[From the Philmanac - Cathedral Rock is the massive rock formation that looms above Cimarroncito Reservoir.  This is an excellent area to find mule deer in the early morning and late evening hours.]

[From the Philmanac - Cyphers Mine was part of the Cimarroncito Mining District.  This area was originally mined by Thomas Knott and Charles Wells around 1880.  They sold out to the Colorado Consolidated Verde Mining and Milling Company in 1894.  One of the managers for this company was an old miner named Charlie Cyphers, who operated the mine from 1900 through the early 1920's.  After several somewhat productive years, his hopes dwindled along with his profits.  Waite Phillips reportedly bought him out for about $100.  Today, you can still visit "Charlie's Cabin," which is filled with paraphernalia from the former mining glory days, and is currently still used for the evening "Stomp."  The floor of the cabin was replaced in 1993; otherwise, it is pretty much as Charlie left it.  Mine tours are still conducted in the Contention Mine, and discuss mine construction, working conditions, and mining dangers, as well as geology.  Some of the mines in the area include the Thunder, Glorietta, and Garst.  Other programs offered at Cyphers Mine include gold panning in the north fork of the Cimarroncito Creek, and blacksmithing (which was an essential part of mining and mine construction.)  The camp still has a wood-stoked shower house, and uses Adirondack Shelters for camping (because of the rough, uneven ground in the area.)  The 46 feet long footbridge over the Creek was rebuilt in 1995.]

Up at 5:35 am; 46 degrees, "It's Perfect Again!" - where did all the clouds go?  Thankfully, the tarp and tents were all dry, despite the late burst of rain the night before.  This morning's wakeup chorus included several croaking ravens and a couple of whinnying horses.  A few Crews had left for Shaefers Pass between 4:45 and 5:30, but most were still in camp.  Chris and Brad were up too, but we held off on waking the Crew.  Took down the bear-bags and tarp in the meantime.  Roused everyone else at 6:00, and circled up at 6:35 for stretching, then up to the Staff cabin (for water) by 6:45.  Kept quiet for the Staff's sake.  Spent a few minutes fixing Steven's pack - he had popped a pack-pin the previous afternoon, and unfortunately it was an odd size.  Finally managed to jury rig it with a safety pin, and we headed out, retracing our route to the Cimarroncito Reservoir and Cathedral Rock.  Passed another Crew on the way, on their way to Ute Springs; their trailing Advisors were having a very difficult time on just a slight uphill, not good.  We stopped at the reservoir at 7:30 for breakfast - but the view was not so hot, with the sun rising right over the water (but hey, still better than eating in camp any day!)  But we should have spent 2 more minutes and hiked down next to the reservoir; that would have been a much better choice.  The other Crew showed up a few minutes later, and after a few minutes debate, headed east to take the valley trail to Ute Springs, with several of the Scouts looking clearly frustrated and/or disgusted - so much for Window Rock or (even) just Cimarroncito or Hunting Lodge.  [ASIDE:  Sad when your Philmont experience has to be based on taking the easiest possible trails between camps, because some of your Advisors can't hack it.  As I have stated many times, too many people - Advisors AND Scouts! - have no business being here.  More to the point, they're stealing spaces from more motivated and deserving candidates, and ruining Philmont for the rest of their Crews.  Except for the morning after my laser eye surgery, I hiked and/or backpacked 4 to 8 miles EVERY DAY FOR 10 STRAIGHT WEEKS before I stepped on the plane, ending with 50-plus pounds on my back for the last 2 weeks worth.  What did these Advisors do?  Ridiculous....  Easy to say "Not my problem" - but with the increasing attendance pressure on the Ranch, it's everyone's problem.  What's next? - every 3 years?  every 5 years?  Once per lifetime?  It's time to become completely intolerant of these Philmont thieves!]  At 8:00, after another "war," this time with thistle seeds of some sort, we saddled up and headed for Cyphers.  As we exited from the trail onto the Cimarroncito road, we met with a Crew from Charlottesville, VA.  Turned out to be Mike Ashby's Troop, who I had helped prepare for their first (1998) trek.  