Philmont Trek 28, June 16-27, 2014
June 14
We had an easy ride from Cedar Falls, IA to Fort Madison, IA to catch the train. We stopped at the Subway for supper. Amtrak was about 50 minutes late. There were 9 other crews on the train, those poor other passengers. We got our gear stowed and found our seats. The scouts had a great time in the lounge car. Everyone had a great time on the train as usual. We made up time during the night and arrived just a few minutes late at Raton, NM.
June 15 Day #0
We had to wait for our bus, loaded our gear and headed out. Stopped at the usual corner for lunch. Wendy, McDonalds, Arbys and DQ were options. We had a 50 minute ride to Philmont. The boys were getting more excited as we got closer. Once at camp, we unloaded the bus, put our packs in a pack line and waited to get our tent assignments.
We arrived a day early, so we had the rest of the day to explore after we put our gear in our tents. We went to the museum and set up a time to tour Villa Philamonte the next day. We looked around camp, went to Tooth of time traders to look around. After supper, waited and went to a church service. Then we were done for the night.
Miles walked 5.6
June 16 Day #1
Up at 5:20, to the showers, got cleaned up. Breakfast at 6:30. Then we had downtime until 8:30. We met our ranger at the welcome center. Sean looks like he will be a fun ranger. He immediately has great rapport with the scouts. We head off to the 13 stations for the day. While it takes some time, we smoothly move through the stations and soon it’s time for lunch. We finished our gear shake down about 1:30. Our tour time for Villa Philamonte is 2:30, so we are in good shape. It was a great tour. I highly recommend taking the tour of Waite Phillips home before hitting the trail. There is a lot of great history that you learn about Philmont from the tour.
After supper, more training. There are separate meetings for the advisors, Crew Leader, Chaplains Aid, Wilderness Ghia. Each has really good information for each position. I have gone to the advisors meeting for each of my 4 treks and always came away with some new information.
The opening campfire was at 8:30. We had great seats in the second row. While a little cheesy, the opening campfire is fun.
To bed by 10. Tomorrow the real trek starts. The boys are excited, the advisors are excited. Everyone has prepared for this and is anxious to get going.
Miles walked 8.6
June 17 Day #2
Up at 5:20, off to the showers. Our last shower for about 5 days if we are lucky. After the showers, packed up the rest of my gear, almost ready to go. Off to breakfast at 6:30. One of our last cooked breakfasts for at least several days.
Back to the tents, final packing. Our items that don’t go on the trek, go into our locker. Other items went to the locker at registration. Down to the welcome center by 8:30. Time to fill up all my water containers, 5 liters. Weight the pack – I’m at 49 pounds. More than I wanted, but not surprising, I have gear I normally don’t bring. 5 liters instead of 4 liters. 1 pound for a day pack – will need that for the side hike to Tooth of Time and the day hike over Baldy. Long underwear – up north is supposed to be colder, a fleece jacket, hat and light gloves for the same reasons. That is at least 5 pounds of gear I normally don’t bring and would put the final weight more in line to what I expect.
We were on the bus at 9 and headed to Rayado and the Kit Carson museum. We had a really fun tour, got to throw some tomahawks, do some blacksmithing. Then started ranger training. Sean had trouble as 2 cats kept coming over and laid on the map as he was trying to teach orienteering.
We left at 11:30. Had to cross the river. A few loose rocks to walk on, then through the mud. At least it will dry. It caked on well and took 2 days to wear off. We hiked about 2 miles, found a shady spot and stopped for lunch.
Then the real climb started. The trek didn’t look this difficult this early. We climbed almost 1400 feet over 2 miles. That is a very rough first day! We finally arrived at Backache Springs. A real pretty campsite. There were no bear lines, but 1 bear box. Luckily, there was only our sister crew at the camp. We put our bear bags in the box, got our dining fly up and tents up.
We cooked supper. Everyone was hungry. Sean showed the scouts the proper Philmont method of cooking and cleaning up. Philmont has changed cooking procedures. They do not want you using turkey bags. The mountain house meals are not high enough quality bags to rehydrate food in, so you must combine in the big pot.
After supper, we headed to the pond to get more water. There is one location to get water from the pond. We filtered some, did bandana and micropur for some. While not great, it was drinkable after treating.
