Day Nine

[From the Philmanac - Miranda is named for Guadalupe Miranda, who with Carlos Beaubien petitioned the Governor of Mexico for the original land grant to this area in 1841. He later sold his share to Lucien Maxwell and returned to Mexico. Miranda was once a 4-H Camp, and was included in the Norton Clapp purchase of the Baldy Mountain Tract in late 1962. It is one of the most beautiful locations at Philmont. Lakes Doris and Aspen are located nearby. Miranda has been a staff camp since the mid-60's, with a variety of programs through the years, including Fly-Tying and Fishing, Geology, Survival, Orientering, Mountain Search and Rescue, Philmont Story Campfire, Wilderness Survival, Gold Prospecting, and 12-Gauge Shotgun Shooting. In 1989, the program settled on Mountain Man Rendezvous/Black Powder Rifle Shooting and Burro Packing. The "Rendezvous" was an annual gathering of frontiersmen which provided them with a ready market for their winter catch of furs and an opportunity for recreation and some notoriously wild socializing. They were held from about 1825 through 1838. A new log cabin was added to Miranda in 1997, to better complement the interpretive programs associated with the Mountain Man Rendezvous.]

Thursday, 7/9 - Up at 5:05, 42 degrees and a light breeze - our coolest morning yet. Rusty slept through his alarm, so I did the wakeup chores around 5:15. Crew B was already stirring, so it was clear that Rick and Al had decided to compensate for their slow risers by getting everyone up 15 - 20 minutes earlier than us. Brutal but effective. Everything wet from last night's rain and yet another dewfall, but crystal clear skies overhead. Air feels a little drier, too, so maybe yesterday's storm marked a good solid high pressure system moving in after four straight days of rain - let's hope! Proving that Crew B wasn't the only group of sleepyheads around, our guys were once again none too quick getting going, and Rusty and I both started snapping at people. Watching one Scout (who will remain nameless to protect the guilty) take 25 minutes to take his sneakers off and pull his boots on began to approach black comedy. Why he decided to get into his sneakers in the first place was a complete mystery to everyone (doubtless including the Scout in question!) I finished my own pack-up, and headed back down to site 1 to coordinate our co-hike to Miranda. A crew of Hispanic Scouts came trudging up the creek-bed and straight into Site 1, looking for the trail to Ewell's Park. They claimed to have already come up from Pueblano, but that seemed unlikely given how they had missed the main trail (which is one of the Interstate Highways of Philmont it's so wide and obvious); I suspected they must have camped at one of the various clearings just below Pueblano Ruins (but who knows?) I redirected them to the proper trail (which was the same one we had to start on), and off they went. We followed them out of camp 10 minutes later, and caught them a couple of hundred yards out of camp; they stopped to let us pass, and soon thereafter we cut left at the intersection to the Five Forks Intersection on Baldy Skyline. This is the trail last year's crew affectionately named "The Pueblano Ruins Death March," and a mother it is, too - steep and rocky the whole way. Dan once again had to surrender the (wet) tarp to John (or he'd have dropped in his tracks.) We pushed it all the way to the top with caterpillars, coming out at the Five Forks Intersection (five trails all converge here) to be greeted with a fabulous view of the Miranda valley under bright skies. One crew was already there - they had walked in from Ewell's Park on their way to Head of Dean. We spread out for the view and enjoyed breakfast - though it was still chilly enough that everyone was more interested in sitting in a patch of sun versus enjoying the view! Four or five other crews came in while we were eating; some stopped to eat, others just took a few photos and kept on truckin'. As always, a busy place! 25 minutes for us, a couple of photos, and we were on our way down the infamous Miranda jeep trail - perhaps the most miserable afternoon hike in all of Philmont, but at least we were going downhill in the early morning shade. Once again, the Advisors trailed behind on the steep downgrades, but we all reassembled at the bottom, and headed on up into Miranda. In at 8:45 - good time! - but no-one at the Baker tent in the meadow to check us in, so Rusty and Chris W. headed up to the new staff cabin to find someone. 