Solar Powered Adventures: Backcountry Gary

Monday, 06/12/07

Philmont Scout Ranch, Cimarron, NM

The road is so bumpy that my notes look like chicken-scratch. Then we pass a sign-- "Danger, Firearms In Use, Keep Out," on our right. We must be getting close. At 12:58 p.m., we arrive at Harlan, our first destination, and the main reason for my tagging along: this camp has a particularly complicated solar panel system, and is a great example of how they work.

Driving the truck is Philmont's head Electrician, Gary Richards. As we pull up, it begins to pour; rain and hail pound the truck. "These ones will hurt," Richards says. Him and his assistant, Nate Frastaci, jump out while me and my photographer, Andrew Tyler (Axe Man), struggle to put on our rain gear before stepping out into the storm. I'm glad I don't have to carry the camera.

The cabin is dark and full of the camp's staff members. I find Richards and Frastaci at the sink checking the chlorine level in the water; a New Mexico state-regulation.

Then I notice a girl, the Harland camp director, Shelly Mann, standing nearby. "We had a horrible week last week with our showers," she says.

"Oh what, you don't like your water system," Richards replies, with a coy smile. After checking the chlorine level of the water in a small beaker, he pulls out a small cup to take a sample. Looking on, Axe Man accidentally stands in front of the light coming in from a back door, causing Gary to pour too much water into the cup. "It's got to be filled to the exact line," he says, pouring the cup out, throwing it in the trash and grabbing another one from his bag. He came prepared.

By 1:06 p.m., he pulls out a yellow sheet of paper and begins filling it out. "Government paperwork here," he says. "Let's get this stuff out of the way; do the fun stuff first." Then to Mann he says, "Someone will be here in July, and someone will be here in August to take the same samples."

After that it's on to the fridge. "All your cold air is coming off these metal rods in the back," Richards tells Mann, as he explains how best to stock the fridge.

As I listen, Mann says that one of her fridges isn't working. "Other than that, the other fridge runs great," she says.

Then Richards begins to examine the radios. "You've got one of the upgraded retro. systems, and should not have an problems as far as radio power," Richards says. "These things are so overbuilt."

I came here to explore the solar panels, and already I am beginning to see how the system works. The water is pumped from a nearby well by a solar powered pump, and these refrigerators and radios are also powered by solar energy.

Philmont installed its first solar panel 28 years ago as a test, just to see if they worked or not, "because the solar industry at that point was in its infancy," Richards explained in an earlier conversation. "30 years ago, we were running gas driven pumps in the backcountry." And he would know. He's been a full time staff member at Philmont for 30 years and worked as a seasonal staff member for seven years prior to that. He's seen it all.

Now there are 39 solar powered pump systems in operation in the backcountry, used to pump water out of wells as far as 600 ft. deep, purify it, store it into water tanks and pump it to staff cabins. Other systems power radios, lights and refrigerators.

We now move back out into the rain toward the reload shed, 30 yards away, to check its control panel. An array of solar panels sits on its roof. Just inside the door to the right is a large wooden chest, and above it on the wall is the solar power control panel.

Richards removes the lock from the chest and opens the hatch. Four 12-volt solar batteries sit inside. "It's the only time you'll see these, Shelly," he says to Mann, who thought the box contained equipment for her camp.

Richards then looks at the control panel, "With all the lights on, we're drawing 8.8 amps." He says. "Basic principle says you got on this system roughly four to five hours a day, which is plenty."

"Yeah, we really only use them to clean up," Mann says. And as far as the battery chest and control panels go, "We don't touch any of it," Mann said. "All those boxes are locked and we don't have the keys to any of it."

Moving off the porch, we continue our inspection. The storm has stopped, and looking up at the cabin roof, I see another set of solar panels. These ones must power the fridge and the radio system.

"So we're going up to the water tank," Richards says, as we begin to move across the field in front of the cabin towards the nearby woods. The grass is ankle high and the ground is soaked. "Uh, I'm in sandals," Mann says, hesitating. Nor does she have on a raincoat. But after a moment, she shrugs it off, deciding to trudge on.