More training as we waited for water.
Back to camp for roses, thorns and buds. Then devotioans – Caleb is going to do a great job as chaplains aide. Then Wilderness Ghia – Daniel is doing great at this.
Bed at 9:30. We plan to get up at 5:15 to walk to the top of the mountain next to us for the sunrise.
Trek miles 6
Total miles for the day 9.5
June 18 Day # 3
Up at 5 am. Climbed the mountain next to our camp to see the sunrise. Great view. Climbed down, picked up the bear bags out of the bear box. Back to camp and got camp torn down. Ate breakfast and left about 7:30. Hiked for about an hour and found a great area to stop for a break. Great place to finish breakfast. Lots of elevation changes gaining and losing.
Arrived at Bear Camp. Terrible camp to try and navigate around and through. We ended up back at one of the campsites and decided to stop and have lunch. After lunch, we looked around, found the correct trail out of camp. I do not want to go back through Bear Cave Camp again.
Arrived at Crater Lake about 1 pm. Checked in, got the porch talk and assigned a campsite. The program here is Spar Pole climbing. We signed up for the 2 pm session, so we stayed at the cabin and talked as we didn’t have enough time to get camp set up. My son (Dan is an Eagle from our troop) is on staff at Crater Lake. He was the one leading the Spar Pole climbing. He did a really good job teaching and explaining how to climb. 5 of our 6 scouts climbed and all made it to the top. They had a lot of fun!
Then, it was time to go to our camp. Dan took us to our site, really nice. Got bear bags, dining fly and tents up quickly. Our ranger went over more teaching with our scouts. He taught the boys how to properly do bear bags and ropes as they couldn’t the night before as we had not bear line.
After supper, we got everything cleaned up, then time for advisors coffee. I strongly encourage advisors to attend all of these. They usually have coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider, cookies and more. More importantly, it is a chance to talk to other leaders who may have come from where you are heading tomorrow. You can learn best routes, water sources, what to avoid.
While we had coffee, the boys had a fun game. They had a long log with the contest being how far you can throw it.
Then it was the evening show. They have a really good campfire show. Don’t miss it! Good music, skits and lots of laughs and fun. Started at 8 and ended about 8:45.
Then back to camp, devotions, roses, thorns and buds, followed by Wilderness Ghia. An end to a great day.
Trek miles 9.7 total miles walked 12.1 miles
June 19 Day #4
Up at 5:30. A little slow to tear down camp. Finished part of breakfast and out of camp by 7:15. Our ranger leaves us today and we are on our own. Sean was invited to the main cabin for breakfast with the staff. Pancakes and bacon, not quite what we had for breakfast. We will miss Sean as he is an amazing ranger. Really connected with the boys well.
My son Dan has the next 3 days off, so he is hiking with us. Met him at the main cabin as we signed out. Short, easy hike from Crater Lake to Miners camp. About 2 miles and 36 minutes later, we arrived. Miners is a really fun camp. We timed it really well. We arrived at 8:30, we could climb at 10. We left at 9 to head to the climbing area. We were able to leave our backpacks at camp. We will come back for them when we eat later. We also pick up food here.
We got to the climbing site early. Everyone who wanted to climb and rappel had time to do it. They have 2 climbing areas. One is easy, the other more challenging. Both have good rappelling.
After, we headed back to camp. They let us use a campsite to cook supper. Yes, it is only lunch, but tonight is a dry camp, so we are cooking supper here, where we have water and will eat lunch tonight at supper. Easy cleanup and topped off our water. We also picked up more food.
Tonight is a dry camp and tomorrow is a side hike to Tooth of Time. We have 2 options for water. We can load up al o four water including the 3 dromedaries and take them all the way to Schaefers pass. Or, we can get water 2 miles from here at North Fork Urracca River and purify the water. We opt for option 1 even though it means carrying the water further.
The hike is all downstream to the river, a very easy hike. From there, it is almost all uphill. We catepillared almost the entire way.
We arrived at Schaefers pass and found our camp. We are very efficient at setting up camp. We ate lunch for supper. We knew we had plenty of water, so coffee and hot chocolate after our meal.
We did devotions; leave no trace, roses, thorns and buds. Caleb added an extra book during the devotions. This lead to a great discussion.
