Crew 8787 - Philmont

Philmont 2019

Crew 8787

Trek: 609i2

Itinerary: 35

Miles: 88

 

H20     Name                          Age      Pack Weight

2.5l      Travis Hildebrand        48        34.6

2l         Carl Zimmerman        64        29.9

3.5l      Pat Duffy                                 43

5l         Markus Weber                        43

2.5l      Chance Hildebrand     19        33.4

3l         Dax Hildebrand           18        30.5

3l         Ben Duffy                    17        40

3l         Dominic Weber           15        37

3.5l      Sujay Rajkumar           22        (Trail Guide)

 

Day 0 – June 8, 2019

            We travelled from Pflugerville to Las Vegas, NM.  We filled our first tank of gas in the van in Lubbock, TX.  This was the final trip for the 2007 Honda Odyssey (142,000 miles).  Pat took the 2^nd shift of driving after lunch.  We hit a tire on I-40 a few miles before I-25 that dislodged some of the plastic undercarriage.  This was easily remedied with a zip tie.  We camped at Storrie Lake State Park.  For future reference, there is a blinding light near site 7.  We had sites 1,3,5,7.  There are trees for hammocks on the even numbered sites.  Sites 1& 3 were in the shadows from the light.  We ate at Wendy’s & Pizza Hut split.  Five of us split 2 large meat lovers.  Chance at ate Wendy’s because he doesn’t like tomato sauce.  It got light about 5am the next morning.  The boys cowboy camped in shelter 5.  Carl cowboy camped in 7.  I hammocked at site 8.

 

Day 1 – June 9, 2019

            We woke about 5:30am, packed, at 2 breakfast bars & a juice (not enough) and hit the road by 6:50am.  We stopped after an hour for caffeine.  We got to Philmont at 8:50am, parked at the new Scout museum to let everyone hang out while Ron, Addison, Dax & I checked in at HQ.  We took the Villa Philmonte tour at 10am.  Pay played the player piano: Amazing Grace.  Our Ranger, Sujay met us at the tour.  We spent the rest of the day doing check-in activities.  Carl, Dax, & I did the map review.  They explained the UTE fire area from last year (2018) burn.  At 11:30, we were in line for lunch.  Three boys (Dax, Ben, & Dominic) disappeared.  We were inside before I reached Dax on Wi-Fi text message.  They say thy went .5 miles back to the museum to use the bathroom.  Who knows what they were really doing.  I had words with them when they finally got back to the cafeteria line.  They didn’t tell anyone where they were going.  After lunch, we picked up group gear like 3 bear ropes, hot pot tongs, food strainer, rubber scraper, 5 bear bags, trash bags, etc.  While we waited for our first 2 days of food, the boys got a demo of a lightning simulator.  This was a rain gutter with wet sand and a current volting through it.  The boys made a line holding hands and the two boys on the end put their fingers in the wet sand.  They all jumped back when the shock hit them.  We got an update on the water situations at the camps.  Copper Park showed dry.  Little Costillo did not have a report.  We had supper. Leadership had meetings at 5:45pm.  I skipped the worship service so I could take a shower.  Ron did the same.  We did our gear shake down before supper.  Our Ranger was OK with our cooking system (MSR Reactor, 2.8l pot, 4 9-cup HEB Tupperware’s, reflictrix cozie to hold all 4 Tupperware tubs).   Sujay’s boss had more questions about our system & didn’t want to let us do our system.  Ultimately, it was Sujay’s decision and he believed our experience (Appalachian Trail & prior Philmont).  We attended opening campfire.  The singers were very good.  We were in our tents by 10pm.  Slept OK (not great).

 

 

Day 2 – June 10, 2019

I woke about 5:30am & repacked my pack including our 1^st food drop (that we stored in the van overnight).  We had breakfast.  We did our crew photos at 8am.  Individual crews & combined crew photos for both treks in our contingent.  We then hung out in the advisor lounge charging electronics & consuming hot chocolate until 9:30am.  We snapped a few photos by the sign with the old hiking boots.  We caught the 10am bus and rode about 45 minutes to Ponil drop-off.  We did some quick map & compass training with Sujay (the ranger). We learned about the Red Roof’s (latrines).  Don’t pee in them… only poop… to keep them from smelling so bad.  We learned the lightning position.  We ate lunch and hiked through Ponil where we dropped our lunch trash.  We finished hiking by 1:15 (~3 miles).  We chose campsite 2.  We learned how to hang the bear bags.  Pat wandered off to set up his tent while the rest of the crew dealt with bear bags, rainfly, etc.  We were going to impress Sujay with our cooking method on the Thanksgiving -on-the-trail, however there was no stuffing, corn, or anything.  All the meal had was Sweet Sue chicken packets, planters honey roasted cashews, 4 chips-Ahoy chocolate chip cookies.  We added the calories per person at 570 calories.  Pathetic!

