Author: Kendra (Page 2 of 18)

This interesting phrase caught my eye when reading the other day. When I first read it, I found my brain automatically going to the laboratory. The Manhattan Project must’ve had an official “Los Alamos Organization & Procedure”, right? There’s probably a procedure manual on every desk today. Or, I suppose it’d be located on a hard drive these days. But surely LANL would need plenty of organizational procedures.

I’m sure they did and still do. But that particular phrase actually referred to something Fermor Church and Lawrence Hitchcock came up with to describe the summer camp at the Los Alamos Ranch School. In reading about the way camp was set up and run, I couldn’t help but contrast it to modern summer camp experiences.

The Three Trip Summer Camp

I’ve talked before about the big overnight pack trips at camp and at the Ranch School in general. In my post about the Los Alamos Diamond Hitch, I discussed plenty about the why of summer camps at Los Alamos. It was primarily financial. And honestly, a good bit of the “how” of summer camps at the ranch school can be credited to the structure of Boy Scouting. Scouting was really developing during that time and Connell required every summer camper to be registered for scouting. In 1919 Connell wrote a letter to one parent stating, “All of our boys are expected to become Scouts the first month of camp. I have just discovered…that [your son] is the only one who has made absolutely no effort to do so. I have told him that he will have to be prepared before tomorrow or he cannot go on the long trip.”

The “long trip” was the final camping trip of the summer camp season. A two week trek by horseback with pack train across the Espanola Valley to the Pecos. If you have ever looked at a map of our region, you might be able to imagine just how grueling that trip would be. On their return, the boys would stop in Santa Fe to enjoy a dance given by the Girl Scouts before heading back to the ranch school.

Scouting provided a list of necessary skills for outdoor survival, a method for learning them, and milestones to track progress. It also provided the ranking and organizational system that would become the heart of the Los Alamos Organization and Procedure.

Hard Life Lessons

Summer camp students, like school year students, were assigned to one of three patrols. Spruce Patrol was reserved for the older and more experienced boys. Pine Patrol was made up of boys with an intermediate range of skills. Fir Patrol was made up of young boys at least 12 years old and up. Patrols were assigned at the beginning of the camp season. From there, a ranking list would come out before each of the three trips. Between trips the boys would earn as many scouting awards and new skills as possible in order to get the best ranking prior to the upcoming trip.

Ranking lists could be changed during the pack trips depending on development and accomplishment of the boys. For the most part rankings determined who was boss of smaller groups within the patrol. There was a rank for everything, even who was boss between the two boys assigned to each tent. Jobs were assigned and lists were posted before the patrols left the ranch school on their trips. At the end of the summer, the staff would hand out awards based on attitude and accomplishments during the summer trips. Awards could be “best camper”, “cleanest tent”, best horseman, “best fisherman”, “best trail cook”, and so on. One kiddo got an award for “best camper” because Connell “bawled him out” all summer long and he never complained to staff, the other campers, or his parents. That sort of suggests what was valued in a camper. I wonder how modern teenaged boys would stack up?

Modern methods would suggest letting the boys “work out who is in charge” because we tend to hope that our kids develop leadership skills in a loosely structured environment. But then, “modern” methods would likely be shocked at the idea of sending 12 year olds with a group of twenty something fresh college graduates miles and miles over rough terrain via horseback where if someone got a snakebite it was likely to end in amputation of the limb at a minimum. There were no helicopter rescues, ambulances, or GPS beacons. If your child didn’t follow the rules, he was toast!

Motivational Pep Talks or Full Metal Jacket?

In 1942, Camper Bill Carson wrote home to tell his parents that during morning announcements, “every boy in the camp was told his faults and what he should do to improve”. AJ Connell was very vocal on his ideas that this was the ultimate way to change boys into men. How are men to improve themselves if nobody ever tells them what they’re doing wrong after all? Connell believed that selfishness was the worst fault a boy could have. Connell told the boys that selfishness was rampant in the world and it was their job to work against it.

Some of Connell’s comments seem right on. Others not so much. I think it’s difficult to digest some of these ideas because they’re from such a long time ago and a very different “world”. If my kiddo came home and told me of such a thing happening at school or at summer camp, I’d probably be on the phone to the director to ask why on earth someone was shaming my kid in public!

