Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Philmont Scout Camp Death of 13yr old Scout

Like Mark just said, you'd have to know the place.

The fact that the common (American) term FLASH FLOOD is in play would indicate that the actual rainfall took place up slope.

"Presume" away,....I'm outta' here, and apologies again for disrupting what should have a certain degree of patient and appropriate reverence / solemnity.

GTC

Greg, my point was that if even an experienced local was on hand and the campsite was deemed safe, this tragic flood musta truly been a freak occurrence.

It's been 24 years since the last of my 3 trips to Philmont but I believe the Ponil Canyon area is used as starting camps. A Ranger is with each crew for 3 days. Rangers are summer staff members but are experienced Scouts and have usually worked at Philmont in some other capacity. Plus they get training.

The area gets a lot of use each day, campsites are pretty much established. So there has probably been thousands of people in that campsite over the years without incident.

Freak storm, freak accident. No way to prepare.

Dale

Well said.

I am very sorry to hear of the young Scout's tragic death. It sounds like such a freak accident and given that the violent thunderstorm occurred miles away in the mountains in the middle of the night, no one is to blame.

I attended Philmont in 1950, along with my older brother. Believe me, things were much more primitive there then, than today. I do remember that with distant mountains, a rain storm there might never have been known to us.... until the small creeks suddenly rose dangerously.

My condolences to the Scout's family.

L.W. (Eagle Scout, 1952.)

If no one noticed it in the article.... the flash flood came thru camp at 4:30 AM.....

They were 20 feet or so above the normal stream bed, but the flash flood supposedly was 23 feet above the stream beds normal flow....

Just like those of us that were at Ed's East Texas Campfire Get2Gether, on Friday night, we got hit instantly by a tornado literally right above us, and it set down on the ground about 250 yds or so from where we all were outside by Ed's House...

I myself had a near miss of a tree trunk falling on me, by inches... if I would have been on step to my right, It would have taken me out, and probably killed me instantly...that was a sobering experience, let me tell ya...

I am sure there boys were huddled in their tents and trying to get some sleep with all the rain, with NO CLUE that a flash flood could happen... I am sure even the camp staff with them had no clue.... first thing they knew it was on them...

that was what happened to us at Ed's Place...wham, it was there, in all its fury...

I submit that you attacked me with vituperation initially, because your reduced IQ percieved from my post i did not properly express my sorrow and condolences over the situation.

Well mister, stick your vituperation where the sun dont shine and forget having the idea your IQ can guess the amount of sorrow in my mind.

I'm sorry eyeball, but hunting the next door ranch isn't the same as being there. Having been raised in the area, and hunting the ES Barker area, some of them canyons are so deep you can barely see the top of one close ridge, much less several miles away.
It is a tragedy to lose someone so young to a freak accident like this. Maybe you should keep opinions to a minimum when you have no idea of the exact circumstances or events. Try being more compassionate and less judgemental. I hate to disagree with you, but in this area the storms can move very fast and be very violent. And spending a hunting season or two does not really define a worthwhile knowledge of the area.

I lost my nephew almost 3 years ago in a car accident. It's easy to blame and question when someone is lost. As close as we were, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him and the times that I shared while either coaching him on the fields, or just spending time with him fishing.

Prayers go out to everyone involved and hurting now and forever more.

I know a bit about that country, and both of my sons have worked multiple summers at Philmont. The reality is that in a canyon like Ponil, the weather that causes the flood need not be anywhere nearby, but can be ten miles or more from the flood site, totally invisible from inside the canyon. From what I know about this incident, the boys were camped in an established campsite, some 20 feet or more above the level of the canyon floor. That site had always been safe before. Professional staff out there take great care to put campsites in safe locations, keeping in mind the environmental conditions and the lack of familiarity of the visiting scouts and leaders from across the country.

It's awfully easy for someone who wasn't there to sit back and do the Monday morning quarterbacking on something like this. You can scream for accountability and the pound of flesh all you want to, but none of that will bring back that young man. It truly was a fluke of nature.

We all feel terribly for family and the troop or crew.

fixed,.... you fellows ignore this creep's disrespectful, and interminable ranting.

GTC

I know people who stayed at that campsite and said the same thing. It had been an active site for years & years.

Why do some people always want to assign blame for an unfortunate accident that they have no facts about?