[From the Philmanac (Note that this is an OLD entry, and refers to the original Baldy Skyline camp (not the new camp) - but it’s generic and “close enough”) - Baldy Skyline Camp is located between Ewell’s Park and Head of Head.  It is located along the Baldy skyline which offers great views towards Old Baldy as well as towards Ute Park.  It is a dry camp that is no longer in use.]

By 5:15 the rain was coming down pretty steady, and there were no signs of life from Luke’s tent, so (in view of the relatively trivial hiking day we had ahead) I decided to let the Crew sleep in.  Heavy rain would wash out the conservation program at Baldy Skyline anyway, so little need to rush at this point.  Hugh came over at 5:25, just as rain got heavier and the wind picked up, and I repeated my thoughts to him, adding let’s give it a half hour or so, and see if it eases up.  He agreed, and headed back to his tent.  Well, if nothing else, our left-out laundry will be “rain fresh” now, albeit a heck of a lot heavier.  Also heavy tents and tarp, too, added onto our already heavy food pickup.  Well, at least it’s an easy hike today.  Sorry for the guys doing Baldy, though.  It really started coming down at 5:45, so so much for giving it a half-hour to clear up!  I continued writing diary, finishing up yesterday’s writeup at about 6:30, then napped on and off until 7:20.  The rain suddenly eased (which is what woke me up), and looking outside, I could see that the clouds were breaking up, so I roused myself, packed up, and got dressed.  Woke everyone at 7:30, making it clear that it would be a leisurely breakdown - so make an effort to keep your dry stuff dry and mud-free.  49 degrees, but a good breeze and all the moisture made it seem colder.  But for all that, everyone was out in less than 20 minutes, and we started in on packing up the site.  We left the tarp up for now (in case the rain returned), but all the tents and pack covers were thoroughly shaken out, and the left-out laundry wrung out as well as possible.  Got the bear bags down and the food sorted out; a lot of weight there too!  Used the scale again to divvy stuff up:  Luke 40.5, Drew 36, Michael 38, Todd 42, Matt 43, Will 38, William 48, Hugh 50, Thomas 38, Charlie 34, Neil 42, Mark 36, me 41 (average 40.5).  I had a mild brainstorm after breakfast - Could we do the conservation service project in camp, since Baldy Skyline was probably going to be washed out?  We could continue on with the same volunteer erosion barrier projects that our previous Crews had done here.  I showed our previous work to Hugh, Luke, and Matt, and sent them up to the staff cabin (along with our latest trash) to see if the Camp Director would approve.  Everyone else finished packing up, filling canteens, etc.  Our cabin crew came back in 15 minutes - the answer was a very reluctant “No” - the Camp Director really liked our work, and wished he could approve our request to do more, but that was possible only after we had been rained out of our scheduled project.  “Rules are Rules”.  We had to try for the Baldy Skyline project, and hope it didn’t rain anymore.  So my little bit of touch-up work two days ago would have to be our only contribution to Miranda this year.  Well, better than nothing.  With that, we dried off and packed the tarp, saddled up, and left at 10:10, under growing sunshine.  Quite probably the latest any of my Crews has ever left a camp at Philmont.  A nice turnaround in the weather, though, and all the laundry we had pinned to the outsides of our packs began to dry out (and lighten up).  Back down through Maxwell, and across to the Baldytown road.  We met four female Rangers coming across the bridge just before the road, and stopped to chat for a minute.  They were planning on doing Baldy either that day or the next, depending on the weather.  At the trail, we just took off, and did the hill in short order, with only three caterpillars for the whole thing.  Considering our higher pack weights, pretty impressive.  In fact, this Crew has repeatedly impressed me with their overall speed and refusal to take breaks - or even caterpillar (I’m very glad I’m in halfway decent shape!)  One Crew descended past us as we were climbing, heading for Miranda.  The trail to Head of Dean was closed (fire damage), so we continued back up to 5 Forks.  There were 2 - 3 Crews on top, and we took a brief break there ourselves.  I spent a few minutes commiserating with a Crew that had gotten mis-oriented on the back side of Baldy (they had taken the false trail at the bottom of the draw, ending up in the middle of Copper Park Camp before rediscovering the main trail; no harm done but they were curious as to how they had missed the main trail in the first place).  Five minutes and we left for Baldy Skyline on the Head of Dean road.  Baldy Skyline is a brand new camp about halfway between 5 Forks and Head of Dean.  [I have a vague memory of there being a previous Baldy Skyline Camp many years ago, but I have no idea if it was at the same location as the new one, or further west towards Ewell’s Park; I’ll have to check that out when I get home.]  Leisurely hiking on the road, and the guys enjoyed walking side by side with a chance to talk more easily.  We arrived at 11:55, so great time from Miranda.  Luke and Matt checked in at the staff tents (no cabins here yet) - we were given a 1:00 pm start time for our conservation project, so we were under the gun right away.  Headed down to our site (led by “Blake”), which was on the left hand side about halfway down the Ponderosa Pine outlined meadow that constituted the camp.  Other than the two staff tents, a brand-new latrine, and a water well, there wasn’t much to the camp yet - but Blake indicated that this was planned to be a major new camp, designed to take some of the pressure off (mostly) Head of Dean and (to a lesser extent) Miranda.  