[From the Philmanac - Pueblano is Spanish for Little Village.  It was also part of the original Philturn Rocky Mountain Scout Camp.  Until 1963, the western edge of Philmont was just beyond Pueblano; the addition of the Norton Clapp purchase of the Baldy Mountain Tract allowed Scouts to hike and climb Baldy Mountain.  In the early 70's, the program was Hunter Safety and 30.06 Rifle Shooting.  Pueblano returned to trail camp status in 1975 and 1976, and then reopened in 1977 as a staff camp with the Maxwell Tie and Lumber Company program; this name was changed to the Continental Tie and Lumber Company in 1980.  This latter name matched that of the company started by Thomas Schomburg in 1907 to make railroad ties and mine timbers from the trees in the many Ponil Canyons.  He also established the Cimarron and Northwest Railroad to transport the timbers down to Cimarron.  The Continental Tie and Lumber Company worked the North Ponil Canyon `til 1923, and the South Ponil Canyon `til around 1930.  The tracks ended in North Ponil Canyon near Ponil Park, and in South Ponil Canyon near Pueblano Ruins.  The present-day program consists of spar-pole climbing, tie-yard, and the Philmont Story Campfire; Pueblano is also the mid-point for the Ponil/Miranda Burro Packing Program.  The tool shelter in the tie-yard was actually built as the shelter for the 30.06 Rifle Shooting program.  The canyon heading south to Head of Dean is known as Doe Canyon; a large Douglas Fir located at the beginning of the canyon is affectionately known as "Big Doug."]

[From the Philmanac - Pueblano Ruins (often referred to as "The Ruins") is located on South Ponil Creek just upstream (west) of Pueblano.  The trail from Pueblano splits at this point, heading either to Ewell's Park/Baldy Skyline or French Henry.  The camp was once the site of a prosperous lumbering camp, and there are still a few signs of its existence.  The trail to French Henry is difficult, but rewards hikers with evidence of placer mining along the way, along with some beaver ponds.]

Woke up at 4:10, for no particular reason.  Great stars, distinctly cooler, not much breeze.  Wrote diary til my alarm went off at 5:00.  No sounds of motion anywhere else, so I got up and packed, then went down to wake Luke - as I had thought, he had slept through his alarm.  Since we were already late, I went ahead and woke everyone else up as well (5:15).  Finished taking down the tent with Rene’s help, then completed packing my backpack.  Once we had six people together, we went and got the bear bags down.  The “oops” line got tangled up in the various ropes, so it took a while longer than expected.  Back at the site, some of the guys were pretty slow in getting packed up.  Finally done at 5:55, 10 minutes behind schedule.  Circled up for stretching and camelling up, and discussed how we could have done better (Rene paid us a compliment for our speed, even though we weren’t satisfied with ourselves).  Left at 6:02, off to Flume Canyon, getting right into some sharp uphill switchbacks, which we quickly knocked off with the help of a few caterpillars.  Passed lots of areas with fire damage, but here most were just ground creeper fires - not into the trees.  This section of forest should survive this without too many problems.  Lots of evidence of fire fighting efforts - dug out stumps, fire breaks, chain saw work, etc.  But all in all, not as bad as I had expected - at least not right here.  We stopped for breakfast after 45 minutes, at a little draw that had some decent sitting rocks and a bit of a view of the valley to our right.  This morning was Breakfast #9 augmented with some of our Nature Valley Granola Bars.  While we were eating, we were passed by three other Crews, everyone exchanging good mornings.  Back on the trail at 7:30, so a nice break.  Passed some more fire damaged areas, including one spot where the fire had “crowned”; I warned the guys to try to not kick up the sooty trail dust here - we don’t need to be inhaling this stuff.  Then past Flume Canyon, going at a good clip now.  We passed all three Crews that had passed us earlier, and caught another Crew (that had stayed at Flume Canyon last night) just as we came to Pueblano.  Surprisingly (to me), the trail actually intersected with the Deer Valley trail above Pueblano, so we descended down into the camp as opposed to coming up parallel with the road (which is the way I seem to recall from the last time I came this way from Ponil, back in ‘96 (?)).  To my dismay, “Big Doug” (the Douglas Fir that had been a lone sentinel in Deer Valley probably since Philmont began) was gone.  No sign of fire damage here, so maybe it was the drought?  We pulled in at 8:50 am, so reasonably good time from Dean Cutoff.  After I took a minute to remind everyone on staff camp entry protocols, we headed around to the front of the cabin, set up our pack line, and Luke and Matt (only) went over to check in.  A minute later, we were all invited up on the porch for an orientation session.  We got the 10:00 am Spar Pole Climbing session, good deal.  They took our trash, also.  There were two problem bears around the camp, and a trap had been laid out for one particularly aggressive bear.  