Day Six

[From the Philmanac - Dan Beard Camp is named for Daniel Carter Beard, an early Scouting Pioneer who assisted with the beginning of the BSA. It is the northernmost camp in all Philmont, and currently serves as the gateway camp for crews heading into the Valle Vidal. Dan Beard was originally used as a staff camp in the late 60's, with a program based on Dutch Oven Cooking and Chuckwagon Feast. The staff was withdrawn in 1969, and the camp returned to trail camp status. In 1989, the old log cabin was repaired and Dan Beard was reopened as a staff camp, with a Low Impact Camping program; this was designed to help prepare crews for trekking into the Valle Vidal (which is a more primitive wilderness environment.) The Dan Beard Challenge was added in 1990, and a new cabin constructed in 1991. The old pump well at Dan Beard is thought to provide some of the best water in all Philmont.]

Monday, 7/6 - Up at 4:45, with the loom of dawn down the canyon and over the eastern ridgeline. 47 degrees, light breeze from the south, and moderate/broken overcast. Rusty also got up to handle the wakeup chores around the crew, and we headed down together to snag the bear-bags (with me clapping my hands loudly as we approached the cable, "just in case.") Crew B arrived for their bear bags just as we headed on back to the site. Guys all moving slowly, and breaking down the site at a snail's pace, but I suppose that's to be expected on the first day out. Still and all, we were packed and circled up for stretching exercises and camelling up within 45 minutes (although everyone agreed we could have done a lot better.) Crew B was still in the middle of striking their own camp, so after inquiring if we should wait (and getting a yelled "No" from Rick), we headed off for the Ridgeline trail. Left turn, Clyde, and an immediate steep uphill. A few minutes of this and we went directly into continuous caterpillaring, which impressed John immensely (yet another Ranger who had neither seen nor heard of this incredibly valuable hiking protocol; will Philmont ever learn???) As hoped for, we got plenty of good views behind us and to the south as we climbed, soon running into the first evidence of the forest fire. Appeared to have been just an intense ground fire here, with little or no permanent damage to most of the trees. Hiked for about 40 minutes straight, then stopped for breakfast at a nice overlook with good views south and east. Divided the crew into one group of 5 and one of 4 for breakfast, with Tim's "Raton Extras" bolstering an already pretty decent meal. No complaints here, although most of the Scouts were less than thrilled with their introductions to the dreaded Pemmican Bars (Tim, however, loved the horrid things.) Tim and I headed down over the hill a bit to the right, and were immediately treated to a fairly good sized buck racing across in front of us, right through the burned off area. I would have thought that all animals would avoid forest fire detritus for years, due to the natural dread induced by the still potent burned smell, but apparently not. Had to counsel Matt C. on his food intake - he didn't eat well last night, and was merely nibbling again this morning. If he keeps this up, he'll disappear into thin air by the end of the trek; Philmont is no place for a finicky eater. Tim got a crick in his neck just sitting down, but fortunately managed to work it out. 35 minutes and we're on our way again, still on a moderate uphill slope, with an occasional caterpillar. Surprised we didn't see Crew B during breakfast; I figured they would easily catch us just on the initial climb. Guess they stopped a lot earlier for food. We crested several false summits, stopping once for Rusty to handle a hot spot on Nathan's heel. During that stop, Tim, John and I climbed a small rise to the right - all burned off - for some quick views of Baldy, Touch Me Not and Little Castilla Mountains. Amazingly, small splashes of green here and there among the cinders indicated new plants already growing in the burn zone. Long hike along the ridge to Cook Canyon trail cutoff, with Hart Peak and Horse Canyon trails intersecting on the left along the way (the latter looked like it hadn't been used in years; almost completely overgrown now.) The value of the road as a firebreak was clear along the ridge - to the right, everything was burned to a crisp (including most of the trees), but to the left, everything was green with no sign of fire. This from nothing more than a 10 - 12 foot wide break in the forest, amazing. Rapidly clearing skies now, but disturbingly humid (and after 1996, I know only too well what that portends!) Approaching Cook Canyon, we finally crossed a few areas where the fire had managed to jump across the road, but all in all the left