And yet, in 1930 Connell sent a young man home from summer camp and told his parents, “[Your son] has been…extremely disobedient, which has resulted in one accident, fortunately not as serious as it might have been. Against absolute orders plainly announced to all, and after being reminded by one of the boys, he insisted on trying to ride and jump a horse that was assigned to another boy, resulting in the horse kicking one of the boys and inflicting a painful injury. In a camp of this kind disobedience is dangerous.” Connell went on to add, “it is very seldom that I have dismissed boys from the camp…only…in cases where necessary for the protection and safety of the boys entrusted to me.”

Perhaps it’s tough to remember that a summer camp experience like the one offered at Los Alamos was a privilege for boys in the early 1900’s. It was the sort of privilege that had to be respected by following rules set out to protect everyone involved. Not just the boys, but the staff, the livestock, and the land.

In 1925 a former camper applied for a military commission in the early days of WWII. Ranch School Master Fermor Church sent camp records with a letter of recommendation that stated: “He made a very good camper and received valuable instruction in caring for himself and equipment under mountain conditions, in the New Mexico Rockies. The camp work stressed discipline, leadership, and general responsibility of both the individual and the group.” It’s such a simple statement without flowery language and yet what a reference in support of a young man who had goals of being in charge of a military unit!

Think about modern reality shows like “Survivor” or “The Amazing Race”. My belief is that the ranch school campers would’ve survived “Naked and Alone” far more successfully than the folks picked for that experience to date. Connell would’ve had them making loincloths out of moss and tree sap!

Lawrence Sill “Hitch” Hitchcock

It seems as though this hypothesis was proved true by a man the campers and students called “Hitch”. Pond and Connell recruited him from Yale where he’d just completed his bachelors degree. He was a Classics scholar, not an outdoorsman. In 1930 he attended the American School for Classical Studies in Rome. He came to the Los Alamos Ranch School because he thought the idea sounded exciting. I suppose you could probably consider him like one of the Greek classical heroes. Traveling to the ‘wild west’ from the ‘civilized’ East Coast area where he’d grown up.

From 1919 until 1943 Hitch taught most of the classes at Los Alamos. His teaching passion was always Latin and he served as headmaster from 1927 until 1943. Once the job at LARS was no longer available due to the Manhattan Project, Hitch went into full time military service. Pond and Connell had always encouraged their school masters to continue their education. After beginning at LARS, Hitch got a masters degree in 1936 in Classics, also from Yale. He studied at the University of Chicago, and he was in the US Army Training Corps and the Army Reserves. That East Coast boy embraced everything the West had to teach him and kept going in the best of ways!

Eventually Hitch continued to be critical to just about everything. He was an Army Colonel and eventually served as the Army Secretary General for a time. He was part of the Inter-American Defense Board and the CIA. He even helped to supervise the construction of CIA headquarters at Langley! Plus, he was a board member of the Los Alamos Foundation from 1940 to 1973 because, as most of us locals have figured out, Los Alamos gets under your skin and becomes an intrinsic part of who you are.

The Real Traditions of Los Alamos

I think what has begun to fascinate me is the long standing tradition of education, outdoor enjoyment, tenacity, resilience, and passion that have always been part of this place. Our modern minds tend to focus so closely on the LANL part of our history. But people have been drawn to this area since before the first settlers in Frijoles Canyon started living in and around the ruins we now call Bandelier. Los Alamos challenges us. And maybe sometimes these challenges change over the years, but they still exist and they still bring us to this place where a good number of us fall in love with the region and never want to leave!

If Los Alamos is calling your name, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl who loves all of the unique and sometimes unexpected things that come with life in Los Alamos. I’d love to chat real estate and life on the Pajarito Plateau with you! If you’d like to read more about the history of the Ranch School, my quotes come directly from John D Wirth and Linda Harvey Aldrich’s book, “Los Alamos: The Ranch School Years 1917-1943”. You can find it at the Historical Society’s website or in the museum at Fuller Lodge. If you haven’t been there, please stop by and visit!

