June 30 - Day 4 - Abreu to Fish Camp

Today we woke at 5AM.  We will be heading to Fish Camp via Carson Meadows.  The hike will be almost twice the distance of our first two legs plus we want to do a search and rescue program at Carson Meadows.

Well no surprise but 3 hours later we are packed and have eaten breakfast.  Sadly Alex tells he is leaving, shakes everyone's hands, and hikes away playing his ukulele.  Shortly after his departure, we head to the Abreu house to checkout.

See path to the right?  LOL

We headed out to the west and shortly came to the remains of an old house.   A path to the left went almost straight uphill.  It looked like another path went to the right but they were convinced the left was the way to go.  It was rough hiking.  We finally came to service road.  It felt like left was the way to go but after a GPS location check we went to the right.   I guess the path to the right earlier at the old house was the better way to go.

Tooth of Time view from Carson Meadows

Soon we were at Carson Meadows listening to the porch talk.  They gave us a few option but we decided on a 45 minutes training session.
 

Search and Rescue

Just as we were heading to our session, crew 1, was just coming in.  We bantered and visited for a few minutes.  Turns out they had taken a wrong turn out of the Abreu camp and ended up in Zastrow.  LOL - maybe they should have taken the orienteering class.  They decided they would skip the search and rescue and head on to Fish Camp.     

Hose A

Our session was designed to get a litter either over a creek or a rough section of rocks.   Basically you need two trees for anchor points and you would pull the litter across that distance.  At first they showed that just an average tautness would sag too much and the litter would drag on the ground.  The solution to this was to apply a 9:1 pulley system which kept the rope taut with minimal sag.  Afterwards we played tug of war where Brandon had the pulley system side against the six of us.  He of course won easily.

 

Rayado Valley

With a lot of hiking to go and temperatures rising quickly we set off for Fish Camp.  As the trail was passing near Crags we passed through "The Notch".
According to Mike this was the only place at Philmont that dynamit was used to make a trail.   There was just no other safe way to make the east of the mountain reach the west. 

Aspen Trees

It started raining.  I was hot and dirty and initially the rain felt really good.  So good that many of us opted not to put our rain jackets on.  Now, after a while we were soaking wet and starting to get a little cool.  I think it took another four days to get that shirt dry.   




We would later realize that by passing through "The Notch" we entered into a different environment.  The west side was cooler, wetter, and much more green.

Fish Camp

Fish Camp

We finally arrived at Fish Camp.  We listened to the porch talk and took a tour of the lodge where Waite Phillips used to visit.  It was pretty late in the day so we headed to our campsite and prepared dinner.  Arriving last late we missed out on some program.  Hopefully we will make it to Apache Springs a lot earlier tomorrow.




Photo Highlights:

That's Me!

Avalanche

Me at Carson Meadows

June 29 - Day 3 - Olympia to Abreu

Today we got up at 5AM.  At this time of day the birds are just starting to tweet and dawn is just 15 minutes away.  One the trail there is two lines of thinking: break camp early and get your miles in while it's cool and dry or sleep in and hike through the heat of the day when storms might hit.  Getting up at 5, I was thinking we were the former but three hours later it looked more like the later or a third category.  I had a headache all night long and didn't get but a couple of hours of sleep.   A morning Advil knocked it out quickly thank goodness.

Zastrow Porch Talk

We did eventually get on the trail.  Today's path would take us through the Zastrow staff camp before continuing to our final stop at Abreu.

At Zastrow we started with a porch talk.  At porch talks, a staff member will tell you all about the programs offered at the camp.   Here they were offering orienteering, geocaching, and a tour of the Wood Badge Museum. 

