The
guys tried their hands at gold panning. Luke found a small flake. The BLM
volunteer said that last year a scout found a nugget worth $100 here.
We got to French Henry (9600 ft) at 12:30 and ate lunch.
The program at French Henry included gold panning and a mine tour. We found that we could do at least some of our conservation hours here instead of later, on what will already be a long day.
The
guys tried their hands at gold panning. Luke found a small flake. The BLM
volunteer said that last year a scout found a nugget worth $100 here.
After panning (a lousy way to make a living), we did our conservation project. There is an old cabin (referred to as the Hantavirus Hut) being restored in camp. The roof and a bunch of old beams were piled next to the cabin, having been removed by the restoration crew. We hauled the roof panels up to the road and piled them so they could be trucked out, and burned the old beams. We got credit for three hours of conservation work even though we did substantially less than that. My experience, both direct and from other crews I've talked to, is that this is the norm rather than the exception.
As we were about to leave for the mine tour, which is on the way to Copper Park, we were told that due to a bear "incident" at Copper Park it was being closed. We've been diverted to Baldy Town. This means that our hike up Mt. Baldy tomorrow will be longer, but our total distance with packs will be less, and there are showers at Baldy Town.
When we got to Aztec Mine (9840 ft), we found two crews already waiting, and one already taking the tour. We had to wait for the first crew to come out, and then there weren't enough helmets for everyone, so we had to wait again. We waited well over an hour for the second group, much of it in the rain.
At 5:00, we finally decided that we couldn't wait any longer. (Of course, the other crews in the mine came out just as we left.)
This is where things really started to go downhill. The hike from Aztec Mine to Baldy Town was fairly easy, being a road that mostly followed the contour of the mountain. The views would have been great, except there was constant rain and fog.
Just as
we got to Baldy Town (9820 ft), about 6:00, Colin stubbed a toe on the
foot he had broken last March. He could barely walk on it, so we carried
his pack into camp. Fortunately, the camp museum and Trading Post were
both open with fires going and serving hot chocolate to cold trekkers.
We were able to buy candy bars and a few (limited selection) post cards.
The candy bars turned out to be our only dinner.
After consulting with the Health Lodge by radio, it was decided to send Colin back to base camp to check out his foot. We were worried that he had rebroken it. Colin was extremely disappointed. He was looking forward to the hike up Mt. Baldy, and hiking in over the Tooth Ridge. He hoped that he'll be able to return and at least do the latter with us. Fortunately, there was a chaplain in camp, so Colin was able to get out fairly quickly. At least we were able to send the extra tent back with him. [We had been issued six tents. Since I had my own Timberlite with me we had planned to leave one tent in our locker, but somehow it ended up with us. We were carrying seven tents for eleven people.]
After Colin left we were finally taken to our campsite with one other crew. Dustin was very cold, so we left him in the staff cabin to warm up, planning to come back to pick him up later. We were taken to Ute Meadows (9600 ft), about a mile down the mountain from Baldy Town. It hadn't been used for a long time, and was terrible. By the time we got there it was 8:00 pm, and rapidly getting dark. The staff guy had never been there before and didn't know where the bear cable was. We never did find it. It was raining fairly hard through all of this. We put up the equipment fly and set up the tents (it was hard to find decent places to put them) and got the guys under cover. The other crew, who couldn't even find a sump in their camp, gave up and headed back to Baldy Town. We decided to bag dinner and let the guys stick to their sleeping bags.
Once we got the tents up and the scouts bedded down, Don and I walked back up to Baldy Town to check on Dustin, hoping that they would let him stay there for the night. We hadn't set up a tent for him. Unfortunately, when we got there we found that one of the staff had already taken him to our camp, minus his pack which he hadn't been able to find. How we missed him we don't know, since there's only one road. He must have been just leaving Baldy Town when we got there. So, after grumbling at the staff a bit (and having a nip of hot chocolate), we picked up Dustin's pack and some water and headed back down the mountain.
When we were almost to our camp, (Don's flashlight batteries already having died on the walk down) two staff guys came bouncing down the trail after us. They asked Don to return to Baldy Town with them. One of the scouts in the crew that left our campground earlier had a bad case of hypothermia, and they wanted a doctor's help. So he returned and I continued to camp with Dustin's pack.
Dustin, it turned out, had joined Joel and Peter in their tent. I got out his sleeping bag for him, but it was soaked. The three said that they were OK sharing sleeping bags, so I went to bed. My flashlight batteries died a few minutes after I got into my tent. It was chilling to realize how close I came to being stuck in the pitch dark on a trail that was hard enough to follow with a flashlight.
It looked like a hike up Mt. Baldy tomorrow was out. We considered going back for the Aztec Mine tour tomorrow.
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