After dinner, Sujay asked us some great conversation questions:

1.)    If you had a condiment come out of your belly button, what condiment would it be?

2.)   Would it be voluntary or involuntary?

3.)   We velocity would it come out?

4.)   Under what circumstances would it release?

Dax said it would happen when he is lied to.  I said ketchup, voluntary, high speed.

1.)   If you were going into battle, what would be your steed (ride)?

2.)   Weapon of choice?

3.)   Sidekick?

4.)   War cry?

5.)   Battle theme song?

6.)   Enemy?

I said Drogon-the-Dragon (from Game of Thrones), blue flames, LeRoy Jenkins, “Justice reigns from above”(Overwatch character saying), A Horse with No Name.

Chance said – Apache Helicopter, N. Korea, Izula, Catholic Hymn

We had a campfire and learned that we needed to pack out the ashes 30 minutes from camp in the morning.  We were in bed by 9pm.  I didn’t sleep well.  Small full bladder. 2 times.

 

Day 3 – June 11, 2019 Bent to Pueblano (~5 miles). 

Carl and I were both up by 5:20am because it was light already.  We took down the rainfly & our tent.  Ben & Dominic were supposed to get up at 5:45am to take the bear bags down so the cooks could boil water.  I woke them up at 6am.  Apparently, they ignored their 5:30am alarms.  I woke Dax & Chance at 6:10am.  We managed to get out of camp about 7:20am.  We hike ~1,500’ climb & down ~750’.  We paced ourselves on Carl’s speed.  We landed at Pueblano at 10:06am (~5 miles).  We checked in and set up camp.  Pat helped with bear bags before setting up camp.  Carl & I found a great spot 3’ from a bend in the flowing creek under a tree.  We learned how to hang bear lines in the primitive sites using 3 bear lines.  We had lunch at 11:30am and hung out in camp until 1pm.  When we went back to Pueblano to do program, they didn’t have the climbing poles up yet. L  This was a major bummer!  The boys cut logs with a 2-person saw and had a speed contest.  Chance and Dax won at 45 seconds while Ben and Dominic did it in 60 seconds.  They boys also worked on squaring logs into railroad ties, and debarked long poles to climb when they mount them vertically.  Eventually Chance, Carl & I came back to camp to cowboy shower, rinse clothes & relax in camp.  Pat went down to see what the boys were doing about 3pm.  Everyone came back to camp about 4:35pm.  Ben & Dominic didn’t put their supper bags into the Oops bag, so that had to get the main bear bags back down.  We cooked the beef stroganoff with 2 boils of 2.5l of weather for 10 people.  Dinner tonight was 965 calories.  Sujay (the ranger) took it upon himself to do most of the camp cleanup of our tubs.  It was mostly to show us how to sump the remaining food bits.  We only had about 3 rice sized pieces left.  We all did a good job of being human sumps by adding some water to our food tubs and drinking the water.   About 6:30pm, we headed back down to Pueblano camp to enjoy Logger-ball (baseball like game).  I caught the first hit to our team right on a thorny bush and stabbed my left middle fingertip.  I headed back up to the cabin to get a paper towel to stop the bleeding.  I stayed on the porch for advisor cider/coffee.  Carl was telling AT stories to the staff.  About 8pm, the staff played some banjos, accordions, and bongos and put on a show.  They sang very well.  Reports are that our boys won the logger-ball game 8 to 3.