As the parking lot in front of our Re/Max First office fills with out of state license plates, I’ve been continually surprised by the distance which some folks travel to come play tourist in our very remote city on the hill. Not that all out of state cars belong to tourists. We have quite a variety of residents here in Los Alamos. I’ve worked with buyers from cities on almost every continent at this point. Our National Laboratory recruits minds from all over the globe in the name of scientific collaboration. But post docs, visiting scientists, and guest lecturers don’t generally have the same look as your run of the mill tourist.

Sure. Tourism here in Los Alamos got a boost from the recent Oppenheimer film. But I started thinking about tourism in general. When I was reading some research materials for last week’s blog post about Camp Hamilton, I ran across a reference to something called the “See America First!” campaign. This campaign was said to have helped the original owner/operator of Camp Awanyu (later Camp Hamilton) grow his business offering automobile tours of the Pajarito Plateau. So, I started looking around for what this “See America First!” campaign was all about.

Turns out it isn’t necessarily called that. The campaign was more of a movement, and the timing was heavily influenced by the Panama-California (also called Panama Pacific) Exposition in 1915. The Exposition was a 600 acre fair that covered 2.5 miles of San Francisco waterfront to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal. But that’s on the West Coast. In the early 1900s a LOT of our population was mostly centered on the East Coast and in the South.

The OTHER thing going on was the expansion of a National Highways and Byways system. Most of us are familiar with Route 66. We also see plenty of signs in the Santa Fe area about the National Historic Roadways or National Historic Trails because the Santa Fe Trail is a pretty big deal in American History, right? In 1912, The National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. It was 3,096 miles long and stretched from the New York City/Baltimore, Maryland area to San Franciso, California. Eventually this “official” roadway was decommissioned and the Western portion became part of Route 66. Looking at the map below (you can find a version of this map HERE), it becomes pretty obvious why Camp Awanyu and the Pajarito Plateau became a great place to stop and see the wild and beautiful scenery of the Southern Rocky Mountains. There’s literally nothing else around!

Something else that drives tourists up the winding switchbacks of our Main Hill is the very long habit of people living in the US to plan domestic vacations. If you spend much time talking to folks from outside the US, you’ll find that they take their “holidays” in countries other than their own. When Americans leave the Lower 48, it seems like they’re usually headed to Alaska or Hawaii. A lot of that has to do with timing and geography. The United States is HUGE! You could spend a lifetime traveling inside our borders without seeing it all. Many Americans never bothered with a passport and plenty of Americans have lived and died in this country without ever having one.

I was rather surprised to learn that part of the “See America First!” campaign was literally designed to make that a long standing American tradition. According to Marguerite Schaffer’s book, “See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940”, there was a growing trend of “upper middle class” folks having enough time and income to travel. As you can imagine, it became a concern of railroad owners, car makers, and domestic businesses that Americans would use their leisure time and money to travel to Europe. A marketing campaign got rolling and then the Parks Service got involved in 1920 when advertising began to convince the general public that National Parks were also a National Asset.

Considering Los Alamos is a small town literally stranded in the middle of three enormous National Parks, I suppose WE are also a National Asset. Not that any of us had a doubt…

This idea of traveling within the continental United States was said to promote nationalism and a sense of American identity. But the widespread ownership of cars took that concept to the next level! Instead of going on a train to a specific destination, driving your own car to a vacation destination allows you to experience a new place in unique ways. You see parts of the rural countryside you’d never see if you were headed to a train station. The same holds true for air travel. Have you ever “flown through” a city without actually experiencing any of the local flavor? It’s hard for us to imagine what it would have been like to have NEVER driven your own car through a rural town or viewed sights like the wind turbines and oil rigs all over Texas and Oklahoma from the window of your family car or van.

Put in this context, it seems obvious that a place like Camp Awanyu would become a hot vacation destination in the early 1900s. It must have been like a trip to Mars for those East Coast visitors. Riding in an open seven passenger vehicle up the twisting road to Buckman Mesa before climbing all over prehistoric ruins? I can’t begin to imagine how cool that must’ve been! Probably just a shade cooler than it is now.

Visitors and tourists come to Los Alamos everyday, but some of us have the opportunity to enjoy everyday life here in Los Alamos! When you’re ready to chat about buying or selling your dream home in Los Alamos, give me a call!