Reaching the woods, we pass some campsites and move onto a ridge, going uphill. At the top is a shed, and behind it, the water tank. I watch, as Richards unlocks the shed and opens its doors, revealing a large solar powered water pump. "There were a lot of snakes in here in the beginning of the summer," Mann says. "They're really bad in the cabin."

Richards looks at another control panel outside the shed and says that the tank is full. "Normal max flow for this pump is four gal/min," he says, "Even though it is as cloudy as it is, this pump is still pumping water into the tank." I listen as he instructs Mann to check the pump every day. Pointing to the big white tank, he says, "This tank here is your treated water tank."

Then, inspecting the chlorine pump on the side of the shed, Frastaci spots something unusual on a valve. Richards takes a closer look. "You got a leak, see the white crusting?" he asks Mann. "It tells us we got a chlorine leak." Nothing major, though. "If you seeing a whole lot of crusting there again, call me and let me know," he says. "We were going to do something on this tank, but we aren't going to do it today," he says, referring to the weather.

Moving around to the other side of the tank, Richards shows me were the main solar power pump is that pumps the water out of a well. He points out across the valley to a spot in the forest a quarter mile away.

The distance between the separate system parts makes this particular pump system very complex. The pump at the well and the pump at the water tank automatically communicate with each other via radio transmission.

Continuing to instruct Mann on all the basic things that she needs to know and check every day, Richards gives a crash course, sped up by bad weather. "Any questions?" he asks. "No. Everything's been running fine with the exception of that fridge," she replies.

We move back down the ridge towards the cabin to do some final inspections.

20 yards away from the cabin sits a propane tank: not everything at Harland runs on solar power. Pointing to a pressure gage, Richards says, "If it gets down to about 30%, give me a call. You need to watch this because if you let this go down, you get cold showers."

Back inside the cabin, he pulls out a white sheet of paper. "Sign right here," he tells Mann. "Your system is pretty unique we don't have anything [else] like in [Philmont]."

"I was pretty scarred the first day," Mann admits.

Leaving the cabin, I look at my watch: 2:07 p.m. We get back into the truck. "And that's your basic maintenance visitation," Richards says to me. Now it's on to the main solar power pump.

Back onto the rugged road, now a long strip of mud, I look out the back window of the truck and see it fishtail. But Richards is an experienced backcountry driver, and I feel safe as we turn from the main road onto an overgrown service road. "We go absurd places that other people never go," Richards says. "We are the only ones that ever use it." "That explains the vegetation," my photographer, Axe Man, replies.

A few minutes later, we arrive at our destination.

Across the road on our right stands a huge solar panel, fenced in by barbed wire strung around tree-trunk posts. Near us on the opposite side of the road are the well and the pump itself, also fenced in with barbed wire. But one post is laying on the ground, leaving the well and the pump unprotected.

Looking closer we find that a long length of tube containing wiring has been thoroughly punctured. I spot mud smeared on a control panel standing shoulder height, and black hair on an outlet-looking box, connected to the panel. A bear has been here. "He's just looking at the stuff, figuring out what it is," Richards says, "but that's our biggest challenge, trying to build something that will last in the wilderness."

The bear had chewed on the tube, smeared mud on the control panel with his paw, and probably used the socket-looking box as a backscratcher, leaving behind a tuff of his fur. "You'd be amazed at what we find when they've been sitting here for the entire winter," Richards said. "I've seen some of them just completely torn up."

Looking at the huge solar panel array, Richards informs me that it is a medium size.

Turning toward the pump, he says, "This system here has a little bit of track history because this was the first ever camp where we put in a solar pump."

Looking back at the solar panel array, I hear a buzz and see it begin to turn counter-clockwise, like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. "It's turning the wrong way (away from the sun), but it's going to the brightest part in the sky," Richards says.

And then I notice a light sensor on the upper right corner of the array. "That keeps the panels facing the sun all day long," Richards explains. "In essence, that's how we get the maximum power to the pump all day long," he says. "What you want is the sun hitting those panels at a dead 90 degrees."

By 2:34 p.m., we are back in the truck and driving away to our next site.

"One of the greatest challenges as far as running the solar is to get the staffers to understand how everything works, because it's totally foreign to them, especially for first year campers," Richards said. "If they've never been exposed to this stuff, it becomes almost magical to them. Some can grasp it, but others, it just goes right over their heads."

And I couldn't agree more.