Me, Myself, and Jed

Doing some writing on days off. Taken at “The Res” with Cathedral Rock in the background. 7/11/16

Apologies for the late update. I’ve actually been pretty busy.. and when I’m not working, I’m usually pretty tired.

Let’s see.. I left off at Day 8 of my summer. Right now it’s around Day 55. I knew I’d have to make more sporadic updates once I started work.. but not this spread out. Oh well. I’ll start with the basics: my job.

Philmont is a massive property owned by the Boy Scouts of America. Think near-national park sized. Crews formed from Scout troops and Venturing groups from all around the country (and some international) come to Philmont to go on 12 day backpacking trips. It’s a pretty massive operation. There’s a Base Camp, as well as ~95 backcountry camps for participants to go through. The visiting crews start in base camp, then spend the rest of their time hiking from camp-to-camp out in the backcountry.

Of those roughly 95 backcountry camps, 35 are staffed. Each staffed camp has anywhere from 3–12 staff on site at a time to provide a program of some sort. Programs could be shooting, search and rescue, astronomy, blacksmithing, or plenty of other options. Many of the 35 staffed camps are considered “interpretive”. This means that the staff will dress in period appropriate attire (1800s-early 1900s depending on the camp) with which ever program they’re providing. My camp, Ponil is a western lore camp. Our year is 1883, and we provide shooting, horseback riding, and other “old west” things. I play the character “Jed”. Jed is an uneducated ex-miner from North Carolina. I don’t think there’s actually any pictures of me as Jed yet, but I’m sure some will surface.

Metcalf Station, A backcountry staffed camp performing their nightly show. Metcalf is a early 1900s Railroading Camp. 6/10/16

I’m the Backcountry Trading Post Manager at Ponil. In camp, we have a small shop where participants can restock on supplies, or buy gear if they’ve lost/broken anything. My job is to handle all sales, keep track of inventory, place orders when needed, keep the store clean, and to coordinate the transfer of acquired currency to base camp. The job itself is a healthy mix of “things people look for on a resume” and “escaping the real world”.

We have power at Ponil, which is nice. We don’t have cell service or internet, which is also kind of nice.

Here’s what I do each day:

6:30 am Wake up
7:00 am Breakfast
8:00 am–12:00 pm Trading Post is open
12:00 pm-1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 pm-5:00 pm Trading Post is open
5:00 pm-6:00 pm Free time (running/napping rotation)
6:00 pm Dinner
7:00 pm-7:15 pm Trading Post is open
7:30 pm-8:15 pm Nightly Cantina show by staff
8:30 pm-9:00pm Accounting paperwork/misc. other tasks

So there’s a quick introduction on my life this summer. The purpose of this post was to give you all a framework for upcoming posts. They will be pretty confusing without a baseline understanding of what I actually do. Fear not, the crazy stories are coming, and I have plenty.