Monthly Archives: June 2012

Philmont ’98 707-P2 Days 3 & 4

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It was around 4:30/5am on Friday, July 10 when Dad woke me up stirring around in the tent. Ben, our Ranger, and our crew leader had decided the night before that we would wake up before sunrise and hike a quarter mile or so to a place called “Inspiration Point.” It was Ben’s final morning with us and he fully discussed the “Wilderness Pledge”, (Phimont’s version of LNT) something I really didn’t understand at the time, and wouldn’t fully comprehend for another 5 years.

We sat out at the point until the sun poked it’s head over the horizon and then headed back towards camp to pack things up and eat breakfast. We didn’t have very far to go, maybe 6 miles, to the days final destination. Bear Caves.
We were up and out of there before the staff at Urraca Mesa were even stirring. Making our way up and over the mesa the way we came the previous day, almost back to Lover’s Leap camp, we eventually got headed on a different trail.


Somewhere between Stonewall Pass and Bear Caves camp. From here you can see Grizzly Tooth (left) and Betty’s Bra (right).

We got to Bear Caves before lunch and setup camp, found water and hung out for a bit. The days activities were to be had at a staff camp a few miles away at Crater Lake. We ate lunch and headed off to do some spar pole climbing. Most of the staff camps are set in a certain period in time, with the staffers dressing and playing their part. Obviously, here we have mid to late 1800′s logging era. I wish I had pictures of the staff and of our crew climbing up a the pole. Climbing to the top was no small task and once you made it to the top we were supposed to shout something. Probably something about a hot chick at the time I think. Not really sure. The afternoon was winding down and we headed back to our camp to make dinner and settle in for the evening. I think several members of our crew went back to Crater that evening for advisers coffee and the evenings campfire. I don’t remember going.

The next day we again woke up before the sun was even remotely shining. We had a big day ahead of us. We would summit our first peak. Trail Peak. It was a beating getting up so early two straight days. I had just turned 15 some 10 days before and getting up early wasn’t really my thing. Actually, backpacking was still new to me.

We loaded up and head back towards Crater Lake to eat breakfast and and fill up on water.

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Philmont ’98 – 707-P2 – Days 1 & 2

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(originally posted 7-1-2009)

Having arrived at basecamp on the 6th, we were still a day early. Not all of the crew had yet arrived; they would show the following day. We were able to rent a few tents to stay in an extra night and hauled our gear into them for the day.
The day consisted of touring the Rayado Camp. It is more or less a staff camp. I would never call it a backcountry camp as it sits on the side of a paved road. It is situated close to where the Abreu Family settled along the Santa Fe trail.

 

Kit Carson ran the place for a few years as a trading post and Inn for travelers on the trail. Today, after being rebuilt some 50 years ago, it houses roughly 5 staffers during the summer months giving tours and greeting hikers. The Abreu family cemetery can been seen a few hundred yards to the west.

The rest of the day was spent at the trading post @ base, playing basketball, and I’m sure other things that I cannot remeber.
Finally, on the 7th, it began. The rest our crew arrived and we started the check-in progress. Dad called it “hurry up and wait”. Our ranger’s name was Ben we found out and we immediately went to hang out at Logistics. This was where the final trip planning occurred. Our crew leader, Scott and an adult advisor went in and the rest our crew sat outside and learned a few basic things from Ben.

Itenerary for the next ten days:
Basecamp – basecamp procedures
Lover’s Leap – trail camp – Ranger Training
Urraca Mesa – staff camp – Team Building – Ranger Training
Bear Caves – trail camp – program @ Crater Lake camp – Spar Pole climbing
Beaubian – staff camp – horseback riding – westerlore
Beaubian – staff camp – conservation project – trail work – chuck wagon dinner – food pick up at Phillips Junction
Crooked Creek – staff camp – homesteading
Clear Creek – staff camp – blackpowder rifle, mountain man,
Cypher’s Mine – staff camp – Climb Mt Phillips on way, gold mine tour, pan for gold,
Cimarroncito – staff camp – rock climbing – p/u food at Ute Gulch
Tooth Ridge – trail camp – Climb Tooth of Time
Basecamp – hike in, unload, Closing campfire.

We went to lunch(your normal summer camp dining hall food) shortly after, then it was off to the Health Lodge lodge for medical rechecks. Basically they check your weight and take your blood pressure if your an old fart. If you too fat or something they basically tell you that you can’t go hiking. Mainly for emergencies if you gotta be carried out and such.
Aftwards we went to the commisary and got the food and gear we would be carrying for the next few days. Back then I was still on the small side and it seemed like a lot. We hauled all this stuff back to our tents. Somewhere in here we did a final shakedown of our gear and what were going to be taking with us.