There’s a lot of talk in town about Camp May. I did a post on it a few weeks ago and you can visit that HERE. But Camp May wasn’t the only staging area used by the Los Alamos Ranch School for fun outdoor adventures. Camp Hamilton was more well known by the boys than Camp May and the cabin at Camp Hamilton eventually became part of the Ice House during the Manhattan Project. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

If you Google Camp Hamilton and Los Alamos you’ll find dozens of references to trails. A connecting trail, the Ranch School Trail, the Camp Hamilton Trail, and even the Tent Rocks Trail which intersects with the Camp Hamilton Trail at one point and has an interesting and entwined history with Camp Hamilton. The existing Camp Hamilton Trailhead is located down near the county maintenance buildings on Camino Entrada. From here you can still hike down to the remains of the old cabin which used to play such a huge part in the Ranch School Boys’ introduction to life on the Pajarito Plateau. The actual remains of the cabin sit on the southern edge of the decommissioned Bayo Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Camp Hamilton wasn’t called that to begin with. It was Camp Awanyu. The man who obtained the first land leases for that beautiful spot in lower Pueblo Canyon is known as F. Coomer. Nobody knows what F stands for, but the man did quite a booming business with his Rocky Mountain Camp Company. At that time, the West was becoming a popular vacation destination. Beginning in the first few decades of the 1900s, the “See America First” Campaign was being advertised to Americans nationwide. Automobiles were becoming more common. Folks were starting to travel. And the Rockies became a popular place to visit!

Coomer guided travelers and tourists through the Pajarito Plateau’s beautiful scenery using cabins like the one he built at Camp Awanyu as staging areas. One of the things that made his location such a great starting point is the same reason so many of our still popular trails cross each other within just a few miles or yards of each other in that area. The local collection of tent rocks, Tsankawi, and the Buckman Mesa were very popular geographical features with tourists in the 1900s just as they are today. Coomer utilized seven passenger vehicles to cruise through the canyons and show his guests the amazing West.

When Coomer gave up the tour business in 1926, the parents of a Los Alamos Ranch School student named Sam Hamilton donated enough money for the school to buy out Coomer’s land lease and renovate the cabin. The ranch school added a kitchen, a stone fireplace, and a window with a view down the canyon. Because of it’s accessibility by car, it’s location in the midst of the Ponderosa Pines and the closeness to other trails, sites, and ruins, the ranch school began using Camp Hamilton as a place to introduce new students to life on the Pajarito Plateau.

Many of the younger boys just starting school didn’t have much experience with riding. They couldn’t tie a diamond hitch or balance a pack pannier. They needed some time to be introduced to outdoor skills that would become the backbone of their success at LARS. Camp Hamilton became just that.

This doesn’t mean the older boys didn’t find Camp Hamilton useful. There were several older students who used Camp Hamilton as a base camp to study and photograph nearby ruins and geographical features. While the older boys were at Camp Hamilton, they often acted as camp counselors, cooking, cleaning, and helping to introduce their younger schoolmates to outdoor life. The older boys would generally come down from the ranch school by horseback utilizing what we now call the Ranch School Trail.

If you have the chance, hike the Camp Hamilton Trail or the Ranch School Trail in order to check out the incredible views. It’s so cool to see solid evidence of the amazing can do attitude of the Los Alamos Ranch School boys! Several stacked stone retaining walls still hold the trail in place on narrow ledges and in several areas deep grooves had to be cut into the volcanic tuff using picks and other hand tools. The trails are considered to be some of the oldest purpose built equestrian trails in the region and were intentionally created using switchbacks to allow pack animals to pass up and down.

The cabin certainly doesn’t look today as it did when the boys were enjoying it. Some trail bloggers have declared it to be in “deplorable condition”. A good portion of it was salvaged to build the Ice House during the Manhattan Project era. But the current condition of the cabin doesn’t negate the wonderful history of that area. A place where young students of the Los Alamos Ranch School learned to live, work, and play in the unforgiving conditions on the Pajarito Plateau.

Nowadays, Camp Hamilton can serve a similar purpose to those who hike down for a peek and a few gorgeous photographs. Life in Los Alamos is soaked in history, scenery, and unique experiences! So when you’re ready to join our unique community, give me a call. I’m a hometown girl who loves to chat about real estate in Los Alamos!