Everyone is excited about the Tooth tomorrow.
Bed about 10. We will be up early.
Trek Miles 9.7
Total miles walked 11.9 miles
June 20 Day #5
Up at 5:30. We got the Oops bags down to get breakfast out. We left camp set up, just took water, breakfast and our daypacks. It is a good 90 minute hike to the base of the Tooth. Parts are really good trail and parts you have to imagine where the trail is. There is a big area to leave backpacks and bear lines if you need them.
We took a water break, and then started up the final climb. It starts out with a nice trail, then turns into a boulder climb for the last several hundred feet. I was about 10 feet from the top, looked up and saw a mob of people on the top of the Tooth. I’ve never seen so many people. One man was trying to get out of the way of the mob. It looked like he slipped, and I saw the entire thing in slow motion. He slipped down the side of the Tooth and feel into a large crevasse about 4 feet in front of me. Saw him hit his head on a rock, bounce back, hit the back of his head and hit his side. The crevasse was about 5 feet wide and 10 feet long. And it was covered in blood. Within about 30 seconds I had 3 first aid kits in front of me. We got pressure on his bleeding head would and then followed Wilderness First Aid teachings. It was a challenge to try and examine him while he is crumpled in the crevasse. While I was looking after him, others from our crew were doing what they also had been taught. They took control of the scene, making sure the area stayed clear of extra people, comforting his son and others from his crew. The training works! Once I was satisfied that he could be moved, I had 3 large men carefully lift him out of the hole. He was very lucky. He landed on one side of the crevasse with a rock bottom. To his left there was no rock bottom, he would have gone a long way down. We may never have found him!
Once he was out, I could do a better evaluation. We got the head would stopped and bandaged. Got him cleaned up. Looked like he broke his nose and probably broke a rib or 2. We had a cellphone and called to base medical. Told them what happened and my evaluation.I felt that we could safely get him down from the Tooth, down to the staging area. While he was doing ok now I wasn’t sure what would happen with time and didn’t want to push my luck. We slowly got him down to the staging area and the medical evacuation team came. I was very happy to see the medical team. He was still in good condition when they assumed care.
We hiked back to Schaefers Pass and packed up camp. It is a short easy hike to Clarks Fork. Everyone was almost out of water, so we all topped off here. Drank a liter as well. We thought about showers, but they had a bee problem and the showers were closed for now.
Hiked on to Hunting Lodge. Another easy hike. On the way, we passed through the Demonstration Forest. They have some staff people in front of the reservoir to answer questions about the forest. We also took group and individual photos in front of the reservoir. Nice photo spot. Hunting Lodge is a nice camp. They continue to have bear problems so bear precautions are taken very seriously. I have never understood why they have no evening program and barely any program at all. It has so much potential.
We got a great campsite, and again rapidly set up camp. Had supper – turkey, stuffing and cranberries. Yes, we do eat well!
We went to advisors coffee. It lasted about 15 minutes and then they started animal jeopardy for the scouts.
Went back to our camp, did devotions, roses, thorns, buds and leave no trace. Lots of discussion about what happened today on the Tooth and what could have happened. We talked about what was done well and why it worked.
The staff came by to inspect every site. They have 12 bears in the area, including one that broke into the cabin a few nights ago. We made sure our bear precautions were followed very closely.
Trek miles 12.8
Total miles walked 13.8
June 21 Day # 6
Up a 5:30. Bear bags down and packed up camp. Dan get packed up quickly and left by 6:30. He had to hike back to Crater Lake to be ready to work at noon. We had a quick breakfast and left by 7. It was a very short hike to Cimarroncito. We arrived about 8. Had a short porch talk. We had a plan. They have the best showers at Philmont and a really nice laundry facility. They have modified things for the better. Now you get keys for a certain number of shower rooms for use of 1 hour. While some showered, others did laundry. They now have a really nice large clothes line as well. We left about 11 am after the clothes were dry. While everyone knew we would be dirty quickly, the shower felt great!
We had left a package of tent stakes in camp earlier today by accident. Another crew walking through our camp at Hunting Lodge found them. We happened to be at Cito at the same time and they returned them to us!