Our conservation project was actually going to be some preliminary camp construction.  The weather began to get threatening again, but no rain yet.  We set the tarp up, then the tents too (since they couldn’t get any wetter anyway).  I used the “oops” line to set up a multiple run clothes line under the tarp (pole to pole), and we put as much of our still damp/wet clothing up on it as we could.  Organized the food, and ate lunch in a hurry.  Hugh tangled the bear bag rope on the cable, but luckily it was a fairly low cable and we managed to cut it down with a knife taped to the end of a very long branch.  Once the bear-bags were up, everyone changed into long pants (mandatory), grabbed their gloves, rain gear, and canteens, and headed down to the far end of the meadow.  Naturally, after rushing like crazy to get done by 1:00, we then sat around for almost 25 minutes waiting for two other Crews that were still in their campsites.  We passed the time chatting with the two other Crews that were also on-time, including one mostly female Venturing Crew.  We had some very light rain falling after about 1:20 or so.  Once everyone was finally assembled, we got some “How-To” instructions from the two staffers (Jeremy and then Blake).  I asked permission and added some comments of my own, mentioning the long-term value of the conservation efforts here, and exhorting everyone to give an honest effort for a couple of hours - to give something back (this was very well received by Jeremy and Blake).  The project turned out to be twofold:  In “Part A”, two Crews picked up pine needles and other “duff” from the nearby forest floor and redeposited it on the bare areas created during the construction of the new water well.  In “Part B”, three Crews (including ours) created a new trail along the tree/meadow line by scrapping one into the ground, outlining it with long pieces of timber (that we sawed from piles of timber leftover from the original camp construction), and trimming all the trees along the way.  Compared to actual trail construction, this was pretty easy work, but we went at it with a will nonetheless [Photos: 1, 2].  Blake and Jeremy called it a day at 3:30, but our Crew insisted on working 3 full hours to complete our 50 miler awards (both of our staffers were rather surprised at this request!)  So we finished the last stretch of trail (to the road), cleared debris off a side road on the other side of the meadow, and then worked on creating a large sitting bench from a fallen (or maybe cut down, hard to tell) Ponderosa near the main road - basically, we used a saw and a large ax to cut a level surface along the top of the fallen log - similar to what they did with Big Doug down at Pueblano.  This gave us a chance to talk informally with Blake and Jeremy also, which was interesting - kind of like an Advisor’s Coffee with Scouts.  I also asked whether either of them had a guitar, and surprise, Jeremy did, and so I begged an opportunity to play after dinner (didn’t have to beg too hard!)  That took us til 4:20, at which point we spent our remaining time collecting and bringing all the remaining tools back to the starting point, and got a group photos with Blake and Jeremy [Photos: 1, 2].  Jeremy then gave us a short spiel about the other programs available at Philmont (ROCS, etc.), and concluded with some highly complimentary remarks about our Crew - basically that we were “the best Crew he had seen all summer”.  Wow!  With that swelling our heads, we headed back to camp for dinner.  Most of the guys played cards during dinner prep.  After assisting with the stove lighting, I wrote diary til about 6:00.  Dinner was served at 6:15, and I made a personal point of thanking everyone in the Crew for their efforts today.  Although it’s not a new section of trail you can walk on again in 35 years, it was still important work (and who knows, maybe one or two of them will rest their weary bones on the Baldy Skyline bench three or four decades from now, and remember this day....)  At 6:45, I went back to the check-in staff tent with my picks and sheet music, and played Jeremy’s guitar through Advisor’s coffee (from about 6:40 - 8:30 or so).  I enjoyed chatting with both Blake and Jeremy, and thanked them both for their compliments to the Crew.  Played my entire repertoire, and Jeremy traded off once or twice to play some personal favorites of his own.  Luke and Matt came over to ask if the Crew could sit in and listen, but Jeremy gave them a reluctant “No”, explaining that this time was specifically reserved for Adults to be away from the Scouts (so they went back and listened in from the campsite).  As it turned out, only half a dozen other Advisors came, between 7:30 and 8:00, but it was breezy and getting chilly, so none of them stayed very long.  Or maybe it was the quality of the entertainment???  I bagged it at 8:30 (well satisfied), as it was getting dark.  I gave a final thanks to both Jeremy and Blake, and also gave Jeremy a new set of strings and a pick as “guitar rental” (he tried to decline, but I insisted; some things are a bit difficult to come by in the back-country).  Back at camp, I chatted with the guys for a few minutes, talking about tomorrow; another real long day, and a lot of hiking (all the way to Upper Bench), but we could get up at 6:30 because Head of Dean wouldn’t open til 8:00 anyway.  We all crashed around 9:00.  But just as I was settling in, it started raining again (9:20), so I got out again quickly and moved a few packs and various other items under our by now rather crowded tarp.  It rained for about 30 minutes, then again from midnight til almost 3:00 - based on the last couple of days, it’s hard to believe that Philmont has been suffering under a terrible drought for months!  We also had a deer wandering around the site from 3:45 til 4:00 am.