Mike wasn't here this year, but one of the Scouts was a repeat - but all he could remember of me was that "the training had been in the volunteer firehouse."  Well, so much for making a dramatic impression!  They were on their way to Clark's Fork, then into Basecamp tomorrow.  We spent a minute showing them how to caterpillar, which they seemed impressed with (and promised to use for the long haul up Shaefers), and we took our leave.  With minimal debate, the guys passed on doing the Hunting Lodge, so we picked up the pace, turning left onto the trail for "Middle Fork" (no signs for either Lambert's or Cyphers Mine.)  A great trail! - steady uphill for miles, running alongside the middle fork of Cimarroncito Creek, well shaded and cool.  Great views behind us as we climbed, and increasing numbers of aspens, too, with a few Douglas Fir intermingled.  Twice I saw sizable native trout in the creek - the bigger one was at least 12 inches long, which is a heck of a fish here!  Passed many crews on their way down, all coming from Cyphers Mine - must have been quite a crowd there last night.  Every one of them properly yielded the right of way, except for one group of Texans.  Hit the trail intersect for Lambert's, and turned right for Cyphers - now paralleling the north fork of Cimarroncito Creek.  A bit later we passed the left-hand cutoff for Commanche Pass.  At this point, we had Cimmaroncito Peak almost directly in front of us, and a great view 2 - 3 miles down the valley to the right, towards Cimmaroncito camp and the Hidden Valley ridgeline.  The trail slowly curved to the left, and continued up the valley, now at a sharper incline.  Guys just pushed it all the way, however, with just a few caterpillars, and we pulled into Cyphers Mine at 10:05.  Saw a couple of Adirondack type shelters as we arrived - I had forgotten that camping at Cyphers was in shelters, not tents.  It's gonna be tight for 10 of us, though.  Wandered around for a minute or two before figuring out where the Staff Cabin was - across a (very well-built) footbridge.  "Martin" invited us up onto the porch for an orientation; we snagged a 10:45 Blacksmithing session and an 11:30 Mine Tour.  Once that was established, he led us down to one of shelters that was close to the creek (#4 ??), and everyone dumped their packs inside and grabbed their flashlights.  We were already close to being late, so Hank volunteered to watch the gear while the rest of us headed up to the forge.  I handled the primary photo duties, with Brad also taking a few shots.  The blacksmith was Marc Lerch, who (amazingly) recognized me from 1996, when he was a trekker in our brother Crew, Troop 829 from the Robert E. Lee Council.  (All the more surprising in that we had not gotten along with that Crew very well, and had therefore pretty much avoided each other until we got a little friendlier with each other our last 2 nights, at Harlan and Clark's Fork.)  Q & A between Marc and the Crew quickly established that we had already done blacksmithing at French Henry, so he offered a more ambitious project - making a dinner bell (triangle and ringer.)  Again, every one of the Scouts got involved, and we filled the entire time slot.  In fact, we went a little overtime (11:35) before finishing, at which point the guys thanked Marc and headed up to the mine.  I stuck around for a couple of minutes offering my personal thanks - it would have been easy enough for Marc to have "gotten even" for a 4 year old grudge, and I wanted to make sure that he knew that I appreciated the fact that (if anything) he went above and beyond to make our stay better.  Good guy.  Headed up to the mine, and found the Crew already engrossed in the theory of finding gold, and the history of the "Contention" Mine.  This from "Big Fat Bob the Hog."  Another Crew was getting a similar talk from "Jimbo."  Turns out that gold is typically located in a black rock seam between 2 plates, and that the mine here followed just such a seam after finding an extraordinarily rich vein here in the late 1800's.  Unfortunately, that vein died out quickly, and the mine changed hands several times in the following years, with each new hopeful eking out next to nothing while searching for that elusive mother lode.  The last holdout was Charlie Cyphers, who had been the very capable foreman of one of the last companies, and basically became a hermit, working the mine alone for many years until Waite Phillips bought him out.  