The day started clear and cool, but it had gotten pretty warm by the time we got down to Miranda Camp. It promised to be a hot hike.
A parenthetical note: There seems to be a lot more graffiti than I remember in 1994. Several latrines have been fairly scarred with carved initials, and the advisors' shower at Baldy Town looked like the bathroom in a truck stop. I was quite disappointed. I wonder if a different class of scout (or advisor) is coming to Philmont now, or if I'm just forgetting this aspect of my previous trip.
It was almost 11 when we got to Miranda.
From
Miranda, we hiked down the valley to a very nice new trail up to Baldy
Skyline (9131 ft), and then on to Head of Dean Camp. We had worried about
a hard hike today, but it wasn't bad at all. The hike gave us some splendid
views of Miranda below Mt. Baldy, and later of Ute Park in the valley below
and the Tooth Ridge in the distance.
When we got to Head of Dean (8749 ft), we had a pleasant surprise. Colin was there to rejoin us! Apparently, they had finally taken him to Ratón for an X-ray, and determined that his foot wasn't broken. It may be bruised, but he can trek on. We'll make sure that he has a light pack; we're already carrying all of the crew gear among the ten of us, anyway.
After
setting up camp, our most well organized operation so far, we went on to
the crew challenge events. The guys did reasonably well at solving the
tasks they were given, but not terribly well in the planning phase.They
did a good job in crossing the "river of squeeze cheese."
As we were doing the events, a fairly ugly thunderstorm was moving in.We seem to be back to the more typical Philmont afternoon thunderstormpattern. It got dark, a cold wind came up, and it started to rain. Fortunately,the rain was very short; most of the storm passed to the southeast of us.It left one of the most incredible rainbows I have ever seen, with at leastfive bands.
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