| Today's hike
would take the Brumbys down Middle Ponil Creek, crossing
several times as the trail wound back and forth across the
valley, through Rich Cabins, then up over Wilson Mesa, and
down to Pueblano on South Ponil. |
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The first
part of the trail was fast, following an old road through
grassy meadows. |
| The crew made
a quick stop at Rich Cabins for a final food pickup and
to watch a newborn burro and its mother in the farmstead
corral. Since this was a fairly remote food pickup only
4-person meal packs were available, so we got food for 12
people to feed the nine of us. Although we never went hungry,
we ate better for the rest of the trip. |
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Personal sanitation
is something you don't want to have to think about, but
when the time comes, just haul out the orange trowel and
the imoprtant papers and head for a clump of trees away
from the trail. |
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We passed
other crews heading the other direction on the trail, but
rarely lingered in conversation. |
| The climb
up from Middle Ponil to Wilson Mesa was 1,000 feet of hot,
rocky trail. We again used the caterpillar to keep the crew
moving while giving everyone a chance to rest along the
way. It felt like we were crawling, but it only took an
hour to get to the top. That's a decent speed uphill with
full packs. |
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Once on top
of the mesa we stopped for lunch in the shade of a few big
Ponderosas. Squeeze cheese, crackers, beef jerkey, and Oreos
-- yum yum. |
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The mesa has
a broad, shallow lake rimmed with rushes and a view to Baldy
in the distance. We lingered a while to enjoy the view,
check out a solitary gravestone, and explore whether the
rush stems were edible. |
| What goes
up must come down, in this case a steeper trail down the
south side of the mesa to Pueblano. We crossed over an invisible
line and returned to Philmont proper near the top of our
descent. |
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Pueblano Camp
exhibits an old logging camp theme, complete with a place
to hitch your burros. The staff were dressed in period costumes
and hosted an entertaining campfire later in the evening,
as well as a big trash baseball game. |
The big activity here was spar pole
climbing, which the Brumbys had been looking forward to
since planning the trip. The idea is to climb straight
up the pole.
First you strap on a pair of gaffs
-- spiky things that go on your boots. Then you loop a
leather strap around the pole. It's attached to your harness
so you can lean back on it. Done right, it's fast and
looks easy. There's a rhythm -- pelvic thrust and throw
the loop, left gaff, right gaff, pelvic thrust and throw
the loop, left gaff, right gaff.
For we beginners, getting the pelvic
thrust motion right and throwing the loop was hard. We
inched rather than flew up the pole. Eventually we all
made it up and rang the bell at the top. Definitely one
of the all-time fun activities at Philmont.
We skipped using adzes to turn logs
into railroad ties. That didn't sound like a whole lot
of fun.
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We camped a mile up the trail at Pueblano
Ruins among an aspen grove filled with wildflowers. Just
across a little creek from our bear bag wire we found
a fairly fresh elk skeleton, probably killed the previous
winter.
On our hike back down to Pueblano
for the campfire we rounded a corner and saw our second
bear on the hillside above the trail. Fortunately we didn't
encounter it again on the way back to camp in the dark.
Philmont doesn't want crews hiking after dark, but there's
an exception for getting back to camp from an evening
program.
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