 

Day 4 – June 12, 2019 Pueblano -> Copper Park via French Henry & Baldy Town (~15 miles)

We woke at 5:30am in hopes of leaving camp by 6:30am.  We got one last talk from Ranger Sujay before Ben realized he left his cup at the porch .3 miles the wrong way.  We waited for him and left about 6:50am.  We left from campsite 11 uphill for 5.2 miles and got to French Henry at 9:08am.  Dax was experiencing some altitude sickness and I sat outside the 10am mine tour with him.  We also di the blacksmithing station at 11am.  I used one of their tools to replace a tip on Chance’s hiking pole.  The boys made a J hook.  We had lunch there before climbing at 12:10pm up to 10,500’ at Copper Park.  Reports were there was no water in camp, so we filled all bottles from the stream about .3 miles from camp.  We used micro-pure on most of that.  We found snow at 10,400’.  Marcus, Dominic, and Ben had a snowball fight.  We got to camp at 1:30pm and took campsite 8.  Chance, Ben, Dominic, Marcus, and I emptied our packs and hiked 2.5 miles to Baldy Town to resupply.  We found some phone service about 1 mile into the hike.  At Baldy Town, we got the bad news that our planned trek was changed because Upper Greenwood was impassable due to snow drifts.  We will no spend 2 nights at Copper Park -> Miranda -> Head of Dean -> Rich Cabins before getting back on our old itinerary.  L  This is a bummer, but we can hike those missing sites anytime as they are in park land not owned by Philmont.  We got our food and labelled each bag with names.  We checked out the store and snagged some quick warm showers before the 2.5-mile uphill hike back to Copper Park.  Carl and I looked at the maps while Dominic and Chance cooked.  I forgot to add that the 2^nd time I checked the swap box I scored 8 Sweet Sue chicken bags!!!  Dax was feeling better.  I helped him clean up dinner since Chance cooked.  I decided to use my hammock here since we aren’t leaving Philmont property anymore.  L  We think it will freeze tonight, so we have our water filters in our sleeping bags.  Most of us were in our tents by 7:45pm.  It is too dark to see the paper now.  We will hike Baldy tomorrow!!  I have all my clothes on in my hammock.  Hope I’m warm enough!

 

Day 5 – June 13, 2019 Baldy Day Hike (~10 miles)

I slept in the hammock pretty well.  I was wearing all my clothes except my rain gear and extra socks.  I woke at 11pm and 2am for a nature call.  I had the hammock down by 5:45am since they aren’t technically allowed here.  We woke the boys and had cold dry breakfast, packed about 3 liters of water each and started our 4.5-mile hike to the top of Baldy from 10,500’ to 12,444’.  Dax was feeling better than yesterday but was still not feeling well.  His pace was very slow as to not overdo it.  We took the long switch-back route. We saw the snow-drifts to Greenwood canyon that caused our itinerary to be changed.  Within 50’ of starting down that trail there were crotch-deep post-holes.  We snapped some pics for proof.  We did have to cross some snow drifts to get to Baldy as well. Ben and Dominic tried to jump into the snow, but it was too hard underneath.  Chance, Ben, and Dominic had a snowball fight with Markus and I, but lost badly due to the adults having the high ground and better aim.  The fight lasted about 90 seconds before we were all winded at 11,500’.  About 10am, we stopped at an old cabin about 400’ vertical feet from the summit to get out of the 35-40mph wind and to have a snack.  We got to the summit at 10:25am, took a bunch of pictures, checked e-mail, called home, posted a few Facebook pictures while hunkering down in a wind block made of rocks.  We headed back down about 10:55am and had lunch in the same old cabin.  We left the cabin about 11:40am.  Dax did much better on the way down.  Markus talked to me about thyroid issues.  Bottom line:  We eat too much iron.  The accumulates in our organs and causes problems like thyroid issues, prostate & breast cancer.  We should donate blood quarterly so new blood cells can try to get the iron out of the organs.  We should also get cod liver oil.  It was an interesting talk inspired by his ability to wear a t-shirt in the morning even though we think it is cold.  I had a nature call half way down.  Chance had one half way up.  We got back to camp (Copper Park) at 1:23pm.  Some went to refill water.  Carl and I got the map out and calculated the new mileage distances for the changed itinerary (~19 fewer miles).

Day      Location          Miles   Old-Miles

5          Baldy day        10        11.6

6          Miranda          5.2        9.0

7          Head of Dean  4.0        9.75

8          Rich Cabins      7.1        8.6

9          Horse Canyon  4.5      11.0

Total                            30.8     50

The boys slept until dinner.  The dinner bag is made for 1 person but needs to feed 2.  Fettucine Primavera: 780 calories.

