Gear-Report

Yep. And altitude makes a BIG difference. Temps can vary quite a bit on any given day/night based on location on the ranch.

For me it isn't a question of "will it work". More like, what will work best. ie. What will reduced discomfort and increase enjoyment the most. I'm sure you could take all the stuff you listed. I wouldn't even begin to consider it, but you are the one that will have to carry and use it all. Do what makes you happy. My list of recommendations is here: http://gear-report.com/best-budget-backpacking-gear-philmont-boy-scouts Happy to answer any questions or explain my rationale, if it would be helpful for you. And I just posted an alternate cooking method for Philmont today: http://gear-report.com/best-alternative-philmont-cooking-method-backpacking-boy-scouts

Fantastic! Please share any feedback from your shakedown hikes and trek (jeff@gear-report.com). I'll update the page as new info comes in. In fact, I spent a fair amount of time updating it this evening. Now, to finish editing my pre-trek (shot in base camp) and post-trek (shot a couple of days after we returned from the trek) gear review videos...

That is what I thought. I actually had a frogg togs top and bottom, but found out a few days before we left that they just discourage ponchos... not ban them. I have yet to have anyone tell me WHY they don't like them. Clearly, I've used them twice and had a good enough experience that i would do it again.

That is a great list so far. The things you might consider: Coffee cup - I carried a collapsable Sea to Summit cup, but never used it. That was a wasted 2.4 oz. Every night I would finish my gatorade and refill my smellables bottle with water. Then I would put 2 packs of coffee, 2 packs of sugar and a pack of creamer (Philmont gives you all of these in little packets at the Crew Advisor's meeting in base camp before your crew hits the trail) in the bottle, shake it good, then send it up in the bear bag. By morning everything was thoroughly dissolved and ready to drink. I thought I would hate cold coffee, but on the trail there isn't really time to heat up water for hot coffee in the morning anyway. Or time to sip it as it cools. It worked out sooooo much better just drinking it cold. We stopped at a few staffed camps that had Advisor's coffee. They usually had a few spare mugs for advisors to borrow. I thought not having my cup was going to be an issue and didn't plan to take it. Shoved it in my bag at 3:30 am just before leaving for the airport. Should have left it at home. Rain Jacket and pants - I carried a poncho both times I went to Philmont and was glad I did both times. In a light rain I could put it on without taking off my pack... try that with a rain jacket and pants. Poncho is also way less clammy. AND my long poncho (extends in back for use over top of backpack) weighs 7.07 oz. Which is less than your rain jacket. No rain pants needed, saving 4.6 oz. Usually cheaper than a "good" rain jacket as well. I also went with a lighter, better ventilated wide-brimmed hat at 2.8 oz. I wore it almost all the time, as it shaded my face from the sun. I hung a light synthetic bandana down the back to shade my neck and shoulders. Looked a bit silly, but was absolutely fantastic. Do you really need a puffy and a fleece, and and wind jacket, and a rain jacket, and a fishing shirt? The RAB jacket has pit zips, right? I'd probably go with the RAB in place of the wind jacket and fleece. Or fleece and wind jacket in place of the RAB. The pit zips might be the deciding factor there. Pit zips are huge on the trail, especially on days where you are changing temperate zones as you ascend/descent, go in and out of tree cover or cloud cover, storms pass by, etc. I would also use the rain jacket or poncho in place of the wind jacket. Most folks seem to forget that they have their rain gear unless it is raining. But you can use it for windbreaker as well. No need to carry duplicate items. You can cut your ground cloth weight in half by using PolyCryo (heat shrink window film). It is cheap too. I don't know that the pack liner is worthwhile. I found that organizing everything in the main compartment of the backpack in dry sacks worked great on the trail. If you need to carry your phone, then you can skip the action camera. If phone isn't needed, then just take the action camera. I think 1 adult needs a phone per crew, but no more. It really sucks when you are hiking and someone talks on the phone for 20 minutes... ask me how I know. lol I had an action camera similar to the one you listed and 4 or 5 batteries. Left camp with all batteries and the 10,000 mAh battery pack charged. It was not enough. Solar panel helped, but still ran out about 9 days in. I would seriously consider just taking a 20,000 mAh battery pack and no solar panel. You might look at Wrightsocks. They have liner socks built in, which make them easier to deal with. The coolmax model are too thin, but their Escape socks are thick enough to hold up on the trail. *edit: You can cut the weight of your headlamp in half as well. I go into more detail on some of the stuff above here: http://gear-report.com/best-budget-backpacking-gear-philmont-boy-scouts Not trying to be lazy... just don't want to retype the WHOLE article. lol

We saw several of these guys on the trail. In every case they appeared to be 50 or older, overweight, and looked MISERABLE. Their crews were invariably either annoyed / bored as all get out from the slow pace and frequent stops, or had decided to just hike on and let the old guy catch up when he could. It was sad thinking of how much better the trip would have been for all of them if the adult would have packed smarter so as not to impose on the rest of the crew. Also heard about a variety of injuries in other crews from old guys trying to carry too much weight and keep up with 17 year olds. Blown out knees, torqued ankles, various slip and fall injuries. I was very aggressive at cutting my pack weight and it made a huge difference in how enjoyable the actual backpacking portion of the trip was. After 5 knee surgeries I just knew that every pound I added to my pack raised the likelihood that I would have a knee blow-out on the trail.

lol Packs are typically measured by volume.