By then it was time for dinner, or very close. Afterwards, I’m guessing we just hung out the rest of the evening. TJ and I went to play basketball. There was the opening campfire that I’m sure we were supposed to go to, but I don’t think a few of us did. Dad had me come with him to the advisors lounge so as to say bye to mom before we hit the trail the next morning.

After breakfast on the 7th, our crew took the offical group shot with NPS. We loaded up on the bus that would take us to the trail head at either 8 or 10. Hard to remember exactly. We got the Lover’s Leap turnaround and we found some shade and Ben did some more instruction on hiking etiquette and river crossings and the such. Ben would be with us until our third hiking day.

At Lovers Leap camp, we went over proper campsite setup, the “Bearmuda” triangle, and took a nap, and played with the sump Frisbee. Ben made some fudge that ‘chilled’ in the South Fork Urraca Creek. Dinner was this disgusting concoction of everything. Ben was going for the one pot method.
The next day we headed off and learned about triangulation. We finally got on the right trail and proceeded up Urraca Mesa via Stonewall Pass.

The wildlife was sparse; a few deer and chipmunks. At Urraca Mesa camp, our first staffed camp, we did a “sort of” COPE course, some ropes obstacles and a wall. More for the crew building for the next week. After dinner there was advisers coffee then a campfire put on by the staffers. They sang a few songs and told some ghost stories about the haunted mesa and the ‘eye’ on top. Though mostly exaggerated, the mesa does have a lot of magnetic properties and caused a WWII test plane to crash into the nearby Trail Peak after flying over the mesa.

….to be continued…..

Philmont ’98 – Travel to Taos

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(originally posted 6-26-2009)

It was Saturday. July 4th of ’98. I had turned 15 just 3 days earlier. After many months of weekend hiking trips, multiple shakedowns, and a few trips to the old Birdville Stadium to climb the stairs, it was time. Time for my longest excursion in the wilderness. Dad and I got the road early that morning. I’d say sometime around 3am or so. We drove until the sun came up and then filled up somewhere. Probably Childress. Then kept on driving. We were in the old ’89 blue F150, that had its share of war wounds from the ’95 hail storm, and a questionable A/C system. I’d like to say that dad made that trip without a speeding ticket, but ol’ Smokey in either Claude or Clarendon probably got him. We passed The Big Texan in Amarillo and made our way north through Dumas(dad proceeds to tell story about back in the day when he and mom and my uncle came this way to Red River to ski and their car broke down in a “blizzard” and they call a tow truck from the CB radio and spent the night here) and Dalhart, finally crossing the border and made it Clayton. The famous outlaw ,Black Jack Ketchum, was hanged in Clayton after getting wounded and captured during a train robbery. By this time the weather had cooled down. Not alot, but still noticeable. The next 80+ miles to Springer has got to be the longest, most boring part of the drive. Nothing, absolutely nothing to look at but the emptiness of the dried up land. Arriving in Springer, we headed up I25 a few miles to fill up at the truck stop and proceeded east down 58. Dad tries to point out certain features of the mountains from when he came as kid to Philmont. We make it to the village of Cimarron and had lunch at Heck’s Hungry Traveler.



We didn’t hang around town for long as we still had to make it Taos.

We loaded back up and took the windy and curvy road that paralleled the Cimarron River up through the canyon, taking the north part of the Enchanted Circle through Red River and down into Taos. I was mesmerized at the views and just didn’t know what to think of it. We made it to the Sage Brush Inn, on the south end of town,  and checked in. There was a small group, from the two crews, that wanted to arrive early and go rafting down the Rio Grande on the 5th. They arrived shortly after us and we went swimming and hung out in the hot tub. I’m not sure if dinner was at the Pizza Emergency or if it was downtown at this bar/restaurant. I’m not sure the name of it, but they had a shuffleboard table. Either way, they next day for dinner we had the other.

On the 5th we got up and had the complementary breakfast(eggs bacon biscuits gravy etc) and made our way down to Pilar where the rafting took place. There were a few charters that launched out of the same place. Far Flung is the one they had chosen. We loaded up in a bus and made it to the ‘put in’ area. They showed us the in’s and the out’s and what not to do. We were on the water i’m guessing maybe 2 hours or so.


The rest of the day we just chilled around town. Did a little shopping and site seeing. A few people, dad included, drove down to the Taos ski valley and then to the Rio Grande gorge bridge.