There was a 30-second rain shower that caused everyone to run around putting stuff under tarps.  Carl retired to his tent when this happened about 7:30pm.  I set up my hammock and rested there for about 30 minutes.  I joined Chance and Markus at the fire pit for discussions about hints and tips to get a job.  (i.e. – Foreign Exchange, send follow-up thank you for interviews).  The other boys played frisbee in the open field.  I slept in my hammock very well save one pee break at 2am.

 

Day 6 – June 14, 2019 Copper Park to Miranda (5.2 miles)

There was a crew that headed up to Baldy at 3:40am.  They were pretty quiet but it seemed like every one of them shined their lights on our camp.  I woke at 5:30 and removed my hammock from the trees.  The boys woke at 6am.  We hit the trail at 7:14am.  We made it to Baldy Town at 8:22am.  We all took showers after I got the staff to unlock 7 of the 8 showers.  We had some cell service so I checked weather one last time before heading down the mountain.  No AT&T service.  Only Verizon service at Baldy Town.  We got to UTE meadows at 10:15am.  We got to Miranda at 10:55am.  From there we went directly to black powder rifles.  Everyone had a great time shooting.  I shot Pat’s hat on my 3^rd shot.  Chance did an extra 3 shots for $1.  We had lunch in the shade behind the main cabin until a staff member ran us off for being in a staff area.  The also ran us off the shooting range earlier (for lunch).  After lunch, we threw tomahawks.  This was great fun challenging each other.  Chance beat me by 1 throw once.  I beat him by 1 in the last round.  I used my left hand for the final shot. J  We laughed a lot!  After tomahawk throwing we set up in campsite 8 (near the main cabin).  We spent a lazy afternoon hanging out in camp.  Chance, Carl, and I hung out under the blue tarp looking at the map and chatting.  We had mashed potatoes and vegies for supper.  Chance didn’t eat that but traded Pat for a bagel and oreo cookies.  We went to the porch for Advisor coffee/cookies at 7:30pm to watch Mountain-Ball.  As it turned out they wanted some more players for the game.  I went down to join the crazy game.  There were 17 rules in the baseball like game.  3 teams, 5 bases, one out per side.

              3               2

1                                          4                         

            Home-Rock

 

We were in the outfield first.  I put a guy out running to 1^st base.  I was first up to bat for our crew.  You pitch the Duct-Tape-Softball to yourself.  They had an error on the throw to 1^st.  I ran to 2^nd.  While they tried to send the ball back to home-rock to stop the run, I made it to 3^rd.  I was so out of breath I could hardly stand upright.  Ben hit a run to 1^st.  I ran to 4^th.  I don’t remember who hit next, but I ran in to Home-Rock for a score.  The next batter got out and I retired to the Advisor porch to watch with hot chocolate.  I could barely breath for about 10 minutes.  The game was absolutely hilarious to watch.  If a batter couldn’t hit his own pitch after 5 times he had to put his head on the bat and spin 5 times and throw the ball to the field and try to run to a base.  After about 45 minutes another team scored a run (on a foul ball that didn’t cross the plane of 1^st and 4^th bases).  It was starting to get dark so they had a tomahawk sudden death shoot-out.  Dominic won after 3 shots.  Our crew is undefeated at Mountain-Ball and Logger-Ball.  We returned to camp about 9pm.  Chance, Ben, and Dominic put the bear bags up.  Chance slept under the rain-fly all night but woke up with a bug bite on his right eyelid. It was pretty swollen.