We even got permission to rinse out our clothes in a wash basin (no soap, no clothes lines, and no hanging stuff on trees).  Fine with us!  Gave away all our leftover food from our first three meals to another Crew - they wanted to cherry-pick, but we told them it was “all-or-nothing”, so they went with “all”.  Once that was done, we went back and moved our packs into the shade (and away from the dust), grabbed yesterday’s dirty clothes and did a quick rinse back at the tap, using the big wash basin from the side of the cabin.  After wringing everything out, we laid it all out on our packs to dry while we were climbing.  Crew 893 pulled in, and I chatted with Dan and Les for awhile.  At 10:00 am, we headed over to the sparpole climbing area, and waited (in the shade) til 10:40 before the 9:00 am Crew finished - looks like we should have headed over as soon as we had arrived.  By the time we were called over, the earliest of the 11:00 am Crews were already showing up.  Gonna be a long day, I suspect.  Only one staffer (missed his name) for everyone, which wasn’t helping matters any, so I decided to act as a safety monitor, instructor, and Crew photographer for one of the poles, to speed things up a bit.  Fortunately, there were only two 10:00 am Crews, ourselves and the “Oh Thank Heaven for 7 One Seven” Crew.  Of note, the staffer informed us that Big Doug had died last year from a disease, and also that his trunk was now being used as the bench on the front porch of the cabin.  I hadn’t realized I had been sitting on an old friend.  Well, a better end than firewood - hopefully he’ll be around for many more decades to come!  We got a pretty basic orientation and demo, and got right into it.  Mark, Charlie, Drew, William, Michael, and two “7-One-Seven” Scouts were on “my” pole; everyone else in our Crew was on Hugh’s pole, and the rest of “7-One-Seven” was on the third pole.  Brad showed up as I was strapping Charlie (?) in, greeting me with “Gee Bob, what a surprise to find you acting as a staffer!”  He had departed his 716 Crew earlier that morning and was now looking for a ride from Pueblano back to Basecamp.  He thought he might find us here, so a good opportunity to chat (but a little later, not now!)  All three poles went pretty slow, with many of the climbers needing step-by-step encouragement.  But occasional yells confirmed successful ascents, and I think everyone eventually made it to the top.  Lots of photos [Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4] - let’s hope they turn out!  But I was hoarse by the time we finished, at 12:30 (ouch!)  Methinks they need a little more staff involvement here, or they’re going to be climbing til dusk every day.  Well, they too had just opened up the camp, so doubtless were trying to work out the bugs yet.  Back at the cabin, we asked for and received permission to cook dinner for lunch up at Site 5 (the first site heading downstream towards Ponil).  Brad and Rene hung out with 2 or 3 other Rangers at the cabin, all of them hoping for a staff lunch.  Lunch for us was Turkey Tetrazzini, good stuff.  Brad and Rene came over and ate some too, even though both had successfully snagged lunch at the cabin, and we enjoyed chatting for awhile.  Brad had also managed to arrange a ride back to Basecamp with a Senior Staffer (Gene Schnell), who had come to pick up an Advisor who was dropping out on his Day 2 or 3 (no comment on that!)  After cleanup, we packed up our gear back in our backpacks, filled our canteens, moved our packs back over to the cabin area, said our goodbyes to Brad, and headed over to the ax yard for the Continental Tie and Lumber Company program.  As usual, the guys weren’t too enthusiastic, but I convinced them (again) that this was a worthwhile time.  Another Crew was just finishing up when we arrived, so more fortuitous timing on our parts this time.  Our instructor (missed his name, too) was very enthusiastic, and demo’d all the tools in short order, getting us to work asap.  The guys all spread out across the yard, and were soon happily engaged in all manners of wood destruction.  The basic idea behind the CT&LC program was the creation of railroad ties from appropriate sized trees, as had been done in this very canyon for several decades.  So trees had to be cut to proper length, “squared” off, and finished, using a variety of tools.  As expected, the guys had a great time despite their initial reluctance after lunch, and I got a lot of photos here. [Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]  We ended up spending quite a bit of time on the cross-cut saw race, and Luke and Todd (???) set a new camp record:  15 seconds.  We finally called it a day just as another Crew showed up, and with many thanks to the staff guy we headed back to the cabin; it was about 4:40 by this point, so time to be moving on.  A bunch of the staff and one Crew were playing “Loggerball” (aka “Pueblano Baseball”) on the small cleared area to the right of the cabin, and we looked on with some interest, trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out the completely inscrutable rules [According to Brad, you run the bases backwards in odd-numbered innings, and staff and Rangers can cheat whenever they like].  To my surprise, Mark Anderson was also present, on the front porch of the cabin.  