side looked pretty good. Took a packs-off break at the Cook Canyon cutoff, with a sign for "Bonita Canyon" (not Dan Beard) throwing me for a bit of a loss. Rusty and I checked the map to make sure we (or rather, I) hadn't gone somehow insane, but of course it was correct. Lots of fresh footprints coming up the Cook Canyon trail indicated that Crew B had decided to pass on the Ridgeline trail (either that or there was a seriously misoriented Valle Vidal crew wandering around out there!) Cruised on down to the intersection with the Dan Beard jeep trail, taking a few minutes to grab some more mommie-shots at the top of the hill (great distant shot of Baldy behind the crew.) Down the hill to Dan Beard, finding Crew B already enthroned on the porch (as expected); turned out they hadn't passed on the ridge trail, they had just missed it. Not sure how they managed that, but OK! We quickly joined them for some more of that deeelicious free Gatorade. The staff members were impressed with our itinerary changes, and indicated that virtually everyone that came through Dan Beard these days were crews heading into or coming from the Valle Vidal. We were easily the first Crews of the day; Crew B went ahead and got started immediately on the Challenge Course with their staff guide, but we had to wait for our guy (Chris) to finish breakfast. The forest fire had burned off the previous challenge course on the top of the hill, so everything was down in the meadow now (which saved us from another climb up that damned hill.) Started off with a couple of "mind games": "This is a Smiley Face," and "The Land of Oz." Just as we headed off for the more physical challenges, a Valle Vidal crew came through with huge packs (65 pounds plus each, easy), but passed on the program and trudged over the cattle guard steps into the Valle. Not sure if these guys had spent the night at Dan Beard or had come up from Bent or Ponil, but they looked pretty whipped, so my guess is that they had already done some serious hiking that morning. They're blowing off a hell of a program, though! From the mind-games, we moved onto "Beam Me Up, Scotty," "Magical Lily Pads," "Trust Fall," "The Acid Bath," and "The Wall." Lots of fun, plus I got some great shots. We ended by giving Chris a grateful "Thanks," and headed back to the cabin to snarf some lunch. We ate under the frame tarp, while "B" stayed on the porch of the staff cabin. Rick, Brad, Brendan and JT ate a quick meal, and headed back to Cook Canyon to find Rick's hat, which he had left at their breakfast point - no fun there. As expected, the morning's high humidity turned into light but intermittent rain just as we were finishing lunch. Then a sudden downpour caught both crews unprepared, with our gear still sitting out in the open pretty much uncovered. Instant Circus! Tim was not thrilled, since his pack had been left open by one of the Scouts searching for lunch items. Lots of yelling all around as everyone got their stuff covered (I just covered our stuff with the tarp), but things got ugly with Crew B over "who was responsible" for the missing guys' stuff, plus a lot of additional finger pointing over "who let the stuff get wet and muddy." I headed over at a trot when the language and volume reached offensive levels, and pulled everyone off to the side for a counseling session. Al was mad as hell, and let everyone know it, while Ranger Bob just looked perplexed and embarrassed (or maybe the Rangers have standing orders not to get involved in Crew squabbling - I'm not sure on that one.) As usual, no-one had any problems as I headed around the circle to give everyone their chance to speak, but Mike finally broke the ice and we had an "intense" 20 minute encounter session. I managed to get everyone calmed down after that, basically by reminding the guys of our standing order of "Everything is Everyone's Job," and acting as a surrogate apologist for everyone involved. Worked for now, anyway, and I walked away with mostly smiles all around. I'll have to keep an eye on the situation, however (which is going to be damned tough to do from my perch in Crew A!) Gave a quick apology to the staff, thanked them again for their hospitality, and headed back over to my Crew just as Rick et al. returned from Cook Canyon (with Rick's successfully rescued hat.) We saddled up and headed down the trail to Bent, with a quick stopover at the water spigot to fill up. Crew B was about 15 minutes behind us, I think. Light rain started up again just as we pulled out of camp, and grew steadily heavier as we headed on down the trail, with dark skies and increasing "booms" of thunder chasing us. Took a minute to get our pack covers on, but most of the crew passed on ponchos or rain gear for now, since hard hiking wearing rain gear