You guessed it - another sunset!

Ian and I took our walk this evening a couple of hours after it rained. It was still cloudy when we left, but we had no idea what was in store.

As were were headed home, these crazy gray clouds showed up over our mountains. I thought that was going to be it, but as we got closer to home, they started to catch some beautiful sunset-light from underneath.

Such a treat!

Marc

Philmont Scout Ranch - Day 7

The final day. We hiked 7.2 miles from the Tolby Headwaters Campground to the trailhead pick up. We made great time, so we waited about 2.5-3 hours for the bus to pick us up. We ate our last trail lunch, played games, and took naps while waiting on the bus.

We had to clean and turn in out crew gear once we arrived, and showers were long overdue. We celebrated with an ice cream cone. We got there minutes (seconds?) before closing time, so the kid serving the ice cream was not terribly interested in ensuring we all had a pleasant experience - but we did certainly get a good laugh about the whole situation. Ian's cone was pretty pathetic; the server dropped half of the ice cream on the serving tray, looked at it, looked at the cone, turned to look at us, and just handed Ian the cone (the photo below is the un-eaten cone). For $1.50, I didn't push the server, but chose a cup instead!

We had a nice sunset, with a strange light/shadow phenomenon on the eastern horizon, where the shadows converged to a point rather than spreading from a point light source. Pretty cool!

We went to a nice campfire ceremony, which is pretty typical for Scouts, and then went to bed. Ian and I stayed long enough to say goodbye to our fellow Scouts and get a photo in front of the Philmont sign covered in old hiking boots. We intend to use ours some more, so we did not throw ours on there.

We took a scenic way to start the trip, but due to some construction, I abandoned our plans and just took the fastest way home - which was still 3:15 pm with a 7:30 start time.

One of the other things which took up our time was this hot air balloon launch in Angel Fire. We got to our breakfast point just before the crowds arrived, but it still slowed the restaurant down immensely.

That concludes our Philmont trip. It was a bittersweet way to finish Ian's Scouting adventure. 

We started this way back in 2012 in Washington state. He crossed over from the Cub Scouts in Texas, found a great Troop in Virginia and again in Maryland. He earned his Eagle rank, completing his project 2 weeks before the COVID shutdown. He has been somewhat active with his NM troop. We did Sea Base (SCUBA adventure) with the Virginia crew and now Philmont with the Maryland crew. Next week is his last meeting as a Boy Scout with the New Mexico crew - he will age out on his 18th birthday.

Time flies, and while I am sad that this chapter of our lives are done, I am thrilled that Ian still wants to camp and go backpacking with me - I have a camping buddy for future adventures!

Cheers,

Marc

Philmont Scout Ranch - Day 6

I got up early (everyone else was pretty tired from yesterday's hike - I was too, but old habits...) to catch the sunrise, which was pretty but without the sky/light show like the previous evening. We had a ton of dew get everything wet, so we waited for the sun to come out and dry everything off before packing up and hitting the trail.

We hiked down from Mt. Phillips to the Clear Creek Campground where we got to shoot a muzzle loader rifle. We each had only 3 shots, but it was still fun.

We hit the trail again (about 7-7.5 total miles) ending up at our final campsite, Tolby Headwaters Campground (9,750 ft. elevation). We had the place to ourselves, again. Since we were running low on gas for the camp stove, we had a campfire, which was very nice. That evening, we sat out in the meadow, watched a bear in the far distance as the stars came out and the full moon rose - it was a great way to spend the evening.

While the sunset didn't have the color like the night before, it was still a pretty sunset and a nice way to put the day to bed.

All told, we hiked about 7.5 miles and lost about 2,000 ft. in elevation. The trails were in good condition, so it was an easy day - the Scouts made grade time!

Cheers,

Marc

Philmont Scout Ranch - Days 4 and 5

From Cimarroncito Campground, we hiked through the Upper Webster Park area to do 3 hours of service work helping to build a trail - it was hot and hard work. 

From there, we hiked to Cypher's Mine (9,200 ft elevation). All told, it was about 10 miles on the trail, including the hike to the service project (started at 10:30 am). That got us in camp pretty close to dinner, which we needed to cook and clean, meaning we missed the camp program that night. However, we did the blacksmithing project (butter knife) and toured the abandoned gold mine before we hit the trail the next day.

From Cypher's Mine, we hiked up (and up) to Mt. Phillips, the second highest peak on the Philmont Scout Ranch. Since it was near the end of the season, we had the place to ourselves, which was pretty cool. We made great time over the 7.5 miles, but the elevation (11,936 ft.) was a killer. 

Fortunately, the sun played nice and gave us a very pretty sunset.

Ian noticed the show in the opposite direction, so we grabbed a quick selfie.

It was chilly up there with the wind blowing, but the show was worth it!

Cheers,

Marc

Philmont Scout Ranch - Days 1-3

Ian and I just got back from a week in the southern Rockies in New Mexico, at the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, NM. To say we had a great time is a massive understatement!

This trek was the makeup from the one we had scheduled in the summer of 2020 that was cancelled due to COVID. Because of my work schedule, we had to shorten it from the original 12-day itinerary to a 7-day itinerary, which was just fine.

Ian and I drove up and met the Maryland crew just before lunch. We did all of our in-processing paperwork and drew crew gear. We spent the night in base camp and headed out the next afternoon. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as we arrived at the trailhead, the monsoon rains hit us pretty good. Fortunately, it was a short but heavy rainfall and no near lightning. We hiked on up to our campground (Arrowhead) with our Philmont ranger.

It was a fairly easy 2.5 mile hike, finishing at about 7,500 ft.

We hiked the next morning through Clark's Fork Campground, where we learned to lasso. By a massive stroke of luck, I lasso'd Bessie.

We had a fairly experienced cowhand to show us how to handle the lariat (rope) and lasso the cow. I think Ian had a nice time, too!

We kept hiking from there towards our destination campground, but found a forestry demonstration in an old burn scar, and stopped to hear what the foresters had to say. Lucky for us, it rained while we were under cover.

We hiked on to Cimarroncito Campground, where we did some rock climbing and rappelling - which was put on a temporary pause due to some lightning and thunder in the area.

This second day on the trail was longer - about 6 miles, but with a climb to 8,100 feet elevation.

Cheers,

Marc