 

Day 7 – June 15, 2019 (Saturday) Miranda to Head of Dean (4.15miles)

I woke about 5:30am and put my stuff away.  Chance and I went to get the bear bags at 5:50am.  Pat and Dominic were the cooks today and we had a full-cook-breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, peppers, and onions.  This also meant we had to clean-up like supper.  So the breakfast took longer than normal.  Chance didn’t eat his breakfast, but traded a bar with Pat to get some calories.  We used up our first canister of fuel and started the spare.  We aren’t sure if we will use the entire spare or not.  Worst case is that we will have a cold meal or two.  We may be able to buy another canister at Rich Cabins tomorrow when we do our last re-supply.  We started hiking about 7:40am.  We had a couple rock hopping water crossings, a view of the back side of the tooth-of-time and got to Head of Dean at 9:30am after hiking 4.15 miles.  We had more discussions about inheritance, 401ks, putting executors of wills on bank accounts directly to make things easier.  We also discussed the differences between cell phone carriers (CMDA vs GSM) and what 1x, 3G, 4GLTE, and 5G are to explain it to Chance.  After checking into Head of Dean, our crew did the COPE course.  They started us on a course that most crews never get to.  Two people on each end of a barrier with 2 logs.  Move the people and logs to the opposite sides.  One side is blind.  The other two have one person who is mute.

| ------- L—L----------------------------------------------L—L ---------|

|           O-O                                                               O   O             |

| ------- G-G---------------------------------------------- G- G ---------|

 

The logs were suspended on two wires about 1 foot above the ground.  The boys completed this in 8 minutes in the 1^st try.  The staff guy was amazed and said most crews take 45 minutes.

Challenge 2:  No talking.  Move all kids in Alphabetical order across 10 posts with 7 planks of wood without touching the ground.  This took about 10-15 minutes.

Challenge 3: No talking. Get all 4 boys over an 8’ high pole suspended between 2 trees.  All 4 jumped to the pole, did a pull-up and got over the bar.  Dax got a small boost from below.  This took about 3 minutes.

Challenge 4: No talking. Get all 4 people over a 14’ high wall.  They killed this as well in about 5 minutes.  They boosted Dax up.  Dax helped pull while Chance and Dominic pushed Ben up.  Ben pulled Dominic up while Chance pushed.  Dominic reached down the wall to let Chance run and jump up to Dominic’s outreached arm.  They connected and Dominic pulled Chance up and over the wall.

Challenge 5:  Cross a wire using some dangling ropes while blindfolded.  They all did this but it took about 30 minutes and was physically the hardest.  We finished before non and saw it was going to rain soon.  We got back to HQ and setup at campsite 3 in about 10 minutes.  The rain didn’t come right away so we at lunch.  As we finished lunch, a Forester guy asked if we wanted to learn about the trees.  We had an interesting talk about forest fires and how we have put ourselves in a dangers fire situation by not letting small underbrush fires burn themselves out.  We have too much underbrush now and fires catch the big trees on fire now. L

The rain started during the talk but we were under a rain fly.  After the talk we all returned to our tents for a 1-3-hour nap (adults) or talk (boys).  I got up after an hour and hiked up to campsite 6 at the top of a ridge where I found some Verizon service.  I called my wife and chatted for about 10 minutes before coming back to camp to journal.  Dax went to HQ to hang out.  Markus got up about 4:10pm.  We hung out on the porch of the Head of Dean.  One of the staff asked a couple of riddles.

1)    There is a cabin in the woods.  The cabin has windows and a door that opens from the inside.  There is plenty of food and water.  All the people in the cabin are dead.  Explain.

2)    A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water.  The bartender points a shotgun at the guy.  The guy thanks him and leaves.  Explain

About 5:10pm, the staff asked if we were going to have dinner.  I said we were ready to be served like the other staff camps have done for us.  They were stunned for a second before they realized we were joking.  We went back to camp, ate, cleaned up, and caught the sunset hike up the hill about 1 mile.  We could see Pueblano camp.  We plan to walk through there tomorrow.  All the adults and Chance did the sunset hike.  We had a 360degree view.  We got back to camp just before 9pm.  There was a small campfire for a few minutes before we retired to our tents.  The tent was on a sideways slope where I was sliding toward Carl all night.  My pillow only stays inflated for about 20 minutes.

Answers to the riddles:  1) Airplane Cabin.  2) Guy had the hic-cups.

 

Day 8 – June 16, 2019 Head-of-Dean to Rich Cabins (7.2miles)

I woke about 5:40am, put my stuff up and got the bear bag with Carl.  We didn’t harp on the kids today, which was hard to do.  They move at their own slow pace.  At one-point Carl and I went to the cabin to kill time.  They were finally taking the dining fly down when we got back. That’s the first time all week that they did it.  We finally left about 7:20am.  We had a 2-mile hike downhill to Pueblano.  They had the climbing poles up today so we asked if they could squeeze us in.   Eventually, they let us climb the poles after the 8am class was done.  Chance Dominic, and Ben were going to climb.  They each did it.  Chance did it in 1min33seconds.  The others were slower.  Dax then tried and got about 75% of the way up.  Carl made it all the way up at age 64!!!  He said it was very hard at his age and the top was swaying.  I recorded all of them on the GoPro video.