The majority voted to stay back and we ended up watching Sex in the City on HBO. I’d never heard of the show before, but the episode was titled “The Power of Female Sex” I believe that was/is the only episode I have ever watched.

The next day we got up and headed back through the canyon and finished up the Enchanted Circle and made it to base camp.

to be continued…..

Monday Morning Scramble

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*Grayson took his first steps by himself last night.

It seems like yesterday that we were trying to get Zoe to take her first steps. They grow up fast.

*It might seem as though the Texas Rangers have struggled the last month. Having won only 4 of the last 10 games for the beginning of June, last year they slumped just as bad and look where they ended up in October. Just saying.

*My sister came into town this past weekend to spend some time with mom and dad. Though, everyone knows the real reason was to hang out with Zoe and Grayson. I can’t blame her. She stayed with mom and dad the whole weekend, so to maximize ‘Aunt T bonding time’, we let Zoe and Grayson spend the night on Friday. Zoe loves Aunt T. She honestly can’t get enough of her. Saturday I ended up bringing Grayson home and left Zoe with the girls to get their nails done. Zoe spent a second night over there and it was rather quite. Being away from Zoe for a night is cool. Not ready for 2 nights or even a week.

*Stephanie was issued an iPad from her work a week or so ago, which leaves her Android tablet vacant and free for me to takeover. With this here laptop on typing to write this blog, or my phone that has a wordpress app and everything else I can think of, so I haven’t figured out a use for the tablet yet.

The cucumber beetle’s destruction

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I came home from work a few days ago and did what I usually do. I walked out back to fiddle around in the garden. Watering the pumpkin and watermelon seedlings I spotted this damage done to a Moon and Stars melon plant.

“Crap,” I muttered under my breath. The cucumber beetle was back, or more importantly, it never left. A few weeks ago I witnessed the destruction of three other watermelon seedlings. They died off completely. This time, though, I spotted a would-be culprit and tried to take it’s mugshot but it wouldn’t sit still long enough. So, I squished it. If you want to know what one looks like just Google it.

Hopefully, this little plant will recover and grow up to make some juicy melons!

Summer is heating up

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I’d be lying to you if I said that I didn’t have anything to write about the last several weeks. I have. I’ve had lots and lots of things to write about. It was finding the time to put pencil to paper, which there has been lots of. You know, at midnight, way after the kids have gone to bed and I have unwound from that days work load or garden activities or baseball games; or during lunch at work while I’m catching up on facebook and twitter. It’s just that when that time came I really didn’t care if I wrote anything. Everyone that I care to share most of my thoughts and ideas with live under the same roof I do.

The month of May flew by pretty quick and June isn’t slowing down.

The blackberries peaked last Thursday, right on schedule, and are just about done. There are a few left on the canes and soon it will be time to cut them back to the ground. The new canes are already 2 and 3 feet tall.

The Roma tomatoes are in the middle of their peak. Being a determinate type of tomato, they shouldn’t fruit anymore. If they do, it would be a miracle as most the vines are dying left and right. Since this is happening, its leaving a lot of the unripe fruit exposed to the summer sun, and thus cooking them on the vine. I’m not going to complain much though, as I have never grown as many tomatoes as I have this year. So much so, Stephanie and I took to canning them just so they wouldn’t go bad. 15 pints and 2 quarts. Should get another 10-15 pints. I couldn’t be happier.

The tomatoes that are in the big bed I planted this last spring haven’t really recovered from the crappy dirt I put them in even after doing some soil amending. They have fruit on them, but nothing to shake a stick at. I’ll give them to the end of this month and I’m pulling them. When I do, cotton burr compost is going down, and buckwheat is getting planted.

I have four of the normal bed growing buckwheat now. I’ve learned my lesson and if I don’t amend the soil properly, the growing conditions are just going to get worse. I honestly don’t know how the Roma’s have done so well.

Speaking of the end of the month. I cannot wait for the 29th to get here. VACATION!! We haven’t taken an extended, get out of town, true family vacation since we went to the Grand Canyon in 2009 when Zoe had just turned a year old. With Ashleigh being born in 2010 and Grayson in 2011, we spend the bulk of our vacation days for that. I’m almost too excited for this. A six+ hour road trip for 8 days in Port Aransas. Beaches, deep sea fishing, riding the waves, seafood, fishing in the bay, looking for shells with Zoe, Crab-N, crossing the ferry. Bring it!

I picked a strawberry yesterday. That was a bit odd. There haven’t been strawberries for at least a month. Zoe ate it. She said it was delicious. I’ll just have to trust her.