Philmont - trips, shakedowns, advice

Philmont 2015 Shakedown to Loyalsock-Link Trail in Aug 2014
1) we found that the advice on parking was not good advice - parking at World's End State Park office is the best solution. Other parking spot are marked "Permit Only" and you must need to get county approval for parking overnight now
2) the ranger at the park advised taking the Loyalsock trail out of the Park as it is very steep and hard to come down that way. We found he was correct and tired ourselves out climbing up with our hands, although we realized we had left the trail! A short bushwhack got us back to the trail, but it was still very steep.
3) we hiked about 3 miles in to the first campsite, right near a creek. There weren't many good spots to tent, however
4) the next day we hiked to a pond with many excellent campsites, where we had our lunch. Then on to campsites next to the Loyalsock Creek which were excellent. The boys got to wade in the creek and we had a nice night
5) On Sunday we planned to hike 3 miles or so to Haystacks in the morning as it had rained and was still raining lightly in the morning. We were hoping the rain would stop and the tents could dry a bit while we did the short hike. One of our scouts was really dragging, however, and said his stomach wasn't feeling well. He also was hobbling, so we stopped and found he was also getting bad blisters. A good reason to do these shakedowns early! He went back with another scout and a leader while the rest of us pressed on down a shallow slope until about a 1/3 mile from Haystacks where the trail was very steep down. Haystacks was a bunch of big "Haystack" shaped boulders in rapids. We had a short religious service there,  which was nice. There is a very nice campsite there, but might be difficult with the steep path. But we realized it would be nice to camp there.
6) when we got back to the campsite, we had lunch and checked in our ill scout. The leader said his feet looked awful and that the scout was probably done for hiking. After lunch it rained more and we had already decided to just have the drivers get the cars by walking along a road. We got the cars and returned to pick up the rest of our crew just before the big rains arrived :)

In review:
Loyalsock-Link trail is an excellent loop as a shakedown. Haystacks is nice, but the campsites next to the creek near the bridge are fine and the scouts thought Haystacks wasn't worth the hike after wading in the creek on Saturday at the excellent campsites farther up. We didn't finish the Link trail, but part of it was washed out anyway and you had to take the road at that point. I had called the Natural resources for Loyalsock Forest, but they were not very informative. The Ranger came on Saturday as the sites next to the river are for only a night for backpackers. He told us that the trail was out and that there had been a bear at the houses nearby the weekend before! So bear bags are important.

Lessons learned:
1) buy food with scouts for backpacking trips - we had our scout buy squeeze vegetable/fruit bag things that weighed 4oz each. His lunch was a pound a piece. I had wondered why when I carried a tent it seemed lighter than carrying the food!
2) be prepared to change plans on the fly
3) teach the boys about how to avoid blisters BEFORE the trip. This wasn't a big problem with our crew in 2012, so it was a surprise. Apparently there are toe socks, wrapping in medical tape, vaseline and many other solutions. I found liner sock solved all my issues, but the scout had brought liner socks and was wearing them.
4) the early shakedown was good because we got 10 of the 11 people going to Philmont to attend, so we got a good feel for each other early on. With our 2012 crew, we did not have any trip where we had that many.
5) make sure scouts aren't bringing their own food. The scout who felt ill had brought packages of Gatorade which he had drunk freely of the day before. It could be he had too much Gatorade

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