We hike to Ute Gulch for our food pickup. We had 2 options. The old trail goes through Grouse Canyon. You get a very scenic trail with large cliffs and a stream that you get to cross several times. The other option is an easier trail through Aspen Springs. We opted for the scenic route. We arrive at Ute Gulch about noon. Got our food pickup, milk and fruit. Amazing how much you appreciate the small things. We found a shady area for lunch. Then topped off water and filled out fuel containers. Everyone looked through the Trading Post.
We left Ute Gulch about 1 pm and headed toward Devils Basin. This was a very steep 2 mile climb with a lot of altitude gained. We used the caterpillar a lot. The hike continued to be challenging with altitude gained, then lost, then gained gain. We came around one corner and saw wild turkeys on the trail.
Near Vista Grande, we stopped and took some great photos from the vista above the camp. We hiked down to camp. It looked like it was going to rain; we heard the rumble of thunder. We set up camp quickly. Our water supply was either a river 2 miles away or a small spring in camp. We had been told the spring wasn’t working. When we got there, the spring was functioning perfectly with clean water. There were over 20 people in line to get water. We asked if we could fill enough just to cook with as we had not made supper yet. Everyone let us go to the front! That’s what scouting is all about.
Supper was Santa Fe chicken and rice with bean on tortillas.
We got camp picked up and saw a beautiful sunset.
Devotions, roses, thorns, buds and Leave no trace.
Ready for another challenging day tomorrow. It will be another long one.
Trek miles 11.7
Total miles 13.9
June 22 Day # 7
Up at 4:30. It’s really hard to pack up in the dark. We had a light breakfast and left by 6:15. We made sure everyone had plenty of water. Today could be a difficult day of hiking. We will be hiking through Bear Canyon. This is about 3 miles long, a lot of altitude gained. It’s a lot of rock trails and walls and very little shade. If it’s sunny, you bake in the canyon. Therefore, we left early. The hike initially goes up a little bit, then down to the river. We took a short break at the river, then off again. We had to cross a busy road to get to Bear Canyon. As we entered Bear Canyon, we were happy to see the skys overcast. We still have a 3 mile hike, minimal canopy and over 1000 feet to climb. We made really good time through a very pretty canyon. Just as we exited the canyon, the clouds broke and the sun came out. We decide this was a good time to take a break.
We hiked on to Santa Claus camp. This was a good place for lunch. They have water there, but is must be purified. This used to be a staff camp and the cabin is still there. The cabin is boarded up due to Hantavirus.
After lunch, it was time to get to Head of Dean. We hiked over Ponil ridge. In 2002, there was a fire that burned over 30,000 acres. It burned so hot that the sap melted into the ground and now there is a waxy layer on the ground. Because of this, the forest is very slow to come back. There are scrub oaks, grasses and some flowers. The pines are very slow to come back. We saw many large trees that had been struck by lightning. Some the ground looked melted around the tree. Others were split in half. Very impressive.
We arrived at Head of Dean about 1:30. They are a very fun staff with a lot of energy. We had a great porch talk and then taken to our camp. We had time, everyone was dusty, so this was a good time for laundry in a bag. We set up a laundry line on the trees. Be sure to put sticks up on the trees for the line just like your bear lines. Clean socks rock!
We fired up the whisperlites and had coffee and hot chocolate. A nice afternoon treat. The scouts signed up for the challenge course. This was a low COPE course. They had fun. They were worried about having time to do the course and get supper done on time. The advisors told them to do the course and have fun. We would get supper cooked and clean up. It was a good trade-off. The boys need to do the programs.
After supper was advisors coffee. Talked to many other crews and learned about the next days hike. It is short. But when you see the camp sign, you still have a long way to go to the cabin.
Their evening program is a hike to see the sunset. It’s a about 1 ½ miles, but the view is worth it. We could see the tooth. We were there 3 days ago, but it looks so far away now.
We ended the night as always. Great devotions, roses, thorns and buds and Leave no trace. This is my 4th trek and every crew I have been part of has done this every night. I believe that the crews who don’t do this each night are truly missing out.
We are looking forward to a short day tomorrow after 2 long and grueling days. Everyone is looking forward to sleeping in (in relative terms).
