Hi Philmont 2021 Crew,

I am reaching out to schedule our first training hike for next Sunday, 8/30. Michelle has already begun to put together a monthly training plan, but she is on vacation this week and I wanted to get this on everyone's calendars before we all booked up.

We will be hiking the Hazel River & Sam's Ridge loop, which is a moderate hike in Shenandoah National Park..  The distance is a 6.7 miles and rated as moderate.  If you have the All Trails App, you can find the hike at this link (https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/us/virginia/hazel-mountain-via-hazel-river-and-sam-s-ridge-loop ).

As we lead up to Philmont, we need to condition our bodies to hike with weight.  I would recommend you bring a pack that is at least 25% the weight of the full pack you will be carrying at Philmont.  

Fully loaded packs should not exceed 30% of your body weight. If you weigh 100 pounds, your fully loaded pack would weight 30 pounds.  For this hike you would target to carry at least 7.5 pounds.  One liter of water weighs about 2.2 pounds, so most of the weight for this hike will probably be liquid, however you should also bring snacks and a bag lunch.

We will meet at Trailside Middle School at 7:00 am and will depart at 7:15 am.  It should take about 1 1/2 hours to reach the trailhead and we expect to return back to Trailside Middle around 2:00 pm.  

I will follow this up with a Troop Track Calendar event, if you could please go to the calendar event and RSVP, I would appreciate it.

YiS,

Mr. Anderson