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!