High-Adventure Week: Lose yourself (and find yourself) in the Philmont photo archive

HAW-TuesdayWant to go back to Philmont? Step into the time machine.

Philmont Scout Ranch has opened its vast archive of participant and staff photos to the public.

That means if you’ve participated in a Philmont program in the past quarter-century — cavalcade, traditional crew expedition, individual trek, Philmont Training Center or Philmont staff — your photo’s on there.

Viewing watermarked photos in the Philmont photo archive is free; buying a print or a high-res digital version will cost you $10 or $15, respectively.

The Philmont photo archive includes 2014 photos and goes back to 1988. Philmont says it’s working backward at a rate of about five summers per year.

So if you went to Philmont any time between 1965 (the year Philmont began saving participant and staff photo negatives) and 1987, be patient. Your photo will show up soon.

I was fortunate enough to go on two Philmont treks, first in 1999 and then again in 2002. I knew the dates our treks left (July 4, 1999, and June 26, 2002), so finding the photos took me about three minutes. That’s me on the far right in the photo above this post (see both photos below).

Philmont, which went all-digital with its participant and staff photos beginning in 2007, has scanned more than 100,000 photo negatives so far.

To find yours, check out the Philmont photo archive.

My trek photos

I enjoyed finding the photos from my two Philmont treks, first in 1999 and then in 2002. Look how much greener everything is in 1999. Philmont had been experiencing a serious drought during our 2002 trek, and you can tell when comparing the two photos taken three years apart from the same spot.

philmont-bryan-trek-1999-full philmont-bryan-trek-2002


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.