Apparently, he had decided to come up and have a personal chat with the Crew that had been a problem at Dean Cutoff yesterday.  It must have been serious, because he was going to hold their Arrowhead patches pending future behavior on their trek and completion of an additional service project at their home Council.  As we saddled up to go, Hugh convinced me that Mark might appreciate meeting Charlie, to bring a positive note to the day, so I returned to the cabin with Charlie and self-introduced us both - and yes, he did seemed pleased to get a fervent Thank You from a young man who was obviously enjoying himself.  And doubtless a more pleasant conclusion to his visit versus leaving after having to chew out a Crew.  We hit the trail around 5:00, taking about 40 minutes to hike up to Pueblano Ruins.  But we also found Crew 893 washing their clothes (and themselves) in the stream - a definite no-no.  Rene was not happy, and let them know it.  [He later discussed it with Blake - their Ranger - who hadn’t known what was going on.]  Well, what’s done is done, and now they know better.  We ended up setting up (very quickly) at the farthest site.  We still had the Pueblano Campfire Program at 8:00, so little time to waste.  Ate a fairly decent lunch for dinner, plus enjoyed Rene’s pound cake and cherry pie filling.  Since it was already late, and we didn’t have the usual dinner cleanup, prepping for a quick morning getaway was pretty easy.  But then, the Crew spent a rather long time getting dressed in warm clothes, grabbing flashlights, and raising the bear bags.  When all that was finally done, Rene and I called everyone back for our two part “Ranger Moment”.  Once we got everyone back and settled down (looking up at the west wall on the Baldy Skyline ridge), we had everyone stay absolutely quiet for a few minutes, and just savor the silence.  [We were pressed for time, yes, but some things you can’t rush.]  Per agreement with Rene, I started off with my “Legacy of Philmont” talk, and (I have to admit it) I actually got pretty emotional during the telling.  Rene then followed with his own remarks on the value of the wilderness, and our role in preserving it, ending by handing out the Wilderness Pledge.  After another minute of silence, we left for Pueblano, stopping briefly to examine a pile of deer bones near the bear-bags.  It was now 7:40, so hopefully they would start off with the usual “Pueblano Tough Man” competition at 8:00, and we wouldn’t miss any part of the actual campfire.  Only one Crew was still in camp as we left, and since they were just starting dinner they obviously were settled for the night.  As it turned out, the assembled Crews from Pueblano and Pueblano Ruins were just heading up the Deer Valley trail to the campfire ring as we arrived (about 8:15), and so we joined onto the line without missing a step.  Once again, the other Crews left the front seats open, and once again we were happy to take them.  After some introductory remarks, the staff started out with a song: “Long Black Veil/(Bluegrass Widow)”, very interesting (and despite my extensive background with bluegrass music, only vaguely familiar to me - though I remember hearing The Country Gentlemen doing it, and I also have a CD with a somewhat similar country version by Lefty Frizzell).  From there, they did an extended “Philmont Story”, basically starting from the dawn of time, with mini-vignettes starring:

Dancing amoebas
Dancing parameciums
Turtles
Monkeys
Wooly mammoths
Buffaloes
Indians
Conquistadors
Lucien B. Maxwell
Carlos Beaubien
Luz Maxwell-Beaubien

which (naturally) led to another song, the Politically Incorrect:  “Big, Fat Woman with the Meat Shaking on her Bones”.  Then another really weird story about “Rico Suave” and his escapades with Pancho Villa and a giant caterpillar-then-butterfly (that would take ten pages to describe, and still wouldn’t be comprehensible).  The Scouts thought this was absolutely hilarious.  Then some more songs: “Horse with No Name”, a railroad song: “Texas Eagle”, then two Rangers tried their hand at James Taylor’s “Down on the Copper Line” (with the staffers hamming it up for all they were worth behind them).  The staff then did “Waite Phillips the camper version” (not sure I got that right), and ended with a Gospel tune:  “Glory Land”.  Rene offered to tell his ghost story “The Woodsman”, and about 20 people stuck around for it, but everyone else departed in short order.  I grabbed spare canteens and headed down to the tap to refill them, waiting behind a bunch of other Scouts and Advisors with the same idea.  Finished up just as the Crew came back down from the campfire, and we counted 14 noses, briefly discussed night hiking protocols (basically, don’t rush, make sure of your footing, and don’t get separated), and started off around 9:45.  Hugh and I acted as tail-end “sweeps”.  Arrived back at camp around 10:20, confirmed we still had 14 of us, and hit the rack.  Todd had a minor bloody nose, and we sealed the tissue in a zip-lock and put it up in the oops bag.  Bed by 10:45.  I wrote diary til 11:15 or so.  Light overcast skies, and comfortably warm inside the tents.  A classic Philmont day - busy from the moment we woke up til the moment we went to sleep.  It doesn’t get any better than that!