History.

Mountain man Lucien Maxwell founded a colony on the grant on the Rayado River in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War as the first plains settlement in New Mexico east of the mountain valleys of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The area was far from secure due to marauding Apaches and Comanche, so Maxwell persuaded his friend Kit Carson to help provide security in 1849. Their ranch on the Rayado was visited by many traders traveling on the Santa Fe Trail.

Founder Lucien Maxwell left Rayado to found Cimarron in 1857, and his brother-in-law Jesus Abreu and family took over operations of Rayado Rancho.

Rayado, New Mexico – On the Santa Fe Trail

In 1950, the Boy Scouts of America built an adobe museum at Rayado to serve as an interpretive area to portray its history and recount the exploits of Maxwell and Carson. It was named in honor of Kit Carson.

Staff at the Kit Carson Museum dress in period clothing and demonstrate frontier skills and crafts like blacksmithing, cooking, shooting, and farming. Each room in the museum is outfitted with reproduction furniture and objects typical of New Mexico in the 1850s. The Rayado Trading Company, located at the museum, sells books, maps, reproduction tools and equipment, moccasins, and blankets.

The Kit Carson Museum is seven miles south of Philmont Camping Headquarters on NM Highway 21.

Here is an excellent set of pictures from a 2013 trip to Kit Carson Museum by Grant Vaughn.

Here is a collection of pictures on Google of the Kit Carson Museum at Rayado

Fish Camp - formerly known as Rayado Lodge, Fish Camp is the site of the three original hunting and fishing lodges of Waite Phillips, located in the South Country. The camp is interpretive, set in the year 1927, and features lodge tours, fly tying, and fly fishing. Fish Camp is notable as one of Waite Phillips's "favorite spots on the Ranch," according to son Chope who used to visit every year until he passed away in 2015.