Philmont Trek 806-F 1999
Part of Troop
104's 1999 Philmont Trek
August 10, Day 4
Mt. Phillips
I felt much better in the morning. I got up at 3 am to water several rocks, a side effect of all the water I drank to counteract the altitude problem. The sky was awesome; completely clear, and just zillions of stars. The Milky Way was very bright.
We got up early (5:15) to go watch the sunset over Sawmill Canyon. I was a little slow getting up, trying to decide if a sunrise or extra sleep would be the most valuable. I settled on the former, but the crew, thinking I was going to sleep in after last night, left without me. Since I had been here in '94 I knew how to find the place, but it turned out that Gloria knew a shortcut. I eventually found the crew, and we watched the sunrise, much enjoying it.
Watching sunrise and having a hot breakfast delayed our departure a bit, so we didn't get onto the trail until 8:30.
Gloria left us this morning. We had the obligatory round of group pictures; one of Gloria's friends was in camp and acted as photographer. Gloria was on her way to the "strike" at Cypher's Mine. Apparently as part of the program, the program staff is going on strike today. Other staff people are coming to fill in. It sounds like fun, but Cypher's Mine is a bit out of our way.
I was feeling much better, though still fatigued. Don was obviously worried about me, and stole my sleeping bag roll to carry himself. (I had my ground pad, sleeping bag, pillow and sleeping clothes all in an 8x24-inch roll.) I didn't know he had done it, and spent several frantic minutes trying to figure out where I had put the darned thing. It was just here a minute ago. I kept remember Scoutmaster Rob's comment about how you lose 5 points of IQ for every 1000 ft of elevation. I wondered if we were higher than I thought. Anyway, once I figured out what had happened I picked up some more crew gear, especially bulky stuff. (My pack has lots of space). I still had a lighter pack than yesterday.
Since Mt. Phillips is a dry camp, and there is no water between here and there, we had to carry enough water for two days. (Actually, only a little of tomorrow, since it is only a short hike down to Clear Creek Camp.) I had all of my bottles full, and Colin, Andrew and Matt W. carried extra water containers.
The hike started out pretty hard. It rose steeply for a while along a 4WD road, but then changed to some gentler switchbacks, and finally a nice level trail round the side of Thunder Ridge. This saved us from hiking about 300 ft farther up and down over the ridges. (We had do follow the 4WD road all of the way over the top in '94.) The trail afforded us some spectacular views of Baldy to the north and Wheeler Peak to the west.
The trail was actually harder than yesterday's, but with the crew "jackrabbits" loaded down with extra water, the pace is much more reasonable. I've had no trouble keeping up, and have only a slight altitude headache. I stole my sleeping bag roll back from Don while we ate lunch at Thunder Ridge Camp (10328 ft).
The trail up to Comanche Peak Camp (11101 ft.) is new since '94. It takes a long switchback round the peak, and reaches the camp thru the meadow that overviews the valley to the east. I took a picture of Eric Miller there in '94.
From there, it was up over Comanche Peak (11299 ft.), down to a dip between peaks, and then up Mt. Phillips (11721 ft.). That is a pretty punishing hike. The trail is steep and rocky, and the altitude left us short of breath. "Oxygen is good" was a popular statement. But we made it to camp and set everything up. We got to camp at about 4:30, having made a lot of stops on the way.
Unfortunately, at about dinner time it started to rain, so we huddled under the equipment fly to eat our second trail lunch for the day. We will cook a dinner tomorrow noon in Clear Creek Camp where water is in abundance. It's pretty cold, too, about 50 degrees at 7 pm. We'll wear a lot of clothes to bed tonite. I stayed up under the fly to write all of this while the rest of the crew went to bed at about 7:30.
Some of us walked over to the peak itself from our camp after dinner, only a hundred yards or so. It was amazing how uncomfortable the wind was there on the peak, and how sheltered our campsite was just a short distance away.
This crew is pretty boisterous, I think I've said before. They actually are working very well together. Some of the discourse can be pretty crude, but they enjoy each others' company.
From the Crew Journal
Comanche and Phillips were not fun. Today was easy except for the aches and pains left over from yesterday. Of course the clouds cleared up within an hour of us leaving the peak. Our monument was neat.
We got off to a good start this morning after an exhausting hike up to Mt. Phillips. That was yesterday. We hiked downhill most of the way to Clear Creek where the crew prepared for lunch. (MD)
We had to really pull together to get through our most difficult day. Spirits are high. Campfire conversations are really interesting.