Looking for more info on Camp Hamilton? I’ve enjoyed Sharon Snyder’s blog post for the Los Alamos Historical Society HERE. You can also find some excellent trail descriptions from the Los Alamos Woods Wanderer HERE.

Maybe it’s because my middle child is getting ready to graduate from high school this weekend, but I’ve really got summer on the brain lately! The sun is out. The breeze is cool. The sky is blue and I’m super excited to see what things are happening in Los Alamos this summer!

Tuesdays @ the Square

This super fun summer event happens every Tuesday evening June 11-July 23. The beautiful stretch of lawn beside Boese Brothers in the Central Park Square. Grab dinner at a nearby restaurant or bring it with you and sit on the lawn and enjoy the live music!

Featured bands are all from our local regions. The music will be a mixture of jazz, folk rock, swing, and Tejano sound. The opener on June 11 is Candace Vargas, a 22 time award winning female Tejano vocalist known for her incredible voice and sound. She performs with the Northern 505 and I hope everyone heads out to enjoy this great performance to kick off a wonderful summer of fun! Learn more HERE.

Science Fest!

No summer in Los Alamos would be complete without Science Fest! This year’s theme is Creative Energy. Registrations are open now for some of the coolest parts of this event so I hope everyone clicks on the link and gets their kiddos signed up for a great time!

Discovery Day is on July 13 this year and promises to be just as educationally engaging as past years. The bulk of the fun stuff for kiddos happens between 9AM and 2PM. There will be food, music, fun crafts, exciting experiments to play with and plenty to learn! From noon to 2PM there will be “Beer & Music” for adults. Central Avenue is closed for this event and booths will be set up at Ashley Pond and on the lawn at Fuller Lodge. Don’t miss this amazing annual event!

Discovery After Dark was previously called “Play Crawl”. This is Science Fest for Adults! Get a team of your smartest friends and challenge yourselves to tabletop math games, astronomy challenges, and a whole list of other fun things to do around Los Alamos! Check out the Science Fest website for more information.

Los Alamos Summer Concert Series

No summer in Los Alamos would be complete without our Gordon’s Concerts! Of course, they aren’t called that anymore. But Conoco Hill is still Conoco Hill to a lot of us and in the same way, the concerts will always belong to Gordons.

Concerts kick off THIS WEEKEND with the Powell Brothers on May 24! Come out and enjoy food trucks, bounce houses, and all of your friends and neighbors as we get outside and LOVE the heck out of Ashley Pond for the Summer of 2024! You can see a full concert lineup HERE.

Pajarito Environmental Education Center

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a quick place to stop and let the kids burn off some energy, or you’re looking for a film about the National Parks. PEEC has you covered! This summer the PEEC has a full schedule of events for all ages. Most events are free and all of them are fun and educational. Check out their schedule for the latest information on Nature Walks, films, Astronomy tutorials, Planetarium presentations, and of course, summer CAMPS!

So whether you’re looking for something fun for yourself, a special night out, or events to keep the family outside moving and shaking all summer long, Los Alamos has you covered! And when you’re ready to buy or sell your home here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’d LOVE to talk Los Alamos Real Estate with you. And Congratulations Hilltopper Class of 2024!

As I’m seeing a good number of advertisements and flyers for summer programs here in Los Alamos, I’m reminded of the importance of summer camps to businesses in Los Alamos. Summer camps benefit the public who enjoys them. But summer camps are also how a good number of businesses stay afloat! In fact, that was how the Los Alamos Ranch School stayed afloat starting in 1917. The last summer camp season was in 1941 although AJ Connell ran a skeleton operation in 1942. The last official full camp season was the summer of 1941.

In the minds of AJ Connell and Ashley Pond, boys became good men through contact with nature. In Connell’s mind, a boy shouldn’t come to the Los Alamos Ranch School as a student if he didn’t attend summer camp. Initially this caused some problems. When Pond first started the school, his vision allowed boys to spend weeks, months, or years at the ranch school depending upon health needs and family willingness. But this method of open door attendance created both financial and administrative issues.

For those of us who operate a business in Los Alamos, the financial challenges have NEVER been other than they are. The area is remote. It’s not easy to get supplies or customers up here and never has been. At that time the access to the Los Alamos Ranch was barely passable by car. During the summer of the first camp in 1917, they were still using horse or oxen drawn wagons to get supplies up the mountain. So having a steady income from camp and school tuition became critical to ranch operations.