10 minutes later, they returned with (yet another) "Ryan," who signed us up for a 10 am Black Powder Rifle Shooting session and also (per my request) gave us Sites 9 and 11, two of the flatter campsites in the upper reaches of the meadow area. These were also the sites where we had done some conservation work the previous 2 years, and Ryan knew about the work and was impressed that we were back (especially when I told him that we'd be doing some more later that day.) There was still a late-leaving crew in #9 (no comment......!), so we all temporarily occupied # 11 awaiting their departure. With almost an hour still to go `til program, we all immediately started in on washing clothes and laying our wet gear out in the open sunshine in the meadow (tarps, tents, groundcloths, the works); by now, we all knew only too well the value of that fleeting sunshine and breeze. Plus you can expect afternoon thunderstorms every day around Baldy, even when the weather is otherwise perfect all across the Ranch. Guys all headed over for the program at 9:55; Tim, Rick and I stayed behind to continue working on personal cleanup and to keep an eye on our spread-out crew gear. By 10:30, we were hearing the first "booms" from the black powder rifles, so the guys obviously got going quickly. Everyone returned just around 11:15, sporting mile-wide grins and equipment with various and assorted holes, so it was clearly a success. There were also a bunch of comments on "licking your butts" too, but I never did figure what that was all about. Both crews ate lunch immediately, then went out to recover the gear from the field as the first thunderstorm of the day announced its presence over Baldy and Touch-Me-Not mountains. We quickly set up both tarps, but got just a few sprinkles and that was it. Storm # 2 fired up at 1:15, and # 3 at 1:45, still no rain, weird. Guys hanging out in Site # 9, lying in the field relaxing, carving walking sticks for Baldy, or sleeping under the tarps - Rusty in particular was shot, and crashed for about 2 hours under our tarp. At 2:00, I decided to ignore the weather (or rather, the lack of it), and assembled the work crew for the conservation project - Brendan, Ryan, Al and Rick, all of whom needed time to finish their 50-Miler Award trail service requirements, plus Rusty and I; we didn't need the time but didn't want to miss a chance to break another sweat for Philmont. We did five separate jobs this year: eradicated a log "bridge" across the ditch separating the campsites from the meadow (rotted and very hazardous), built a wall of logs between the ditch and the meadow to prevent campers from crossing the ditch except at the designated site trailheads, built a rock cairn to mark the entrance to our site's trailhead, built 4 large rock wall erosion barriers across obvious watershed runs in both campsites, and finally, dragged a pretty good bramble of rusty barbed wire out of two or three areas below the camp (Dan H. helped out with that nasty job.) Tough work, but we really made a difference in the quality of the site. Only bummer was the occasional discovery of trash and human waste and toilet paper under a few of the rocks - a disgusting and unfortunately rapidly increasing problem all over Philmont. Rusty ended up sacrificing his gloves to one of these unpleasant encounters. Yet another light rain started in just after 4:00, and we called it quits for this session, and everyone quickly got their remaining clothes in under cover. Rusty, Matt C. and Dan started in on dinner, and the rain magically ceased once again. One of the staff guys came by, and we showed him all the work we had done - he was impressed and said so, but was also embarrassed to have to ask us if our Scouts had been up on the scree ridge throwing rocks down. I said (honestly) "not to my knowledge," and the rest of the guys confirmed that they had been in camp all afternoon. With that, he headed down to talk to Crew B, and soon returned with John, JT, Mike and Chris W. in tow to march them off to the staff cabin for a stern lecture. Mike looked over as they passed and declared: "Busted!" I got up and asked the staff guy if he needed the Advisors to come up to the cabin, and he winked and said no, so we went ahead and ate (however, I wonder if they would have been so easy on them if we hadn't just busted our butts on the conservation project! - talk about paying off quick dividends, wow....) All four miscreants returned within 15 minutes, with barely concealed grins on their faces (so much for "a stern lecture"), ate dinner, and then went over to carry fresh logs to the rifle range as their "punishment." The staff guy(s) kept them at it for quite a while, and Al got pretty irritated because he was holding cleanup (or maybe the rest of dinner? - not sure) waiting for them. After dinner and cleanup (and our final spritz of rain for the day), we went ahead and prepped for Baldy; Rusty and Chris W. both used my Baldy List, so things went quickly and smoothly. A doe provided a momentary diversion, trotting unconcernedly through the sites - but it was already too dark under the trees for a decent picture, so I didn't bother trying. Gave some of the chewing gum I brought along for this hike to Rick. Ryan and Tim put the finishing touches on their walking sticks, and just about everyone (except Tim and I) went ahead and set up their tents in the meadow, having received permission from the staff to do so; they obviously weren't too mad at us! Windy, with plenty of clouds racing around. Bed by 8:15 (we have an oh-dark-thirty wakeup call tomorrow), but I had to go out and tell the guys in the field to knock it off and settle down; they were still too wired to fall asleep easily. Tim managed to cut his finger somehow, and went off to do some First Aid, but was back in the tent by 8:30. Another good day, and the first one since Day One where we didn't have any serious rain. Those early thunderstorms on Baldy this morning were a warning, though; we'll have to really push it tomorrow....