So somewhere around here still is one heck of a lot of gold!  With that, everyone donned hard-hats and we headed in, about 10 minutes behind "Jimbo's" Crew.  Cyphers is over 500 feet in, more than twice the distance of the Aztec/Ponil 2 at French Henry, and unlike A/P-2 (which was a blowout shaft), this was the actual mine.  Cyphers also has 2 side passages, and one vertical shaft, each of which had followed temporarily promising leads.  [Photo: Drill holes]  Both Crews ended up assembling at the back of the mine for the usual hair-raising ending; surprisingly, however, here they did allow us to do the "no-light" escape that was no longer allowed at A/P-2.  We headed out about 5 minutes after the first Crew.  As always, a good time and another excellent Crew-building exercise (one of the reasons why I like doing it so much.)  500-plus feet is a long way to walk out with no light!  Once we exited (about 12:40), we thanked both "Big Fat Bob" and "Jimbo," and the Crew headed back for lunch; I stuck around for a few more minutes to ask a couple of more questions.  Lunch went quickly today - 12:45 is getting late when you usually eat breakfast early, and then hike like maniacs.  We also augmented what we had with a few bags of our cashews, which were well appreciated.  By 1:15, we were finished, and most of the guys headed off for - you guessed it - more gold panning in the North Fork.  While dreams of nuggets danced in their heads.  Unfortunately, yet another thunderstorm moved in a half-hour later (with dime-sized hail driving the last hopefuls inside), so no-one struck it rich today.  Since everyone was together, we spent about 15 minutes discussing the next day's hike to Mt. Phillips, with the issue being whether to do it direct, then go to Red Hills, or go over Mt. Phillips to Clear Creek, doing a big southerly loop back to Red Hills afterwards.  The latter choice was considerably more difficult, but Clear Creek offered another Black Powder Rifle Program, and the hike up Comanche Creek to Red Hills (from the southwest) was allegedly very scenic.  In the end, everyone decided to wait `til we summited Mt. Phillips before making a decision on which option to take - which was pretty sensible.  The rain was coming down pretty good at this point, so most of the Crew took advantage and grabbed another nap.  Dan worked his gimp for awhile before crashing, while I wrote diary and enjoyed watching a pair of birds work at feeding their nestlings, on top of the main roof beam running across the front of the hut.  A voracious robin was cleaning house out in front of the shelter, too.  At 3:00, Hank quietly left to go see if he could join the next mine tour (but he soon returned; no-one was there.)  The rain finally eased by about 3:30, but it remained stubbornly cloudy and surprisingly nippy - 52 degrees.  Oddly, it was clear and sunny to the east.  At 4:00, Hank and I started dinner behind the hut.  Turkey/Noodle Stew, Cheddar Potato Soup, Peaches and Cream Pie (with graham cracker topping), and Gatorade, a pretty good meal.  Indiana showed up at 4:30; some of their guys looked pretty whipped, but they were still moving right along.  No sign of Sterling, but they probably slipped by during the rainstorm.  Indiana ended up in the hut just above ours, and immediately headed off to do either the Blacksmithing or Mine Tour (or both); we had to chase a few mini-bears away from their packs until they returned.  Woke the Crew at 5:00; everyone was well pleased that dinner was already served.  This one ended up being a popular meal, too - with nothing left for the sump.  Dinner and cleanup was over by 6:30, and everyone busied themselves getting the bear-bags up, repacking their stuff, and setting up sleeping arrangements in the hut for tonight.  After a quick discussion, Hank and I decided to set up our tent out in the small (but level) clearing in front of the hut; no need to be squashed in with everyone else.  The ground was impossible to stake, so we laid rocks on crossed stakes on both sides; it worked.  Not hard to see why they decided on Adirondack shelters here!  Of note, we had a number of deer wandering around the site, licking and chewing on the rocks that the guys had "watered" (for the salt).  