We choose the orienteering class.  We broke into three groups.  Alex and Scott with me, Jacob and Curtis, and Carter, Anthony, and Brandon.  The course record was around 20 minutes.  The first mark showed a bridge crossing.  Because we  crossed a bridge coming in we were certain that was the bridge we needed to go to.   Well it was a different bridge.  We did find the creek and tried working our way up stream the best we could.  At one point Alex looked like the master in the movie "Remo Williams : The Adventure
Begins" as he seemed to just walk across the creek with very little effort playing his ukulele.

Curtis and Knuckle Mountain

Finally we found the bridge but 30+ minutes had already come and gone.  Now that we had the scope of things in our minds the next 9 marks were pretty easy.  The last mark was a little more difficult because it required going down a steep hill.  The view was awesome before we started descending.  We completed the course in 57 minutes.  Carter's group abandoned the course after 8 marks and came in next.  Finally Jacob and Curtis came in but decided not to descend the steep hill and backtracked a good piece to finally claim their last mark.  This was a good course and proved the importance of using your map and compass and making tactical judgements.

Carter

Anthony

Some of the boys decided to play horseshoes for a while.   Most had never played.  They were going at it so hard I think they had confused it with a video game.



 

Wood Badge Museum

 We decided to eat lunch on their porch.  After lunch we decided to take the Wood Badge lodge tour.  The tour guide Don, was very interesting and had a lot of information to share about Wood Badge.   We then had our photo taken with the famous Wood Badge Elk.

Abreu Camp Map

It was time to get on the trail again as we headed to Abreu.  Now as we were in the heat of the day we finally made it to Abreu.  We formed our pack line and gathered on the porch.  Not wanting to put our packs on any time soon we decided to take the Abreu house tour.
 

Abreu Home

 Our actor took us through the house talking about the Abreu family and visitors to the Abreu farm.  She also showed us the kitchen and all of the modern features it offered.


After the tour, we walked to the Cantina where we purchased a cold root beer drink for a dollar.  The Cantina also had a pickle eating contest which no one from my group accepted; however, we later learned that Dylan from crew 1 entered the contest but came up 3 seconds short of earning a free pickle.  One thing we missed because we arrived late was the adobe brick making class.    

Abreu Overlook

The camp staff member then walked us to our campsite.  We had to provide two member to help with the Mexican dinner so the rest of us setup camp.  We had a brief rain but it quickly passed.  It was a nice break not having to cook tonight.

Mexican Dinner

We walked up a very steep hill to the pavilion which overlooked the Abreu homestead and Cantina.






 Before we ate, each crew had to come up with an advertising theme why settlers should visit Abreu.  Our crew won second place with a corny chant made by Scott and we were the second group to eat after the cook staff and the first place winners.   Supper was very good.

Back at camp, Alex lit a fire and surprised us with a pound cake and cake icing.    It was good but most of us over ate at supper so he had a hard time getting us to eat it.

So far our hiking days have been very easy.  Tomorrow is probably longer than first two days put together.  Very tired from the night before I went to bed earlier hoping for a better day. 

 


 


Photo Highlights:

Nice bridge across creek

a

Morning dumping of food and gear from bear bag.

Cactus

Me at the creek

June 28 - Day 2 - Carson Museum to Olympia

View from Dinning Hall

We started the day with our last civilized breakfast in the dinning hall.  We went back to the tents to make those last minute adjustments to our packs, made a final drop-off at the lockers, and reported at the welcome center at 8:30 putting our packs in a pack line so that we could be transported by bus to the Rayado Turnaround.

Pack Lines

At Philmont, a turnaround is where treks either begin or end and bus transportation is required to get back to headquarters.  It is also where the buses can turnaround either by horseshoe turn or a 3 point turn.

Pack lines are an organized way to store packs when not in use.

Waiting for bus to Rayado Turnaround

Back at headquarters we boarded the bus with our sister crew and one other crew from Pennsylvania.  Our rangers provided entertainment for our 7 mile journey to the southernmost turnaround at Philmont with stories and corny jokes.