Trek miles 15.6
Total miles 18.8
June 23 Day #8
A short day, so we slept into 7! Compared to getting up at 4:30 or 5:30, this was sleeping in! Packed up, ate breakfast. Since we had time, fired up the stoves and had coffee, hot oatmeal. Yum.
It was about a 4-5 mile to Miranda, less than 2 hours. Before you get to Miranda, there is a great photo shot with Baldy in the background. Don’t miss the photos here!
We had a nice porch talk. They remembered my son being there the week before. We ate lunch on the porch. Had time to throw a few tomahawks before we headed off for black powder rifles. The 50 caliber rifles are just fun to shoot. Everyone did really well with many going 3 for 3.
Then we were taken to our camp. We have water, bear lines and the latrine close. Our only concern, if it rains hard, we will be flooded. We are the lowest point and have mounds all around our campsite. It looked like rain, we worried, and it blew off. Got camp set up quickly.
Had time, so more laundry in a bag, a bandana bath and set up a clothes line.
We raided the swap box and got a few things to add to our supper as everyone was hungry after the last few long days.
Before supper, Carson (the son of another advisor on the trip) jointed us. He is working at Rich cabins and is another Eagle from our troop. It was great to see him. I have had the opportunity to hike Philmont with him in 2009 and 2011.
Advisors coffee was good. We had a chance to talk to our sister crew advisors again. They are a fun crew to be around.
During advisors coffee, the boys played Mountain ball. Like baseball, but with a few changes. There are 5 bases that you can run in any order, 3 teams play, one out and if anyone says baseball, they are out.
We packed up everything we could so we can leave early tomorrow. We have a long hike to climb Baldy tomorrow. Everyone is excited, but a little nervous as well. We want to leave by 5 am. We have been told that after noon, the weather on Baldy can turn very nasty very quickly. Including rain, sleet and hail.
Devotions were great – really fitting well with the trek. Roses, thorns and buds went well.
Trek miles 5.2
Total miles 9.4
June 24 Day #9
Up at 4:30, finished packing, go the Oops bags down to get our breakfast and lunch for the day. Had part of breakfast. Topped off all of our water. We read that they suggest at least 2 liters of water. With only a day bag, the weight is much less, so everyone brought 4 liters. We can get more water in Baldy town after Baldy. We had 2 scouts bring full size backpacks that were empty so they would have room for our food pickup.
We finally left at 5:30. We had to wait for the sun to come up enough to hike. Rules are you can’t hike in the dark. Makes sense for safety.
It was about an hour to Black Horse. There are treks that have a layover at Black Horse. This would be a terrible camp to have your layover. Miranda is an awesome camp for our layover. We gained about 1000 feet on the way to Black Horse over about 2 miles. We took a short break here.
We hiked through a beautiful wooded area over the next few miles. This had many switchbacks. Came across an old mining building, old mine and a beautiful plateau. Don’t miss this photo op.
We had steep switchbacks over the next few miles. Lot of caterpillaring. At 10,400 feet, we came across another old mine and building. A few more photos. Took another short break here. Still a steep climb with switchbacks up to the base of Baldy.
At the base of Baldy, we took a short break in the meadow. The last assault is quite steep over a bed of loose rock. We had blue sky.
We started the final assault. Broke through the tree level. The last part is about a 40 degree climb on loose small rock. We caterpillared up almost the entire way. A few short breaks on the way up. It was like walking on sand. 2 steps forward and 1 step sliding back. We got to the top at 9:30. It was cold and windy up there. Probably about 40 degrees.
Took lots of photos, group and individual. There was a staff geologist on top of Baldy. He had a lot of really interesting information.
After an hour, we decided we should head down. The weather was awesome, but on top of Baldy, weather can change rapidly. Going down was more difficult than going up. Going up, you slid down. Going down, you slide down. The first 600 feet, until you reach the meadow is treacherous. You have to be very careful as it is easy to slip and slide. We reached the meadow about 11 am. Found a great place for lunch.
We finished lunch about 11:30. There were still crews starting to head up for the final assault. I would not want to be heading up that late. Just not a good idea.
We got to Baldy town about 12:30. Not a bad hike, most was downhill. Picked up our food, a little bit of milk, but they were out of fruit. They had a trading post, and everyone picked up a few things. Baldy Town is the highest post office in the US, so we all mailed home post cards.
