We were reasonably efficient this morning, and were out of our campsite by 8:15, a new record. But Matt had left his glasses at the COPE course last night. After finding his glasses, it was 8:55 by the time we left Head of Dean.
Our hike down Dean Canyon (there obviously was a person named Dean who did a lot of ranching in this area) was fairly long, about eight miles, but pretty easy. It followed a small stream (sometimes dry, sometimes not), and the grade was quite gentile.
Apparently the rain last night was much harder here than at Head of Dean, and several stretches of the trail were slippery, muddy messes, the kind where you end up with two inches of mud caked to the bottoms of your boots. The route is marked on the map as a backpack trail, but it should have been marked as a 4WD road. We had a couple of minor injuries when guys fell in the mud.
We saw bear and elk tracks in the road.
We had several bouts of showers and even some small hail, but they didn't last much longer than it took us to get our rain gear on.
The canyon was nowhere near as spectacular as what you find in the south of Philmont (Rayado Canyon, for example), but it was pretty. The meadows along the valley are just full of wildflowers, and are a lovely sight. Particularly striking is the sage that grows there, sending forth a lovely, spicy aroma as we pass through. It's a different plant than is used as the sage spice, but it smells similar.
When we got to Dean Cow Camp (7215 ft), were told that rock climbing
was off, at least until evening, because of the rain. Climbing on wet sandstone
is dangerous. There was a very large, dark and noisy cloud approaching,
so we rushed to our campsite and set up camp in record time. The guys can
move when they are motivated. Fortunately, that cloud and another similar
one later passed us by, so we missed further rain.
Most of us took the opportunity to shower and wash clothes. Civilization has some advantages.
Colin is feeling much better, but his foot is still bothering him a bit. He's doing a great job of keeping up with us, though.
We had some excitement while dinner was cooking this evening. The pot of water was sitting on the Whisperlite, heating. I noticed that the flame was dieing, indicating that the pressure in the bottle was low, so I started to pump it up. Unfortunately, the pump hadn't been screwed in tightly enough, and a jet of fuel sprayed out around the seal onto the stove. Needless to say, the results were spectacular. Any attempt to tighten the pump generated another squirt. We turned off the stove to get things right. Fortunately, there were no injuries or damage.
After dinner, the guys got a chance to try the climbing wall in camp. Some of them did quite well.
At the advisors' coffee, I heard more details about the demise of the Copper Park bear from one of the advisors in our sister crew. Because the day was so nice, some in their crew had decided to climb Mt. Baldy instead of doing the program in Miranda; it had been too nasty the day they were scheduled to climb. That's why they got to Black Horse Camp so late. As they were nearing Black Horse, perhaps a half mile away, they came across the bear, treed by the bear dogs. Some of their crew went back to Baldy Town to report. They were told to go wait by the bear until the bear dispatcher (someone from the New Mexico Conservation Department) arrived. If the bear tried to come down, they were to stand around the tree and clap their hands to convince him to go back up. They respectfully declined, but they did wait until the guy with the gun arrived. "A fed bear is a dead bear."
We tried to watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight, but it was too cloudy.
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