Flood of 1965

AUGUST 2015 VOLUME 38, SPECIAL ISSUE PAID NM ® Permit 8 T HE M A G A ZINE OF THE P HILMONT S TA FF A SSOCI ATION ® CIMARRON HIGH COUNTRY U.S. POSTAGE Non-Profit Organization check us out! www.philstaff.com Mission unites (PSA) Association Staff Philmont The and present— staff—past Philmont the adventure, purpose of serving the the for Scout Ranch heritage and experience of Philmont Boy Scouts of America. and the Our Mission Bridge over Urraca Creek 17 DEER RUN ROAD CIMARRON NM 87714 washed out in the 1965 flood. HIGH COUNTRY®—VOLUME 38, SPECIAL IssUE AUGUST 2015 ED PEASE, EDITOR introduction MARK DIERKER, LAYOUT EDITOR in this issue RANDY SAUNDERS, AssOCIATE EDITOR This isn’t what we originally planned. through the North Ponil, doing BILL CAss, COPY EDITOR major damage and taking the life DAVE KENNEKE, STAFF CONTRIBUTOR High Country followers read in the of a young Scout from Califor- KEVIN “LEVI” THOMAS, CARTOONIST “regular” August 2015 issue of the nia. We felt that we needed to CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: ROBERT BIRkbY, DAVID CAFFEY, 3 introduction magazine: cover that story with as much BILL CAss, GREGORY HObbs, WARREN SMITH , MARK STINNETT, MARY STUEVER, STEPHEN ZIMMER material as we could gather the week of Readers of High Country know quickly and responsibly. Espe- CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: CATHY HUBBARD LEE HUCKSTEP that we have solicited stories cially in these days of instan- COLLEEN LESTER JASON MASCITTI DAN MILLER 6 Mark Stinnett LARRY MURPHY MARK STINNETT about “The Summer of ‘65” for taneous social media, both the 8 Darrel Kirkland much of the past year. It was PSA’s leadership and Philmont © 2015, THE PHILMONT STAFF AssOCIATION, INC. our intention to make the fiftieth Ranch management wanted to ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. HIGH COUNTRY® IS THE OFFICIAL 12 Phil Yunker MAGAZINE OF THE PHILMONT STAFF AssOCIATION® 14 Joseph Zinkiewicz anniversary of that momentous be sure that information from event the focus of this [the regu- the Ranch was as accurate as it 14 Darrel Kirkland lar August issue] issue of High could possibly be. PHILMONT STAFF ASSOCIATION® 16 Dana Edwards BOARD OF DIRECTORS Country. 20 Darrel Kirkland So, we shifted gears, did our regular JOHN MURPHY, PRESIDENT Two things changed that plan. August issue of the magazine and COLLEEN NUTTER, VICE PRESIDENT, MEMBERSHIP 21 Richard Walters TIM ROSSEISEN, VICE PRESIDENT, SERVICE added a special edition devoted exclu- ADAM FROMM, SECRETARY 22 David Caffey First was the abundance of ma- sively to the Summer of ’65, which you MATT LINDSEY, TREASURER terial that we received. While now hold in your hands (or see on your NATIONAL DIRECTORS: AMY BOYLE, KEN DAVIS, BRYAN most of the writing about that monitor). DELANEY, CATHERINE HUBBARD, LEE HUCKSTEP, DR. subsequent accounts DAN MILLER, STEVE RICK summer focused on the flood The idea for this more comprehen- REGIONAL DIRECTORS: NORTHEAST - KATHLEEN SEITZ, that ravaged Rayado Canyon, sive review came from Phil Yunker, RICK TOUCHETTE 28 Tom Gibson the impact of the event was Camp Director at Fish Camp in 1965, in CENTRAL - MITCH STANDARD, PHIL WINEGARDNER 35 Denny Dubois SOUTHERN - ANNE MARIE PINKENBURG, DOUG WAHL felt throughout the Ranch and an E-mail to Lee Huckstep, PSA Board WESTERN - NANCY STICKELMAN, MICHAEL WAGGONER 40 Warren Smith/Marty Tschetter we wanted to capture those member, following the first “call for JIM LYNCH, IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT 50 Darrel Kirkland stories, too. And, the impact submissions.” In part, his E-mail said: MARK ANDERSON, PHILMONT STAFF ADVISOR of the event was felt for years EX OFFICIO MEMBERS: EMERY CORLEY, LEGAL ADVISOR, years later afterward, in the way Philmont Though the Fish Camp flood DOUGLAS FASCHING, TECHNOLOGY MANAGER approached health and safety, was certainly momentous, and RANDY SAUNDERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 54 Joe Gallagher food management and distribu- significant because of the loss of DOLLIE O’NIELL, OFFICE MANAGER 55 Don Wilson tion, and conservation, to name one of the original cabins, there 59 Ned Gold just a few. We wanted – and we is a greater story: the Philmont received – stories from those floods of 1965, of which Fish PSA® FELLOWS 64 Joe Davis perspectives as well. Camp was only a part. It hap- BOB HARVEY FELLOW 67 Bruce Embury pened all at once. At the opening PAUL AND MARY JANE HARVEY 69 Jim Leach Second was the terrible reality of the season in 1965, the floods GLENN A. FOWLER FELLOW that, in this fiftieth anniversary that day and night paralyzed BRUCE BARNES year of Philmont’s worst flood, Philmont for two weeks. Cimar- GEORGE A. BULLOCK FELLOW WILLIAM D. BRYCE