Day Twelve

[From the Philmanac - Visto Grande is Spanish for Magnificent View. This camp was originally called Bench Camp, but it was changed in 1975 to avoid confusion with the nearby Upper Bench Camp. In 1947, while stationed as a Ranger at Bench Camp, staff member John Westfall wrote the Philmont Hymn. "Purple mountains rise, against an azure sky" represented the view at Visto Grande Camp as the sun set over Baldy Mountain. There are still remains of an old cabin that was used in the early years at the camp. The spring at Visto Grande is the water source.]

[From the Philmanac - Upper Bench is located on The Bench, a small mesa between U.S. Rt 64 and the much larger Deer Lake Mesa. Upper Bench was first used as a trail camp in the late 60's. There is a marshy area in the center of the Upper Bench meadow, and some beautiful campsites in the ponderosa to the west of the meadow. Upper Bench is located between Visto Grande Camp (formerly called Bench Camp) and Deer Lake Mesa Camp. It is a dry camp; the closest water is at either of these two camps.]

Sunday, 7/12 - Up at 4:45, 52 degrees, light overcast, light breeze. Oddly, despite the reduced amount of sleep last night, I feel a bit more refreshed than usual - obviously, Philmont night air agrees with my system! Got everyone else up at 5:00, and we did a quick breakdown. For a change, most of our neighboring crews were also up and about, slowly breaking camp and also eating breakfast. We headed out at 5:45, this time taking the direct trail to Bear Canyon (and intending to use the new trail down the Canyon (versus the old jeep road), per the conservation guy's recommendation the previous afternoon. Light uphill to the crest of the canyon, with occasional wafts of very warm air from the southwest drifting through us - a probable harbinger of a hot day to come. The early cloudiness is already history, too. Good thing we're doing this early - Bear Canyon has a well deserved reputation for being an airless oven in the heat of the day, and this one is shaping up to be a classic. At the crest of the canyon (and the intersection with the new trail), we got a real treat of a view - the entire canyon laid out before us, with a starkly beautiful array of bright green versus deeply shadowed mountains resulting from the still acute angle of the sun. We went ahead and ate breakfast along the rim, enjoying the slow shift of shadowing as the sun rose. Another crew (from Michigan) and a "Trail Crew" both passed by with nary a glance at the view, and kept on truckin' down the new trail; I must say, I hope I am never so jaded with Philmont that I begin to ignore gems like this! 35 minutes and we saddled up and headed on down ourselves. Another great trail! - much better than the old jeep road, albeit certainly longer with all the switchbacks; better views, too. Philmont is really doing it right with all these trail building projects. We caught and passed both the Michigan and Trail crews, and eventually came up on the conservation site. Had a brief chat with the cons guy - a different guy than the one at Santa Claus - he thought we were there to do our trail service, a notion which I had to (regretfully) disabuse him. I also warned him about the water situation at Santa Claus, and asked him to relay the word to all crews coming through that day and heading up the canyon; he thanked me and promised to do so. Continued on down to the bottom of the canyon, with a brief stop to attend to Dan, who got stung by a bee (he shook it off, kept going.) Down to the bottom at last - real grass here, and some water, too - though nothing I'd care to drink! Air very still, but we're still in the shadows, and cool. A quarter mile later we came to Route 64 and the Cimarron River. Crossed under the highway using the flood tunnel, then across the Cimarron on the provided footbridge. Painfully bright skies now that we're in the open, and noticeably hotter; what a difference 400 yards makes! Debated briefly whether to rinse our clothes here, but decided to move down closer to the Cimarron River Camp (where the trail cuts back up the ridge to Visto Grande), to save ourselves from needlessly carrying our wet (and therefore much heavier) stuff for an extra half-mile. Walked down to that point, and found a short intersecting trail leading back to the river. Everyone emptied all their clothes from their packs and did a quick rinse on everything - no soap allowed, of course, but a vast improvement nonetheless, especially for the filthy stuff we'd been wearing for the conservation project. A couple of the guys wanted to wash themselves as well, but I nixed that idea as being just a little too environmentally unfriendly. Plus this river has a rep for being contaminated, a rumor which I had no desire to test. With that, we wrung everything as dry as possible, hung as much as we could on the backs of our packs (so it would dry during the hike), and started hoofing back up the ridge, caterpillaring most of the way. The Michigan and Trail crews had passed by while we were at the river, and we ended up passing both of them again on the hike; the Trail Crew was really upset to be caught by a "regular" trekking crew, and walked themselves into exhaustion before sullenly pulling off to the side and letting us go by; their Ranger/Advisors both looked ready to bite someone as we passed. Of course, they weren't caterpillaring, and were doubtless carrying heavier packs than ours, too. Passing the Michigan crew, they watched our caterpillar with obvious interest, and broke out in a chatter about it as soon as we passed - another "learning by imitation" lesson, I suspect, which is just fine with me. Pulled into Visto Grande five minutes later - apparently the first crew into camp - and immediately set up shop at the spring, which runs about a quart and a half a minute. Since we were going to do supper for lunch, we started filling the various pots, for about 8 gallons. Everyone took advantage of the stop to string clothes lines and start in on drying all their wet stuff. The Michigan Crew arrived about 10 minutes after we did, and started hiking right through the camp `til I called and reminded them that Deer Lake Mesa (their destination) was supposedly a dry camp (the spring there was allegedly dead), and this was the last water source of the day for them. They held a quick PLC and decided to stick around. Three other crews arrived within 20 minutes, all