With that in mind, Connell and Pond made their first change within a few years of the school starting up. Students were supposed to be at school year round. Of course, families weren’t too excited about this notion of only seeing their sons during holidays or short breaks from school. If you think about it from a slightly different angle, if your goal is to have your son take over the family business you don’t want him disappearing for 4-6 years before that happens.

Eventually, the summer camp became popular all on its own and the summer boys were generally an entirely new group from the regular school year boys. Summers were about long pack trips. In the early years, Connell used to take the boys out on at least three different pack trips for nearly three weeks apiece. The most important thing the boys would learn is the diamond hitch. The knot is popular with outfitters everywhere, but the Los Alamos Ranch boys learned the Los Alamos Diamond Hitch. It kept the cinches tight, the pack loads steady, and prevented the mules and horses from getting rid of their packs via scraping them off on a tree, rolling them off in the mud, or bucking them off just for kicks.

It’s unlikely that many of us in the modern era have learned the lessons those boys were taught. It isn’t algebra or essay composition, but the skills you pick up from backpacking or outfitting with horses and mules are character development at its core.

The wrangler would lead, the director would bring up the rear. There were generally more than thirty riders, fifteen packhorses, a mule or two, and a few camp dogs. That’s nearly fifty head of stock. The outfit had to stay on schedule with the boys learning to get their horses to walk at the fast pace instead of trot in order to prevent saddle sores on both boys and horses. Days in the saddle ended by caring for your horse, “pitching and ditching” your tent, and then crashing in your bedroll after a meal and songs around the campfires.

Can you imagine what it would’ve been like to be a staff member? How exhausted would you be? Modern summer camp situations usually allow for camp counselors and directors to go home, put their feet up, and maybe enjoy a glass of wine. Out on the trail you were glad to get in a few rounds of poker and a slug of whiskey before dropping from pure exhaustion only to wake up and do it again.

The routes were generally fairly set for each pack trip. This map shows some of the trails used with camp spots designated by small triangles. “Baca Location No 1” is in the region of the Valles Caldera. I think that’s what intrigues me the most. AJ Connell’s brother and his business partner eventually purchased the Baca Land Grant, the Valles Caldera, and the school had permission to ride that country on their pack excursions. The views would’ve been spectacular. The experience unmatched. And I cannot begin to imagine just how amazing a summer here at the Los Alamos Ranch School would’ve been!

So find a summer program for yourself and the family! Find a camp, a tour, a hike, a trail run or something fun to do outdoors. Make this summer the best one yet! And when you’re ready to buy or sell your home in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl and I love to chat about real estate in Los Alamos!

I think there are two things that almost all Los Alamos Public Schools alumni can agree upon. One: the education a student receives from the schools in Los Alamos is excellent! Two: the education a student receives from the schools in Los Alamos tends to be unconventional.

Why unconventional? If you spend any time at all on Central Avenue you’ll probably notice a LOT of tour busses, out of district yellow school buses and a significant number of vehicles with out of state plates. They’re coming to Los Alamos to learn about science. To study history. To follow the US Parks Service Tour of the Manhattan Project Historical Sites. But they’re all here to learn. The actual source of what they want to learn is part of the daily lives of average citizens here in Los Alamos. So I suppose living here in town means you’ve got access to a lot of knowledge!

I’ve heard stories of fellow LAHS alumni bemoaning that their Physics teacher actually wrote the textbook. We have outdoor classrooms and guest speakers from LANL in all of our schools from elementary to high school. When Jean Nereson was still teaching in the elementary schools, she utilized teaching aids she had literally brought back from her travels to every continent on the planet. She wasn’t the only one. Our teachers have traditionally been some of the most intelligent and capable scientists, doctors, historians, writers, and musicians in their own right. And that’s before we take into account the incredible cooperation between UNM-LA and our public schools or the possibility of a high school internship at a National Laboratory.

But that unconventional and sometimes eclectic education began much earlier than the scientific laboratory. In fact, it started at the beginning. When AJ Connell approached Yale graduates and asked if they’d like to sign on for an adventure!