Nope. 75 Liters. He was probably closer to 55-60Lb. Still way too heavy for us old, out of shape guys, but not 75 Lb.

Taking things that were bigger and heavier than necessary. For example, I think his 75L pack itself weighed 6.5 Lb empty. No one needs a 75L pack at Philmont, let alone one that is so heavy. Or taking things he just didn't need, like two trekking poles. He only used one and carried the other the whole trek. Or his mess kit that he hauled around, even though he only used the plate.

I carried a Z-Packs Arc Blast 60L pack that weighed 19.6 oz... about 1 Lb 4 oz... empty. We had a scout that spoke up as we were checking in to catch the bus to start our trek that he didn't have long pants for the conservation project. Yes, we had ID this in our shakedown hikes, our "bring your gear to the scout hut" shakedown, and the Philmont Ranger's shakedown... but the dude didn't want to take long pants, so he ignored it all. UNTIL his dad asked him on the walk from tent city to the bus pickup point which pair he had chosen (since dad had bought him 2 or 3 rather pricey new pair of pants to choose from). Of course, we were to be on the bus in 15 minutes, but his dad took off, dragging him to TToT to buy ANOTHER pair of pants (which the son wore for conservation, then Dad returned to TToT after the trek). Because our little delinquent was supposed to fill water bottles during that time I ended up covering that... and missed the chance to weigh my fully loaded pack. At least I'm not bitter about it. lol Anyhow, based on my spreadsheet of actual gear weights that I put together before leaving for the trek I was at 18.5 Lb before food and water. 25 Lb with 3.7 liters of water and I estimated around 36 Lb when we left base camp with 4 full days of Philfood (the most food we would carry on the trek). That includes all of our crew water filtration and crew water storage gear: Platypus 4L dirty water bag Platypus 4L clean water bag Sawyer cleaning plunger Platypus GravityWorks filter & hoses MSR Dromlite 6L bag MSR Dromedary 10L bag If we we knew we had easy water along the trail on any given day I would only carry 2 - 2.7 L of water. Especially on the days before resupply I was down around 28 Lb. I would have liked to have been lighter, but that weight worked OK for me. More info on our complete gear lists is available here: http://gear-report.com/best-budget-backpacking-gear-philmont-boy-scouts http://gear-report.com/best-budget-backpacking-gear-philmont-boy-scouts

None of the adults in our 2017 crew attended PASS at Philmont. One guy did it locally. I wish he would have gone to the real deal, as he filtered much of the info through his prior experiences, which were not remotely comparable. Short version, he ended up making a few poor gear choices based on false assumptions. We tried to reason with him, be he wouldn't listen. End result, we all had a good trek, but he said he would have been a lot more comfortable had he listened. I think spending time on actual Philmont trails during PASS would have brought a lot of clarity to him. The local PASS training just couldn't bridge that gap for him. Even though I've been to Philmont twice I would love to do PASS at the ranch. It would be a great experience, I'm sure. Too bad life and other commitments likely mean I'll never do it. Honestly, just hoping I can make at least one more trek before I'm done.

Let me know if you have any gear questions. I've documented everything my son and I carried, as well as some crew gear.

Thanks! Happy to be here.

Very cool! I have to admit to getting a bit nostalgic/sullen when I see people post about their upcoming treks. I think I would be quite happy to do a trek every year. So happy for everyone going, but sad that I am not. We were 716M in 2017. We experienced meaningful rain one afternoon/evening on the trail... trail day 10... so the 27th-ish. When we got back to base camp we heard that it had been rather intense rains EVERY afternoon during our trek. We heard it most days, saw the clouds and rain from afar many days, but just happened to be somewhere other than right under it nearly every time. It was pretty weird, actually. My prior trip was many moons ago in 1990 and we were 716. Got soaked EVERY afternoon on that trip.

We toured Villa Philmonte after our 2017 trek. That had us walking pretty close to the PTC. We also drove through the PTC before we hit the road headed home. In both cases we saw a lot more little kids/families roaming the PTC than expected. Looks like a great setup to me.