About 11am, we started our 5-mile hike to Rich Cabins.  It started with a big uphill with a pretty lake on the mesa.  We had lunch about 11:40am, 1.75 miles before Rich Cabins.  We heard thunder heading our way so we at quickly.  It rained a bit so we put on our rain gear.  The rain stopped.  We had to cross a creek that required crocks.  We checked in, got our food resupply and had to cross the creek again to set up camp.  About the time we finished setting up camp, it started raining again.  I took a quick nap while Carl helped Chance and Dax get water.  Carl and I hung out in the tent for a while.  About 4pm we set up my hammock tarp to go cook some hot chocolate.  After our hot chocolate, we had supper under the tarp as it was still sprinkling.  I put the tarp away and did the bear bags and played some frisbee with Dax and Carl.  About 6:40pm, we started heading to the cabin, but there were some more storms coming.  It started raining before we got to the cabins.  All the scouts and advisors were invited to stay on the porch due to the storm.  Farm chores were cancelled.  Lightning struck about 100 yards from the cabin!!  The odd part is that we are down in a deep valley.  Lightning usually strikes the highest point.  About 8:15pm, the staff put on a musical show.  We bought an 8oz fuel canister for $5.  Carl paid.  The show went on until 9:10pm with an after show for those that wanted to stay.  Carl, Chance, and I headed back to the tents.  The grass was soaking our shoes and the creek was higher due to the rain.  It started raining again by the time we got to our tents.  It was much warmer overnight, possibly due to the closing the rainfly.  It was nice falling asleep to the pitter-patter of rain on the tent.  There was some leakage in the tent near the head that we patched the next day with tenacious tape.

 

Day 9 – June 17, 2019 Rich Cabins to Horse Canyon (5 miles)

We woke at our usual times (5:40am-6am).  Everything was soaking wet.  I decided to wear my crocks without socks until we crossed the stream to get on the trail by the cabin.  We each had a packet of oatmeal and extras for breakfast.  I charged my phone from the 10,000mAh battery Dax had as my 20,000mAh battery died overnight.  I had a nature call as we finished breakfast and hit the Red Roof on the way to the cabin.  The rest of the crew met me there.  We checked out at the cabin.  Car got his Gatorade bottle that he left last night.  He also found his Sawyer Gravity parts near the creek where he got water with Chance the day before.  We crossed one more creek (in my crocks) and changed shoes.  The grass was still very wet.  The boys had a 5 minutes delay finding the trail up the hill.  It was a muddy climb about 1 mile followed by a muddy flat mile to Dan Beard camp.  The boys got to do another 90-minute COPE course.  They started on the challenging courses:

1)    Ben had to talk 3 blind “mini-bears” through a laser beam course made of ropes without touching them or a laser beam.

2)    All 4 boys were on a platform and had to get a dangling rope and swing across a raging river and all land in a hula-hoop.  Dax and Ben were blind and Chance was a politician and could only lie.

3)    The last one required all 4 of them to get up on a giant rope net.  Chance was blind and the only word they could say was “Arrrgh” (like a pirate).