the Ranch was hit by one per- ron was cut off – all roads into haps even larger (at press time, Cimarron were washed out. The JOE DAVIS FELLOW BILL CASS Cover photo by Denny Dubois evaluations and assessments NM National Guard was called are still under way) that raced in. Groups of Scouts headed to JOHN A. MAXBAUER, JR. FELLOW ANONYMOUS VOLUME 38, SPECIAL IssUE— AUGUST 2015 VOLUME 38, SPECIAL IssUE— AUGUST 2015 2 introduction 3 Philmont had to be contacted en him into the middle of things. None route and turned back. Several of this surprised me, for I had known of Philmont’s creeks and riv- of Phil and his family since my earliest ers flooded and washed away days as a Tenderfoot. Older than me, many trails. The worst were the he served on the staff at the Wabash Rayado, the North Fork Uracca, Valley Council’s Camp Krietenstein just the North Fork Cimarroncito, and as I was getting started in the program the Cimarron. Ray Bryan, Direc- there in the early 1960s. He and his high the week of tor of Philmont Properties, came school buddies were the guys that all of dangerously close to running out us 12-year-olds wanted to be: out- of pipe tobacco while awaiting doorsmen, gregarious, charming with rescue at Beaubien, a serious a dash of bravado, and wearing the situation. He and Duke Towner coolest sunglasses imaginable. Like his rationed what they could dry out father before him (a star in our council over the fire. Joe Davis had begun and a friend of my father), he was a his Philmont assignment only two legend on camp staff, and the legend months previously. only grew when he left Camp K for his summers on the Philmont staff. Yunker was right, of course, that de- That spirit of selfless service under spite the recollections and myths about the tan of a guy who just looked good the Summer of ’65, the overwhelm- in a Scout uniform was what sustained ing majority of which focused on Fish Phil and so many others like him that Camp, the impact of the flooding was summer so long ago. It was there be- broader than the physical in Rayado fore they arrived in the staffs that pre- Canyon and broader still, program- ceded them, and it is alive today in the matically, over the years. What struck current manifestations of a continuum me about his E-mail, though, was not of Philmont staff which constitutes the the substance, but that it came from the best there is in Scouting. one Philstaffer who, after Joe Davis, Their stories follow in this anthol- was most personally identified with ogy. Rather than attempt to write a the flood, the one most often noted and unified narrative – a project which quoted through the years, the one who would have in effect constituted actually WAS the Camp Director at Fish writing a book – we decided instead Camp that so many others purported simply to collect as broad an array of to be as the years rolled on. If his focus stories and subjects as we could, and were on himself, he could have just print them as they were written. That let things go as they had for so many necessarily means that there will be years; his would be the name most some overlap or duplication in content, often remembered. but we thought that capturing these But his focus wasn’t on himself – stories exactly as those who lived them which is why he fit precisely in the tra- remembered them was worth it. dition of the best of the Philmont staff We hope that you will agree. and why it was fortuitous for so many that he occupied the leadership role Ed Pease that he did when circumstances thrust Editor VOLUME 38, SPECIAL IssUE— AUGUST 2015 VOLUME 38, SPECIAL IssUE— AUGUST 2015 4 introduction the week of 5 Thunder on the Rayado Reprinted from the June 2005, High system developing and then “parking” Country itself over the eastern slopes of the Colorado and New Mexico mountains for the next Introduction by Mark Stinnett several days. The weather station in Raton Contributing Editor recorded almost ten inches of rainfall for the period of June 15-17. How much actually Before fires raged across the North Coun- fell in Philmont’s backcountry isn’t truly try in 2002, and perhaps still, the greatest known, but it seems certain that it was natural disaster to strike Philmont was much more than that. The resulting runoff the devastating flood of 1965. Between wasn’t large. It was torrential. June 15 and June 17, massive rains fell For almost a century, the U.S. Geo- on the Philmont backcountry— by some logical Survey has monitored streamflow estimates, as much as 18 inches. throughout New Mexico at various “gag- Although floods from this storm system ing stations” like those we’ve all seen on affected a large area and resulted in disas- our Philmont maps for decades.

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