We had 2 choices to get back to Miranda. We could go back the same way or go through Ute Meadows. The Ute Meadows route looked shorter, so we took that route. It was a nice hike.
We got back to Miranda by 3:15. There was hot water on the stove. Hot chocolate, coffee and hot spice apple cider. What a good way to get back to camp.
We had a great supper – fettuccine primavera. We raided that swap box and added chicken and 2 extra bags. It was all gone.
Advisors coffee was good. The boys played Mountain ball. Then the boys did Broga. You have to see it to understand it. Think of yoga mixed with bros’. You get the idea.
We ended the night with devotions, roses, thorn, buds and Leave no Trace.
We are excited and worried about tomorrow with the burro.
Trek miles 12.5
Total miles 15.2
June 25 Day #10
The night before we talked to the burro person about showing up early. He wanted to start the training at 8, we and another group wanted to start earlier. He agreed to 7:30. We arrived a little before 7:30, he arrived after 8. He spent a lot of time talking about the care of burros overnight, which we aren’t doing. The training was truly worthless except for the 10 minutes talking about how to walk the burro and don’t let him eat or drink on the trail. We finally finished the training and had the burro packed and ready to go at 9:45.
I nominate Cody from Miranda as worst camp staff ever (in 4 treks).
We were supposed to get to Ponil by 2 pm to help with the Chuck Wagon Supper. That wasn’t going to happen with our burro. We arrived at Head of Dean about 11:30 and had lunch. They were awesome and watched our burro while we ate. Our burro would walk for a short time and then stop. When he did walk it was very slow. We arrived near Ponil about 3:45 and were stopped by horses just outside the camp. It is a long way into camp to the cabin after you see the sign. We went to the corral to return our burro. We talked to the staff about the burro. Burros are supposed to have 3-4 days’ rest between trips. He had arrived at Miranda yesterday. He had no rest. The poor burro was tired.
We went back to the main cabin and got a great campsite. Close to water, the Chuck Wagon, showers and latrine.
The food at the Chuck Wagon dinner was very good – biscuits and beef stew. Compared to the Chuck Wagon dinners at Clarks Fork and Beaubien, theirs was disorganized. We talked to them about how others were run and breakfast ran much smoother.
Advisors coffee was very good. I was talking to a ranger. It turns out he was the ranger for our rangers’ (Sean) Rayado trek last year.
The Cantina show was packed. This was a great show – DO NOT MISS IT! The root beer also was very good.
Ended the day with devotions, roses, thorns and buds, and Leave no trace.
Looking forward to pancakes and sausage I the morning. A warm shower, the store and museum, a short hike and our service project.
Trek miles 13.7 100 trek miles to date
Total miles 16.5
June 26 Day #11
Up at 5:15 to help with the Chuck Wagon breakfast. They have a very nice kitchen to work in. Sausage and pancakes – YUM!
Then showers. Felt really good to be clean again, even if its temporary.
Went to the store, part of it is a museum. Very interesting. Then back to the cantina for a last root beer.
We stopped at the commissary even though we didn’t need a food pickup. We got milk and some fruit.
Packed up and left about 9:30. We hiked up over Harts Peak. It is a nice view from up there. We found a nice place for a break.
We continued on to Indian Writings. It is a very scenic hike with some great cliffs. It’s an easy hike until the downhill part. Very steep with some big steps and boulders to work around. We arrived at Indian Writings about noon.
Had a short porch talk. Set our conservation project up for 2. We headed to the shower house porch to eat lunch.
At 2, we headed to the conservation project. We will be working on a new trail that will lead to Chase Ranch. Some were using sledgehammers on rocks; some smoothing out the trail, filling in holes, others moved plants out of the way of the trail. We finished about 5.
We were taken to our campsite. All campsites here are a long way from the main cabin. We were ¾ of a mile from the main cabin. We set up camp and cooked supper.
We decided it was too far to go back for advisors coffee, so we did our own. Coffee, hot chocolate and hot spiced apple cider.
We did our final devotions, and Leave no trace. We ended with roses, thorns and buds. We did one for the day and then for the entire trek. It was a great way to end.