Carl and I jumped up with them when they easily accomplished the goals.  We had lunch back near the cabin at 12:20pm and started the next 2.6 miles to Horse Canyon.  The first part was a steep climb.  Oh yeah, lunch had some Sweet Sue chunk ham.  It was good.  I’ve never seen that before.  It started to rain as we got to Horse Canyon camp at 1:10pm.  We thought we set up camp at site #2, but we found that later.  We set up by the Red Roof.  The rain paused while we set up the rainfly and tents.  I set up the rainfly so we could comfortably cook and eat under it if needed.  It threatened and actually raining on and off the rest of the day.  Carl, Markus, Chance and I hiked about .75 miles to the water catchment down and up a hill.  They basically use an inverted roof to catch water in a big tub.  There was a spigot to fill water bags.  We got 14 liters and brought them back to camp.  It rained a bit on us on the way back.  The adults had hot chocolate/coffee before Carl and Ben put up the bear bags.  Markus kept us updated on the weather radar.  We at about 4:30pm in fear of later rain.  The rain chances go to 0% after 9pm.  We hung around camp talking.  Carl went to his tent about 6:30pm.  Pat offered to let me shoot my AR-15 at his land and fly his racing drones.  I set up my hammock about 7:45pm and journaled until 8:30pm.  The wind is blowing and it is chilly, but not yet raining.  At one point when it was dry this afternoon, I patched 3 small holes in the 5-man Copper Spur tenet for the boys.  I also patched some small holes in my hammock tarp and a spot on Carl’s tent using tenacious tape.  Chance gave me his 16,000mAh battery to charge my iPhone and watch.  I’m looking forward to a shower at Indian Writings tomorrow.

 

Day 10 – June 18, 2019 Horse Canyon to Indian Writings (6.75 miles)

We hit the trail at 7:18am.  We made a wrong turn and headed down to Metcalf Station (arrived at 8:32am).  They offered blacksmithing and railroad building here.  We did not partake.  We continued on at 9am down a road to Indian Writings until we arrived at 10:28am.  They took us to our camp .75miles away in a field that has not been used.  The staff member (Ben) told me a story about how one of his co-workers went to town on his day off and Ben asked him to pick up a $10 item and take some $ from the $20 for his troubles.  The guy kept $7 which really annoyed him.  I asked about showers and Ben said they are cold.  I asked if there was any hot water and he fell quiet.  I waited until he admitted there is a small water heater.  I offered him $5 to turn that on for our 4:30pm & 5pm showers.  He did show up at 4:30pm to collect.  The water was barely warmer than super cold.  He gave us campsite 3 because he couldn’t find campsite 5.  It was the crappiest campsite this week.  It was .5miles to a Red Roof.  They did have a bear box instead of cables.  That was nice.  We set up camp, ate lunch, and I had to make the boys come to program on the way to 2pm conservation project..  We threw Atlatl which is basically a long arrow that is thrown and flicked with a foot-long stick.  Carl bet a half gallon of ice cream in Texas that he could beat the boys.  The boys went first and did great (tying the scout record of 85 yards).  The adults went.  I gave Carl his pick of position, Atlatl, and arrows.  We did not do so great in our first throws as the wind shifted against us.  The wind then shifted to what the boys had and Carl out-threw them all to 86 yards!  We made it to our conservations project start time on time.  The staff would not let us out to get to our 4:30 showers when we asked about it because the project was supposed to be 3 hours.  We worked on building trail about .75miles north of Indian Writings.  Pat left early as he needed a red roof and stayed until shower time.  I sent Carl about 4:15. Markus & I were going to leave at 4:30 but the rain started.  They said if it rained for 5 minutes they would have to cancel.  As I was heading out at 4:25, I told the lady there was lightning.  She agreed and started closing it all down.  I passed Carl on the way to the showers and met Ben with $5 for the heater.   The showers were still very cold.  Carl and Markus swapped in for Pat & I.  A crew showed up outside to wash clothes.  I also washed my clothes.  Chance & Dax showed up at 5pm with the project signed-off.  They used the female side to shower.  Dominic & Ben showered up at 5:15pm and barely got their shower.  We all washed clothes.  As we all got back to camp, Dax, Carl, and I went to the bear box to get the food.  It started raining on us on the way back to camp.  Chance, Dax, Carl, and I started putting up the dining fly.  I asked Ben and Dominic to get of the tent to help us set it up.  They resisted and did not help.  This pissed me off!  We just did their job of bear bags.  I went to my tent so I didn’t say something un-scout-like.  When we were told dinner was ready, Ben and Dominic were centered up under the tarp.  Carl and I ate 20 yards away by the firepit.  I told Carl I needed to go to Advisor coffee/cookies even though it was .75 miles away.  We whined to each other about it on the way & calmed down.  Carl and I were the only ones there because the camps are so far away.  We were on a bit of a slope again and I felt like I was sliding onto Carl all night.  It was warm enough to sleep in a T-shirt.