is such a misery. Maybe not such a hot decision, since the rain quickly grew to a real downpour as we graduated from the rocky trail out of Dan Beard onto the road to Bent, and we were quickly soaked with very cold water (hypothermia, anyone???) Shades of Robertson's Mountain just a few weeks before (well, at least we were experienced in drenching downpours!) Worse, the lightning grew to just stupendous proportions, pounding the ridgelines to either side every 5 seconds, and treating us to earsplitting blasts of thunder that imitated heavy artillery. We kept on trucking until the lightning strikes were within a half-mile, and fell out into the trees alongside the road to wait it out the worst of it. After 10 minutes, however, the wind really started chilling us, and we made a collective decision to keep going (at this point, we couldn't have been any wetter anyway, and both John and I were concerned about flash flooding on Middle Ponil Creek, which we had to cross to get to Bent.) I had everyone spread out to 30 feet spacings, and we booked it on down to the creek; the rain was as hard as ever, but the lightning eased a bit and (fortunately) continued to strike only up on the ridgeline crests. The creek was still passable, fortunately, and we were able to get across without having to soak our boots. Hope Crew B doesn't dawdle, or they might get stuck on the wrong side. Into Bent at last, where a single Crew was in residence (with all their Scouts waiting it out in their tents); one of their Advisors was under their tarp, and yelled over the rain and thunder that there were still a few open sites further down, which was good news. The very next site (# 5) looked pretty good, and we went ahead and did a quick "all-hands" tarp setup, and an immediate group change underneath into fresh, dry clothes and raingear. This is, of course, exactly how you're supposed to do it, but the theory didn't take in a storm like this one! Wow! The storm finally broke just as we were finishing up getting re-dressed, and Crew B pulled in soon after, looking just as drowned as we had 30 minutes before. I was very pleased to see them, since Middle Ponil Creek (right alongside the campsite) was a 3 foot deep brown flood by this point. They indicated they had put their raingear on just before being totally soaked, and had waited out the worst of it in a copse of trees. I told them to go ahead and do the tarp and quick-change routine, and they headed down to Site 4. The rain faded away to sprinkles, and we went ahead and reorganized the gear under the tarp, and started setting up clotheslines in the trees. The fresh, warm clothes and (dry) raingear to cover them helped everyone recover quickly, and everyones' spirits rose still further as the skies began to clear. After a few minutes, we went ahead and started in on dinner (Noodle Stew and Chocolate Pudding, yum), using the clean water in our canteens from Dan Beard. No way were we going to use the slime out of the creek! Took our time with it - no rush at this point. Enjoyed a good, hot supper, and let everyone start in on KP and getting their stuff out on the lines. Almost clear skies at this point, amazing!, with the storm a distant grumble down the canyon, and everything started drying out in short order. Per Rick's request, I headed on over to Site 4 to help Crew B with a balky stove, then set up the tent and wrote some more diary (no lack of subject material today!) Rusty called Crew A together after KP was finished to try and get everyone a little more on the ball with respect to morning packup departure; great to see - let's hope it has the desired effect. Tim, John and I monitored the level of the creek (having no wish to get flooded out at 2 am), and were pleased to see it finally start to retreat. Following their cleanup, Crew B asked me to take part in their Ranger moment, and I headed over a few minutes later. Ranger Bob had found a small clearing about 50 feet up the steep western slope, and we all climbed up and took a seat. He gave his speech first, and I again gave my "Legacy of Philmont" talk. That took us to near dark, and we headed back to the campsites. Held another PLC as the rest of the crews started bedding down, planning the following morning (still hopeful on that horseback ride), and asking for John and Bob's honest appraisal of what they thought of us. Both returned some great compliments, and stated flat out: "You don't need us!" John said he wished he could spend the whole trek with us, that we were his kind of crew. As always, a learning experience for both sides - what better compliment can be paid? Bed by 9:30, with Middle Ponil Creek as a pleasant white-noise backdrop. A very full - and all too exciting - day; tomorrow we get a little free time to relax and play.