Trek miles 10.1
Total miles 16.5
June 27 Day #12
Up at 5:30 to tear down camp. We had time, so today was going to be a good cooked breakfast. Egg scramble, oatmeal, hot chocolate and coffee. Camp was packed up and we headed for the main cabin. We had the tour scheduled for this morning. They have ancient Indian Petroglyphs – carvings in the rock. They are really cool! They know a lot about the carvings. We also saw a digging site.
We left about 8:15 for the hike to our pick up site. Along the way, we stopped and looked at the T-rex track. It really is huge.
We arrived at 6 mile gate at 9:30. Our bus is to pick us up at 10:45. We had a little downtime and then were able to catch a ride on an earlier bus.
Once at basecamp, we got our tent assignments and headed for lunch. After lunch, we went back through our stations for check in. Then it was time for laundry and showers. Both were really good. We went to the Trading Post again for more souvenirs. Then it was downtime.
After supper, we discussed going to a church service; however, we had gone to 2 before we left and done devotions each night, so we just relaxed.
Closing campfire left at 8:15. Each time is a little different. This was very well done and well worth going to.
Dave and Cullen missed dinner and the closing campfire as they had a ride up to Rich cabins to see Carson at his camp. They returned about 11.
Tomorrow is Cimarron.
Our bus leaves for Raton at 2:30 and pizza delivered to the train station.
Trek miles 5.7 Total trek miles 114.7
Total miles 10.5
June 28 Day#13
Up for breakfast, showered, cleaned up and got our gear packed up. This year, they did not have a tent to stow our gear, so we left them in a pack line.
We used Carsons’ car to go to Cimarron – 2 trips. Did some shopping and ended up at the gallery and had to have a malt. Don’t miss this stop. They have really nice Woodbadge stuff that you will not find anywhere else as well as hand scooped malts.
We walked around some more and then headed for the St. James Hotel. I had not been there before. This is a really fun site to see. We decided to have lunch there. The buffalo burgers are excellent.
Drove back to basecamp and waited for our bus. They were late as the train was late getting to Raton. We got checked in at the train station. Right on time, Pizza Hut delivered our pizzas, pop, plates, glasses, etc.
The train was only a few minutes late.
Total trek miles 114.7
Total miles walked 5.7
Total miles walked the entire trek 166
We got on the train, stowed our gear and found our seats. Shortly after leaving the station, I saw there were plenty of seats in the lounge car, so I moved there to read. About 5 minutes later, one of our scouts came rushing over saying there is a man that is unresponsive. I went to check on him and he truly was unresponsive. He was large enough that it took 4 people to lift him off the chair and gently lay him on the floor. He had a pulse and was breathing, but completely unresponsive. We were 25 minutes away from the closest train station. I did a quick assessment and then a more thorough assessment. Quickly came to a conclusion of stroke, blood clot or heart attack. None were good options. The train’s first aid kit was brought. An AED, oxygen tank (small), an assortment of bandages. Not a lot to work with. I hooked up the AED to be sure he was in a dangerous rhythm. He wasn’t. All we could do was wait, hope, reassess his breathing and pulse every few minutes. He seemed to be doing ok. He was not turning blue, so that was a good thing. About 5 minutes from the train station, the oxygen tank ran out. We had been turning down the oxygen to try and get it to last, but it didn’t work.
I was very happy to see the paramedics get on the train. I explained what happened, what we had done and my assessment. There was not enough room in the train isle for them to be able to do anything. It took about 6 or 7 people with their carrier to get him off the train. It was very difficult to get him down the narrow steps to the main floor of the train.
As soon as they had him out of the train, he lost his pulse and shortly after, quit breathing. I was glad the paramedics and their equipment were her when that happened.
I never did hear what happened as the train left shortly after.
The remainder of the trip unremarkable and that was a good thing.
We arrived in Fort Madison about 30 minutes late. We had an easy drive back to Cedar Falls.
Once at Orchard Hill Church, we had a short ceremony to talk about the trip and hand out photos and the patches.
Once again an amazing trip. Lots of great things happened during the trip. The boys grew a lot, gained confidence doing things they didn’t think they could do and doing more than they ever thought they could. That’s what it’s all about. In the end, the trek was far longer and more challenging than we expected. But we hiked the entire trek, didn’t just survive it, but really enjoyed it. The boys did every program on their trek and others that they wanted to do. To sum it up, a huge success.