Come on! What could be more adventurous than signing on to teach between 6 and 9 boys of varying ages at a high mountain ranch school far from “modern” civilization in an area so remote that you had to grow your own food? In 1918 that was the status of Ashley Pond’s and AJ Connell’s Los Alamos Ranch School.

In September of 1918, AJ Connell was joined at the Los Alamos Ranch School by Fayette Samuel Curtis, Jr. “Fay” Curtis, as he became known, had only just graduated from Yale in June. He’d been struggling to overcome tuberculosis, and he would be responsible for teaching all subjects because that’s all the school could afford one master.

The only goal at the Los Alamos Ranch School was that the students would show success and development. They were to learn. How the masters managed this was left entirely up to them. Which is probably why the boys learned so much, so well, and went on to become amazing members of society.

One LARS graduate later recalled shooting craps with the masters using algebra problems and latin lines as currency and allowing luck to determine whether the students had more or less homework. Fermor Church, the school master who later married Ashley Pond’s daughter Peggy, utilized environmental attributes such as the slope of ski hills to illustrate gradients, help students understand geometry, and also as a way to demonstrate principles of physics and geology. He was also known for demonstrating gravity by having boys plunge their hands into boiling water at ten thousand feet altitude!

It seems to me that the largest benefit of the way LARS was run was that school masters and staff were encouraged to continue their own learning. Oddly enough I often think that the fireplace in Fuller Lodge hosted many of the same kind of discussions the beer garden at Bathtub Row Brewery does now. The common denominator is young, highly educated, intelligence professionals. They love to gather and chat about the latest advancements in their fields, possible ways to get more information about new ideas. How to test hypothesis and develop new and better ways to do things. This is how great learning happens. And here in Los Alamos we’ve got this down to an art. Or perhaps a science…

Regardless of your educational background, I hope that as we come to the close of this school year, you consider all the ways in which you and your family can keep the positive learning happening this summer. Attend Science Fest! Hit the PEEC for their summer programs. Attend a talk, a concert, or see a play. The best ways to learn in Los Alamos don’t always happen in the classroom! And when you’re ready to join our unique community on the hill, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl who would love to chat about real estate in Los Alamos with you!

There’s no doubt that Los Alamos residents have a long love affair with Camp May. I’ve heard some fairly interesting theories from friends and acquaintances over the years about why it’s called Camp May. One hypothesis was that it’s unusable until at least May. But while that might be true for some, Camp May’s proximity to the Pajarito Ski Area doesn’t suggest that’s the story behind the name.

Camp May is considered a Los Alamos Campground and is now managed by the county. Back when George and Edith May gifted a fine log cabin to the Los Alamos Ranch School, (which is how Camp MAY got its name!), the land where the cabin was placed belonged to the Forest Service. The Ranch School leased several parcels of Forest Service land for recreation areas. These recreation areas allowed the school to have and utilize base camps for outdoor activities like hunting, trapping, fishing, hiking, and weekend outfitting trips that would have otherwise been difficult to stage from the Big House at the main ranch.

Camp May was most popular with boys from the Spruce Patrol who were older and more experienced. Camp May’s location was higher in elevation than other ranch recreation areas. It saw more snow and more wildlife. You might say it was considered “rougher”. Which is why I find it so very interesting that Camp May was the location of Peggy Pond Church’s week long honeymoon with Los Alamos Ranch School Master, Fermor Church!

The sweet bride received a Colt six shooter and a holster as a betrothal gift and Fermor taught her to shoot on their honeymoon. Peggy’s writings include some thoughts about that experience. Not that she’d been angry or disappointed, but that she might’ve wanted something a bit “sweeter”. Evidently the loud hailstorm on the metal roof and the wood stove belching smoke into the cabin made for an unusual honeymoon. Imagine that! You can read more about Peggy and Fermor on the Los Alamos Historical Society’s blog HERE.

These days Camp May boasts 9 overnight camping sites, fairly modern restrooms, several large group gathering areas, and quick access to some of the best hiking and mountain biking in our area. The other thing Camp May is known for is fall leaves. It’s possible to get some gorgeous photos of colorful Aspen trees in the fall. And overnight camping is available April thru October. (See? You can visit Camp May before May!) If you’re looking for a fun family activity, try tent camping up at Camp May during the height of the changing leaves and get a beautiful holiday family photo to go with your fall break vacation! Camp May is a popular photo location for senior pictures and other major events too.