A bit of a gross-out, but at least now everyone could see for themselves why Philmont asks everyone to avoid urinating on trees or soil, or touching signs and trees with sweaty hands.  At 7:00, Hank and I headed up for the Advisor's Coffee, running into Martin discussing a bear attack near Mt. Phillips with another Advisor.  Our ears immediately perked up when we heard that "Mt. Phillips will be closed for tomorrow at least."  Once that conversation was over, we got the bad word direct - apparently, a bear had attacked 2 different Crews at Mt. Phillips camp, injuring a Scout in each, and Mt. Phillips and all the upper staging camps (Thunder Ridge, Comanche Peak, Red Hills, and Mt Phillips) would stay closed until the bear had been tracked down and shot.  Unfortunately, the next news was even worse - all the Crews at Cyphers that were due to go over Phillips had been directed to return to Cimarroncito camp - Arrrgh!  Counter-striking immediately, I asked if we could be allowed to go to "any southern camp," so we could at least climb Bear and Black Mountains in place of Comanche and Phillips.  Martin looked dubious, but said he would go ahead and call our request into Logistics.  Just as he left, the rest of the Crew came up, and we had to break the news to them; as expected, no-one was happy with this development, since this Crew had purposefully selected Trek 30 for the chance to climb the major peaks in the west-central section.  Martin exited the Staff cabin, and we headed up to see what Logistics had to say - and much to my surprise (and Martin's too, I think), they approved us going over Bear and Black Mountains via Comanche Pass, then staying at Porcupine (a trail camp southwest of Black Mountain camp.)  Great!  We all brightened immediately; it would be a tough day, but we were still going to get the max we could out of the trek - bear or no bear.  We spent a few more minutes going over the route on the map, and then chatted with Indiana and Sterling (they had come in around 3:00, during the rain) about what we were going to do.  They both decided to head back down to Cimarroncito for the rock climbing or the opportunity to do Hidden Valley (whichever they hadn't done after leaving Ute Gulch Commissary.)  Also greeted Marc Lerch, and gave him my last set of strings and a couple of picks, since this was our last Staff camp of the trek; he was well pleased.  By this point, it was nearing 8:00, and the Staff came out to start the "Stomp" with a group promise to not reveal the "less Scoutlike" aspects of the evening (which everyone enthusiastically agreed to), followed by the Cyphers Mine Tough Man Competition.  There was a big difference between here and Pueblano, however; that being, tall tales were allowed here (recall at Pueblano the stories had to be true.)  So I dusted off my patented tale of having endured the first and second most painful injuries ever suffered by a Scout at Philmont (in the interests of keeping my promise to the Staff, details omitted here.)  Suffice it to say that even the Staff cracked up laughing at the punchline.  So anyway, I won the contest hands-down, and we headed down to Charlie Cyphers' cabin for the actual Stomp.  As winner of the tough-man competition, I had to replace my boots with oversized wooden clogs, and dance to a hot banjo instrumental.  Well, I hammed it up as best I could, with the Staff yelling that I was the best clogger they had seen all summer.  Fortunately, they stopped the music before I collapsed.  After that rousing start, we went right into the song repertoire, with Marc being the lead singer and guitarist:  16 Tons, Friend of the Devil, Folsom Prison Blues, Paradise, Boy Named Sue, Fire on the Mountain, Heart of Gold, Tangled Up in Blue, Last Dance with MaryJane, Mama Don't `low (a great tune!), Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, and the Road Song (by the Doors.)  I may have missed one or two songs, but I think that was all of them.  One or two short stories were mixed in there as well.  All in all, a great time - in fact, the only downer was the amount of dust we kicked up doing all our stomping!  They called it a night around 9:45, and we headed back down to the shelter.  Bed by 10:00, with a pretty stiff breeze blowing down the draw.  It rained twice overnight, but only for a few minutes each.  Another excellent day - and a nice kick-save on losing Mt. Phillips, too.  But for sure a very long day coming up tomorrow....