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We got up at 6:30 today to pack up and head for Fish Camp. It isn't a long hike, but we needed to send a contingent up to PJ to pick up food for the rest of our trek.
Before leaving camp, we took care of scattering our ashes and charcoal from our campfire. We ground up the coals, took them way out in the woods, and spread them around. We have noticed on this trek that there seem to be a whole lot of crews that ignore this Philmont ritual. Almost all of our campsites so far have had charcoal remains left in the campfire rings. I don't remember seeing that more than once or twice in previous years.
The day started out very nice, but there were some high clouds. I remarked to Don that cirrus clouds did not bode well for future weather.
The hike down Agua Fria was good. The canyon is pretty, and the trail obviously gets a lot less use than many we've been on. There were a good number of stream crossings (7, I think), but none were difficult. (An advisor from another crew that we crossed paths with this morning said that he had counted 23 crossings. He must have been counting all of the little seeps and springs that you just step across, though.)
We got to Fish Camp (8554 ft.) at about 10:30, in time to get a tour of the lodge. (Waite Phillips called it Rayado Lodge. The Boy Scouts renamed it Fish Camp.) It is really a nice little summer getaway. Rustic, but comfortable.
Then, we tried our hand at fly tying. Each of us made a fly to try out in the afternoon.
Our campsite is littered with the remains of water balloons and potatoes that the staff had been firing earlier with a three-man slingshot. They had been trying to chase away the bovine residents. They failed.
After setting up camp and having lunch, we went to learn the technique of fly fishing. The guy said that successful fishing is 60% luck, 30% practice, and he'd teach us the other 10%. We learned the proper technique for fly casting. It is much different from lure fishing, which is all I've done before.
As we were having our lesson, the dark clouds rolled in and it started to rain. There was thunder and hail, and quite a bit of rain.
Once the rain let up (mostly), Colin, Eric, Matt D. and I hiked up Rayado Canyon to PJ to pick up food. There are five steam crossings on the way. Most were easy, but one was fairly precarious. It was a tree down over the river, and one end was pretty narrow.
As we left Fish Camp, Eric found a GPS unit lying on the ground. It turned it in to the staff, but wondered if it might have belonged to the Cavalcade crew that was here earlier; Eric found it right near where they had "parked" their horses. The cavalcade was just leaving PJ when we got there. I hailed them and asked if they had lost it. One of the rangers (probably not the right term for a Cavalcade leader) didn't even know what "GPS" meant. We later found that it belonged to one of the crews in Fish Camp.
At PJ (8920 ft.) we found that there was one advantage of our late trek. The trading post was having a big sale on the various junk food that they sell there. I'm not normally a Fritos fan, but that fatty salty stuff really hit the spot. I got a bunch of extra bags for the next few days.
Our trip up to PJ and back was uneventful, save for on and off drizzle. I was worried about the return over the one skinny stream crossing log, but a long pole that was left nearby served well as a cane to help me keep my balance.
When we got back, I tried my hand at fly fishing while dinner cooked. I fairly quickly lost my fly to a branch in the middle of the stream. Oh, well, at least I've tried it.
After dinner, Don and I went to the advisors' coffee. Eric was there to leave some trash. For some reason the Program Director didn't like what he brought. She told him that he had to dance like a monkey. He did, but dropped a wrapper in the process. This meant he had to do it again. He did a very convincing job, and the staff said that he was the best all summer. Later, Matt W. and Andrew came over with more stuff that had been forgotten, and they had to dance, too. Somehow, in the process, Andrew ended up stepping on the camp director's toe. He didn't mean it, but it did hurt. Not that I felt really sorry for her. The next crew that arrived with trash she basically told "throw it to me and leave quickly." I thought that the scene was rather distasteful. I understand the desire to keep trash compact and contained in the backcountry, but this definitely overstepped the boundary of hazing.
We went to bed pretty quickly after that, it still being drizzly. As we slept (and wrote) in our tents, we were treated to the the sounds of the cattle right outside our tent, crunching grass, farting, running garden hoses, dumping. It wasn't quite the wilderness experience I had been expecting, camping in a cow pasture. Maybe the cows are supposed to chase away the bears.Previous Page |
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