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