O Philmont, where the waters say hello: Checking gear, fresh off the bus

"They're a good-lookin' troop," Mark Anderson, Philmont's director of program, observed after the members of Troop 353 had spilled out of their Gray Line bus. "Wearing their Class A's and everything." (The traditional khaki uniforms are optional at Philmont.) With his badge-spattered uniform and cheery demeanor, Anderson himself had the air of an overgrown Eagle Scout—which is exactly what he is.

I'd been expecting The Andy Griffith Show; what I saw was more like South Park. Troop 353, just arrived from Howard, Pennsylvania, had a bit more than the standard teenage allotment of zits and orthodontia. Six faces stared back at me, more bored than curious. They were accompanied by four of the troop's assistant scoutmasters. (There's something about a grown man in Boy Scout uniform that looks a bit bloated in any case, but collectively, these four had to add up to about half a ton.) The troop and its scoutmasters were to be led into the backcountry by ranger Julie Nguyen, a bright-eyed and relentlessly enthusiastic Oklahoma college student.

Hanging with the junior staff

Julie had already told me about what she and the other rangers called the "Camper Timmy" phenomenon. "Every crew's got one," she said. "He's the smallest or the youngest kid, the one who everybody else picks on. You can usually see pretty soon who it's going to be."

It didn't take long with Troop 353. "Let's get a move on, guys," one of the assistant scoutmasters was saying. "We gotta get over to the dining hall or we're gonna miss lunch. Are we all ready to go?"

"No!"

The emphatic naysayer was fumbling with his pack. He looked about 14 or so, with a face like some uncataloged species of small forest mammal: big panicky eyes and a quivering lower lip. On one sleeve of his uniform was a badge that said "Chaplain Aide."

"It's Corey again," groaned an assistant scoutmaster. "Will ya hurry it up?" He turned to me and rolled his eyes. "That's Corey."

Troop 353 walking the backcountry line

At 14, Corey Mills was the youngest Scout in the group. The oldest was Jeff Davidson, a strapping blond kid of 17 whom the others looked to as a leader. In fact, they'd elected him crew chief; he'd be in charge of our expedition once we got out on the trail. Jeff had been to Philmont before, three years ago; he'd come back, he said, because he wanted to show it to the younger guys, especially to his 15-year-old brother, Greg, who was also in the group. There was another pair of brothers along as well: Sean Diehl, 15, a high-spirited boy with the flat-topped crewcut and gap-toothed leer of a comic-strip bully, and his quieter 17-year-old brother, Ryan. Last in the group was Kevin Morrison, a frowning, bespectacled 15-year-old who'd already been on an exchange program to Ireland earlier in the summer. He said he'd come to Philmont because his parents made him.

Kevin was the only one whose dad hadn't come along as an assistant scoutmaster. Jeff and Greg's father, Ken, had taken time off from his job (at a trucking company), as had Sean and Ryan's father, Phil, who managed a construction firm. Corey's father, George, was a shipping manager at a yearbook publishing firm. Corey's uncle, Sam, was there too, on vacation from the accounting department of a chemical plant.

Julie looked like she was sizing the adults up, a bit skeptically. Philmont's staffers are forever rescuing wheezing dads from the backcountry. And Troop 353 had chosen an itinerary classified as "rugged," a 63-mile trek through both staffed and unstaffed campsites. The climax would be an ascent of 11,700-foot Mount Phillips—which would, George Mills told me excitedly, coincide with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. On our final night out, we'd camp in the shadow of the Tooth of Time, an immense, naked molar of dacite porphyry above base camp whose distinctive jagged profile was printed on all the patches, caps, and T-shirts at the trading post.