July 3 - Day 7 - Porcupine to Clear Creek

Clear Creek

Today's hike was long but not really hard.  We followed the Rayado creek all of the way to Clear Creek staff camp.  Clear Creek is the highest staff camp at Philmont at 10240 feet.  We checked in and did the Rocky Mountain Fur Company cabin tour.
 

Fur Trapper Cabin

Waiting to shoot.

Map

Next we headed up to the rifle range where we shot 3 rounds with a black powder 50 caliber rifle.  We were able to setup a personal target.  I put out my Philmont map.  I shot it twice focusing on the north section then shot the main target.  Some knucklehead from a different crew also shot at my map just about destroying it.  I think he hit a dead piece of wood I had placed to hold it in place.  At least he came up to me afterwards and apologized.  I later patched it with my roll of duct tape.

Crew 1 - Three Amigos

 It was now time for our service project.  Our job was to clear the woods 100 ft from the road so that if a fire broke the roads could still be of service.  Work at this altitude was very difficult.  Scott could not even work and napped instead.  We were told to cut down any tree that was smaller than the diameter of a Nalgene bottle.  Some trees just pushed over, others the loppers were good enough and some we had to saw.  The bigger stuff we cut limbs and cut the rest in pieces.  Just after starting a thunder storm came up real quick.  We headed to the staff cabin for shelter as the storm quickly passed.  Then we were back to work. 


We finished the day by setting camp and cooking supper.


Photo Highlights:

Deer

Creek

Creek

Meadow

Mini Bear