Something else you might not realize is that the location of Camp May played a big part in the placement of our local ski hills. In the late 1930s, Fermor Church’s nephew Herbert “Hup” Wallis used Camp May as a base to clear some land on Sawyer’s Hill and also on Pajarito Mountain for the boys to ski and sled. Eventually these clear cut areas were used by scientists on the Manhattan Project for winter sports. Of course, there’s no way Hup Wallis strapped explosives to the trees to blow up an area for a ski run. But I’m pretty sure Hup and his crew worked hard with their hands to clear those runs as the boys of the Los Alamos Ranch School did with everything else.

If you’d like more information about the history of skiing in Los Alamos, check out a previous post here. And when you’re ready to join our unique little community on the Pajarito Plateau, give me a call! I’m a hometown Los Alamos girl and I love to talk real estate in Los Alamos!

Check out this description from a Spring 1917 brochure for the Los Alamos Ranch School written by S. F. Bemis:

Los Alamos Ranch: An Outdoor School for Boys

The principle aim of the school is to take advantage of the unexampled natural features of the best part of the great Southwest in a way to build up the constitution of boys from eastern cities by an active but well-guided outdoor life. The climate of Los Alamos is particularly favorable to this; its altitude is especially conducive to strengthening the circulatory and respiratory organs; the clean pure ozone that drifts down from the peaks of the Rocky Mountains is the greatest natural revivifier to be found anywhere on the continent.

…It is hoped that the time spent at the Los Alamos Ranch: (1) in natural development of the body by such exercises as horseback riding, mountain climbing and other recreation in this truly wonderful country; (2) attracting the boys’ attention to the mind-quickening activities of outdoor life, such as marksmanship, exploration, map-making, the study of the habits of wild animals, the floral and mineralogical features of the land, will on the whole produce that perfect health that is the aim of the school, and that elevation of spirit which is essential to future success. A good digestion, a bounding pulse, and high spirits are true elements of happiness that no external advantages can out-balance.

This brochure excerpt can be found in the book, Los Alamos: The Ranch School Years by John D Wirth and Linda Harvey Aldrich. As I was reading this excerpt, I couldn’t help but think about a conversation I had the other day with a friend of mine who is a mental health provider. We’d spoken of this general sense of the “blahs” infecting almost everyone these days. Folks are depressed and anxious, but are finding it difficult to put their finger on exactly why they’re feeling this way or how to make it better.

Sure. The world is a pretty crazy place right now. But beginning with quarantine sometime in 2020, it strikes me that many of us have stopped being active. In the beginning we weren’t supposed to leave home. If you did, you were asked to wear a mask outdoors and indoors. The digital world is pretty darned enticing like that too. It’s possible to open an app on your phone and dive down a rabbit hole of videos, memes, and social media posts as well as news and entertainment information. Hours later you might suddenly look up and realize you’ve lost the entire day without moving off your couch!

Back in the nineteen hundreds, folks in large cities often stayed indoors doing little to nothing in the way of outdoor activities or physical pursuits if they could. This became a habit because of the poor air quality. Young people often had lung problems or were chronically ill or seemed “sickly” because of the lack of physical movement, sunlight, and outdoor activities. You couldn’t even see the sun on most days due to the fog of pollution hanging over cities!

Imagine what it must’ve been like for those boys to come to Los Alamos. Our sky is brilliant blue. Our air is clearer here than in many other places. Even after several forest fires the scenery is stunning and there are so many places to hike, bike, walk, run, and enjoy the outdoors.

After a very wild winter full of big temperature swings, a good amount of needed precipitation, and way too many cloudy days, we ALL need some sun, fresh air, and activity! If you’re feeling sluggish or having a lot of “blah” days, get out and enjoy our lovely community! Take a hike. Check out the county’s trail maps or find a nature walk to enjoy. Hit the Mainstreet Los Alamos page and look for new activities coming up outdoors. Start training for a 5K run or walk. Get outside and ENJOY Los Alamos!

And if you’re ready to join our community or you’re looking to buy or sell your home here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m a hometown Los Alamos girl and I’d love to chat real estate in Los Alamos with you!