In the shadow of New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a buck with a velvet rack picks his way across a steep hillside, followed by three does. Hearing a noise, the deer turn toward a meadow filled with oak trees and sunflowers that glisten like gold coins. A band of backpacking Boy Scouts stare wide-eyed at this moment of natural theater.
The scouts are from Troop 501 in La Canada-Flintridge, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. They've begun the first day of a trek at Philmont Scout Ranch, the 215-sq.-mi. wilderness near Cimarron, N. Mex., that is scouting's premier "high adventure" base. Months of training hikes, equipment checks and dieting for obese adult advisers have preceded this day. The hikers will trudge through dense forests, up and over 10,000-ft. mountain passes, pelted by daily thundershowers. Staff members at backcountry camps are decked out as miners, trappers and other frontier characters to provide history lessons and entertainment. The trek's success is measured by a unique scouting goal: Troop 501 must finish as a tight team in step with its weakest hikers.
Nationally, scouting faces an equally rugged journey. Like the 17,500 hikers who passed through Philmont this past summer, the highly traditional movement has been forced in recent years to shed some flab and check its compass. Static enrollments five years ago persuaded the national office in Irving, Texas, to commission a marketing study, which concluded that the Boy Scouts were dangerously out of step with post-1960s America; the public still imagined uniformed do-gooders who tie knots and help old folks across the street. One solution: the Scout Handbook was revised to show more minority scouts in action and offer advice on such off-campground problems as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, child abuse and how to resist sexual molesters.
A Philmont trek provides a deceptively casual scenario for such transition. Changing history is evident in the area's visitors. Spanish conquistadores and American pioneers passed through. Trekkers carrying side arms have included Kit Carson and, more recently, eagle scout and FBI Director William Sessions, who brought along pistol-packing bodyguards. In recent years women have become active in the formerly all-male backcountry. Two of 501's adult leaders are female, as are 20 of Philmont's 185 rangers who hike for two days with each group to help launch the trip successfully. Environmental pressures are being felt as well. While scouting enjoys a proud heritage of eco-awareness, Philmont was stunned to discover last year that its landfill violated New Mexico's updated waste-management laws. As a result, camping garbage now has to be carted 60 miles to nearby Taos.