 

Day 11 – June 19, 2019 Indian Writings to Chase Cow (7 miles)

I woke about 5:40am and started breaking down the tent when I saw Dax standing there saying he wanted to see how we break down our tent so fast.  When I went up to the fire ring / eating area, I found the kids tent was down, bear bags down, and sorted, and dining fly put away.  Apparently, Ben and Dominic decided to get up at 4:55am and take care of business.  This was such a welcome relief from the frustration they caused us last night.  We left camp at 7:01am, hiked the .75miles back to Indian Writings and began the climb up the hill behind.  There was a good spot to take pictures most of the way up on a rock outcrop like McAfee Knob on the AT.  About 9am, a kid came up to us to ask us directions.  Their crew bush-whacked up the side of the hill from Chase Canyon.  We helped them over the fence and pointed them in the right direction.  While we were wondering how they got lost, we missed a turn going down a steep dirt road.  I caught it about 100 yards after I passed it, but the boys had about a half-mile hike back up the hill.  We took a new trail down to at 10:10am to Chase Canyon camp that added about 1 mile but had some nice switchbacks.  We arrived at the brand new 2019 camp called Chase Cow at 10:56am.  The staff have a yurt in a field and a volleyball court to play Cow-Ball.  We were nearly the last to arrive today and got rewarded with campsite 1.  This was right across from the bear lines.  Dax mentioned to the staff that they would like to cowboy camp.  Later, the staff asked me about it and said they need to be in a tent (like that would stop a bear!?!?!)  We ate lunch and headed down for our 2pm rock climbing only to learn that it had been pushed to 2:30pm.  We tried to beat the head in the shade with another crew that were joining us for rock-climbing.  When the staff was ready, we got to the rock.  Yet another large crew joined us as they passed on the trail.  It almost rained on us but we only got a few drops.  Our crew got to rock climb first.  There were 2 lines.  They were ranked as a 5.7 and a 5.5.  The easier one allowed you to repel yourself back down.  Chance did the harder one with Ben and Dominic.  The rest of us did the easy one.  It was very easy.  Carl managed to hurt the back of his right hand on the repel down as he missed a food hold and spun to the rock.  He was the first person ever in the medical log book for this new camp.  We went back to our camp after our 7 were done first.  Pat took a nap as his foot was hurting him.  At least we got to go first and get out of the heat.  We went down for our last Advisor coffee/cookie about 6:45pm.  There were a bunch of new crews coming in.  We gave them our advice on things like “Biscuits and Gravy (throw it away) and Greenwood Canyon closed due to snow.  The staff asked about the lack of tents in our camp.  They talked to the boys during the 7:30 Cow-Ball game.  The boys did set up and sleep in the tent (save Chance).  I set up my hammock way in the back of camp without the tarp about 9:30pm.  The stars were out and the moon was bright.  I’d guess it got down to about 40 degrees overnight. 

 

Day 12 – June 20, 2019 Chase Cow to Chase Ranch (6 miles)

I slept great in the hammock.  I woke about 5:15am, put stuff away, and dug a cat hole.  The boys were up and moving by 5:30am as planned.  Markus got the bear bags.  I made hot water for the replacement breakfast (old: Biscuits and Gravy) to 2 packs of oatmeal each.  We headed down to camp at 6:44am.  Dax checked us out and we did 5.8 miles finishing by 8:40am of easy slope down road walking.  The next bus didn’t come until 10:30 to drop people off.  I talked to the bus driver that we had 2 crews that would like to go back early if she had room from picking up others at 6-mile turn-around.  She barely said anything and headed out.  Carl and I took a tour of the Chase Ranch.  It was very informative.  There are no living members of the Chase family now.  The last one passed in 2013.

The rest of this is from memory about 6 months later…  The bus eventually did come about 1-2pm.  There were 3 crews waiting for the bus to take us back to base camp.  When we got back, we returned crew equipment, showered, shopped at the trading post (picked up a candle for the wife), ate supper, attended closing campfire, and hit the canvas tents for one last overnight in base camp.  We did get to see Sujay again.  He gave us some nice notes from his time with us.  The boys followed me around because I had an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot for internet access.  We spent the next 2 days driving home.  We stopped at the Big Texan for lunch on the 1^st day of driving.  The trip home was largely uneventful.  I spent some time culling through photos for the photo album and video slide-show.

 

Overall, it was a great trip!