White Sands National Park Hot Air Balloon Ascension

Catherine and I got up pretty early today to go see the hot air balloon ascension at White Sands National Park.

We did not have the place to ourselves, that is for sure. The balloons were supposed to launch at 7 am, but it was probably closer to 7:30 before the first balloon launched.

They had quite a few balloons, but didn't quite manage a mass launch, it was onesies and twosies until they all had launched.

It was a lot of work for the ballooners, since they launched, floated maybe 300 yards (some barely skimming the hillside downwind!) and landed in or near another parking lot.

I think their total time in the air was less than 3 minutes, maybe 5 at the outside most.

We are set to see the big hot air balloon show in a couple of weeks in Albuquerque; it should be a pretty good show.

I am pretty sure there will be naps later - have a great day!

Marc

Jeff's visit

Jeff made a quick visit to and experience southern New Mexico. We crammed as much in there as we could. The morning after he arrived, I had to run with the installation on our 9-11 memorial run. Shortly after that, Jeff and I loaded up and went to Dripping Springs, to hike up to the former tuberculosis sanitarium. We haven't had a ton of rain lately, so the springs truly were just dripping.

From there, we made our way to White Sands National Park. It was hot, and it was bright. Even under a hat with sunglasses, the light was painfully intense, so we didn't stick around. We then went up to Cloudcroft to see the Mexican Canyon Trestle. We had lunch at a little BBQ place I hadn't been to yet - but totally will go back to. Mad Jacks is the more famous/busy of the two, but Son-In-Law had great food, too!

After lunch we drove to Bluff Springs, which is about 7-8 miles down a gravel road. We saw a cowboy recovering a run-away horse, and a few other people along the way, but not many.

We drove back to WSMR, since I had a farewell/social function I had to attend. The next morning, Ian, Jeff, and I got up pretty darn early to hit the road - we had a long day ahead of us. We drove to Silver City, where we ate at the slowest Denny's on the entire earth. That didn't ruin our plans at all, since we were probably the third group there, but it did set us back a bit.

After getting fed and watered, we headed north to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The road twists through the mountains, up and over the continental divide a time or two. We hiked up through a beautiful, and cool, canyon on the way to the cliff dwellings.

We had the dwellings to ourselves - only a park ranger was there with us. A couple of people arrived after, but we had the place basically to ourselves.

Ian showed Jeff the pictographs painted on the walls, which he had learned about on a previous trip.

We hiked back to the car, and checked out a smaller dwelling, and then Spirit Canyon with its many pictographs on the way home.

We took another wonderful, twisty mountain road home, with lunch at Sparky's.

Cheers,

Marc

Happy Labor Day

It was a busy weekend for the Skinners in New Mexico!

We went to Carlsbad Caverns on Friday to watch half a million bats fly out of the one entrance on their way to a meal. It was pretty neat - the bats circle in what amounts to a vortex as they gain altitude to escape the bowl that the cavern mouth sits in. They then fly in a "river" to wherever they go to eat. It was silent to us, but you could hear the air moving from all those wings.

Saturday we took in a bunch of football games with some friends. Sunday I loaded up the motorcycle and headed into the mountains - I was lucky to find a campsite, as most campgrounds were full.

I grabbed the last site, then did a bit of riding further up the mountain to see the sights. 

Monday morning I was up early, as usual, and headed out as soon as the tent was dry. While I was enjoying some coffee and waiting for breakfast to cook, I noticed a long string of lights in the sky - I think it was a Skylink train of satellites, which was pretty cool. I only had my cell phone - so no cool photos.

On my trip up into the mountains (again), I came across a young bear running on the road. Thankfully he was small and mom was nowhere to be found. There isn't much protection from animals on a motorcycle!

The mountains are putting on a last, spectacular, display of flowers for the summer. The whole mountainside (below) was turning yellow from the flowers. We've had a pretty wet summer, compared to the wildfires we had, I'll take it!

Cheers,

Marc

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