stopping, and we relinquished our spot at the spring and started in on supper. I was dismayed to see every other crew filling canteens one by one instead of filling one large container and purifying it. Each and every Scout and Advisor with their own little bottle of Polar Pure. It works, of course, but everyone has to do a perfect job on their canteens, so there's 30 chances to make a mistake versus 3 or 4. I made the suggestion to each crew, but no-one took me up on the offer, sigh.... Well, they're each handling their own canteens, so you can't complain if you get sick. Once supper was well underway, I laid out my own wet clothes, hanging them very, very carefully on the convenient barbed wire fence protecting the spring source (which was in the sun and had a decent cross-breeze.) "Lunch" turned out to be Minestrone Soup and Stew with Beef, plus a few other lesser items. Good, but weird to eat hot foods in the middle of a blazing hot day (87 degrees in the shade now, and getting hotter by the minute.) As usual, head south across the Cimarron River and start to bake. KP was easily handled at a nearby campsite sump. For some reason we ended up finished with everything well ahead of "B," and Rick suggested that we go ahead and take off. Collected all our clothes, and took a few minutes at the spring (now free again) to refill all our canteens with freshly purified water, plus one of the water jugs for good measure (next water is Harlan.) Gone at 12:30, heading to Upper Bench, handing off the water jug during the caterpillars. Hard uphill to the actual "Visto Grande" point, a small promontory on the trail which gives a spectacular view up the Ute Creek Valley all the way to Baldy. One of the most photogenic spots in all of Philmont - and the place where the Philmont Hymn was allegedly written (and you can sure see why!) In a variation of the theme of constant mommie shots, we took tentmate shots this time, with the valley and Baldy backdropping each pair. A quick water break and back on the trail, caterpillaring up a fairly steep uphill to the trail intersection to Harlan. Brutally hot work in the heat of the day - my thermometer reads 91 degrees, even in the dappled shade on the trail (the first time we've broken 90 degrees on this trek.) The cost of afternoon hiking - and to think many crews inflict this on themselves voluntarily, every day, rather than get up early! Fortunately, the trail leveled off to a much more moderate incline just after the intersection, and we picked up a bit of a breeze, too. We passed two small Alpine Meadows on the left, no water but tall and lush, green grass, then shortly into Upper Bench. About 1:35, and once again the first crew in despite how late it was. Of course, being a dry trail camp with no program, no-one's in any particular hurry to get here, either. The meadow appeared to be completely dry, but it's possible there's some muck in the middle; I'll have to check that out later. After a quick review, we settled on Site 3, which appeared to be the most level. Quickly broke out the food and crew gear, set up the bear bag and all our still damp clothes, and settled back for some serious R & R. Most everyone took out their sleeping pads and crashed; I went ahead and wrote some more diary and relaxed. Only bummer was an occasional mosquito - leading one to suspect that there's got to be some water around here somewhere! Michigan came by around 2:15, on their way to Deer Lake Mesa; I gave them my "hail and farewell," and they were quickly gone. Two or three other crews also went through, on their way to either Deer Lake Mesa or Devil's Wash Basin - not sure, there - and "B" showed up just after 3:00. After doing their own setup at Site 4 (the one we used last year), a massive game of cards broke out for about an hour. Two more crews showed up to camp; Tim had a long chat with one Advisor from a crew from Oregon, who was apparently "practicing" putting up a bear bag for about 30 minutes, Lord only knows why. Of course, the bear bag cable at Upper Bench is one of the highest I've ever seen on the Ranch, so maybe he took it as a personal challenge. A mule deer doe started flirting around the edges of the site, presumably looking for a mooch, and also confirming that there had to be some water around somewhere (deer won't stick around if all the water sources dry up.) Tim also spotted a black snake on some rocks near camp. Matt S. walked out to the meadow, confirming that it was dry as a bone the whole way, but with millions of little grasshoppers all over the place. We went ahead with dinner (lunch) around 5:45, enjoying a massive meal supplemented with Crew B's leftover Baldy lunch and some of the last of Tim's supplemental breakfast stuff - a tremendous amount of food, but (as always) seemingly unsatisfying as dinner. Well, one of the prices you pay for dry trail camps, no big deal. After dinner, some of the guys headed out to the meadow for more cards, led my Mike; Al, Chris W., John, Dan and I did some rock-hopping and bouldering on the rock pile adjacent to the meadow (and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves), while Tim explored a bit down the trail and found the old connecting trail to Harlan, now all overgrown and (apparently intentionally) blocked off with deadwood and branches. For whatever reason, they've decided to let this trail go wild again; maybe it's too steep or badly eroded further down. Tim said that most of the pine trees along the trail are dying from that damn moss/fungus that makes them grow crazy. Well, Mother Nature will replace them with a more disease resistant strain, or something else altogether - she always does - but it's still sad to see. Back at the meadow, about two thirds of the crew made a collective decision to meadow crash again. By 8:00, we had done a nearly complete gear pack-up again, and everyone headed back out with sleeping bags and pads. Yet another card game broke out and continued til dark, at which point things got a little crazy with sleeping bag "flips," a "birthday beating" for Brad, and general wrestling around `til I shut it down just after 9:15. Not a perfect night for star-gazing, with a thin overcast slowly moving in from the west, but we still spotted 10 satellites, 4 meteors, and multiple brilliant flashes of a powerful thunderstorm far to the east. I finally drifted off around 10:30, with a dewfall starting to wet everything down, and a 3/4 moon rising.