Adjacent to our turnaround was the Kit Carson Museum at Rayado.   Before we enter the museum Alex went over a few of what seems like a hundred training requirements he must teach us.   Two issues I remember him covering was orienting a map and how to use the bathroom.

Map Training

The outhouses at Philmont are called Red Roof Inns because of the red metal roofs.  Philmont does not want peeing in the Red Roof Inns because the ammonia is what really makes the place stink.  Instead they want you to pee on a rock and not a tree before using the RRI.  They prefer the critters scratching on rocks and not dirt and trees.

For the orienteering part our boys did pretty well.  The only new thing to add was that New Mexico has about an 8 degree declination.  In Georgia our declination is less than one and almost insignificant.

Kit Carson Museum

The Kit Carson Museum is an interpretive museum where actors play the roles and dress in the time period represented.  Here they were blacksmith, farming, and cooking.  We toured the museum ending at the tomahawk throwing area.  Here we each had turn throwing at 5, 10 and 15 paces.  5 paces seems to be the natural distance of one rotation on the tomahawk.  One of the keys here was to not use any wrist on the throw.

Tomahawk Throwing

We met back at the front of the museum where we had our first trail lunch.  Each lunch bag supports two crew members.  Most have two of each item, some items you have to share with your partner.  My partner for the trek was Curtis.  During lunch some chickens swept through the area a few times picking up any scraps we may have dropped.








It was finally time to start hiking.  Today we were heading to Olympia Tail Camp.  Jacob identified the naviguesser and gave everyone their hiking positions.  On the map it was easy to see the trail followed the Rayado Creek.  However, finding the trail was a different issue.   Unlike most of the trails where we trained, we very quickly discovered that trails were rarely marked with signs and never with blazes.  We also discovered that we would be going through many fence gates.  After going down the wrong street right from the beginning we were finally on the trail.

First Creek Crossing

The trail was a service road with two paths where the vehicle wheels roll.  As we progressed for a while we came to a decision point.  Cross the creek or continue along the service road.  After a short debate we decided to stay with the service road.  It wasn't long before the service road just died out and we decided to double back and cross the creek.  At creek crossings we have to disconnect our belt and breast straps.  We also have to cross one at a time.  After you cross you then have to buckle back up and wait until everyone is ready.  As we were starting back, crew 1 was coming to this same decision point.  We hiked on and didn't see if they followed or not.

Horses

A bit further up the road we came to another decision point.  I'm almost certain our ranger through power of suggestion influenced our crew to take the right option of the fork.  After about a half mile hike we came to a fence gate and some diverging roads.   At first the debate was which way to go.  After some time Alex stepped in asked them to take a close looks at the map to determine where we were.  Turns out we had diverged from the creek and had taken a northerly route.   So we had to double back again this time making up the half mile.   I asked Alex about this later and just got a little grin.

Although we had a few mistakes so far, our spirits were still high.  As a high spot, Alex continues to sing and play his ukulele.

Back on the trail, we finally arrived at Olympia trail camp.  Each camp you come into has a camp map framed on a tree.   Smartly Jacob took a photo as we continued into the heart of the camp.  The map shows the location of camp sites, red room inns, latrines (open air toliet), and the bear bag lines.  Some camps have up to 15+ camp sites.  We selected a camp site that was near the creek and a red roof inn; however, the bear lines were a bit farther away.

Securing Bear Bag Lines

 Alex covered many lessons that night with the big ones being how to cook, clean, set up the bear bags, use the sump, the bearmuda triangle, fire pit and purifying our water.  He did the work and we mostly just watched.  

Bear Bags

Compact Tent Formation

 The night was cool and I broke out my wool jacket and hat just for comfort.  The skies were incredible.  Crystal clear with details you just can't view in Georgia.  At home I can see just 3 stars in the little dipper but here I could see all eight.  Wake up at 5.

Photo Highlights:

Grasshopper in Tent

All packed and ready to go

Bus to Rayado

Horse

Alex talking with the crew

More training tips from Alex