Adventures in Philmont

Adventures in Philmont by Kia Schluetz

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS HOW I REMEMBER THIS STUFF, AND IF YOU WERE THERE AND DON'T LIKE WHAT I HAVE SAID, YOU CAN WRITE YOUR OWN.

The Journey To Philmont

So this was it. The first part of what we had been waiting for was finally here, after two years. The fruition of our long labors was upon us, and we [NAMES], eagerly piled into the white rental van to journey towards the awe-inspiring wonders we hoped we would find in New Mexico.

...I may be exaggerating at this point in the story, though, because to be totally honest no one seemed that excited. Groaning and dragging feet were to be expected, but I like to think Crew 94 takes laziness to another level. I personally brought a shirt with the sleeves sewn shut so I would have an excuse not to hold up my arms. You see, we had all risen at five in the morning, and one of our number especially does not like to be woken up. I won't say Michaela has a reputation for violence towards human alarm clocks, but I've never been so scared of getting anyone out of their sleeping bag. Did I mention we were going to share a tent?

So as I was explaining, we were about to leave for this place that can probably only be described as the most epic scout camp in the country, and until a few years ago, girls weren't even allowed to go. Since we can now do that, though, we thought we would put ourselves on the ridiculously long waiting list for some cool happenings. And the happenings did happen, but we were too sleepy too appreciate it at first.

Arrival in the Southwest

So after many long car hours (as well as the horrible decision to trade places with someone in the furthest back seat), my butt hurt from sitting in the same place so long. Every time we would stop for food or gas, I became dangerously close to religious. It was no coincidence that when we finally arrived at our campsite in the glorious state of Colorado, I felt I could hear the Hallelujah chorus repeating itself in my head.

After sleeping on normal ground for once and recovering from our journey, we spent a few days sightseeing in Colorado Springs, which happened to be the specific place in Colorado that we were staying. I, personally, liked it quite a bit. As the most active city in the nation, it had lots of areas for hiking, camping, biking, and so much else. It also seemed cleaner and more friendly than many cities that I knew, and almost everyone seemed more cheerful now that we were able to run around and look at stuff like the Garden of the Gods, and Pike's Peak (both of which I recommend to those traveling in Colorado, but for Pike's Peak, make sure the person driving has nerves of steel).

So after visiting around for a few days, and enjoying DelTaco, which seems to be the southern version of Taco Bell, we packed up our stuff and headed out on the last part of the first part our trip.

Day 1, In Philmont

So as we collapsed out of the van and onto the lovely tasting dirt road, it still hadn't sunk in. We knew where we were and all, but the awesome factor was not yet apparent. But then again, signing in was pretty exciting, and now that I think about it, dragging the stuff out of the cars was downright thrilling. I think we all wanted to go to sleep, but it was not to be.

Some of the things we did the first day probably should have been neither stressful, nor memorable, but sadly the health check and my visit to the gift shop were both of those. I have not yet mentioned that I was by far the most physically in shape of those in the crew, but I guess I should. While I may have been a little worried about meeting the minimum size requirements, almost everyone else was attempting to drop a pant size in three hours. This resulted in comments like, “If I eat gum, will chewing really hard balance out the calories?” She who spoke these words of deep wisdom will remain anonymous.

We all ended up being fine, and we weren't even weighed. After Mark told us to quit panicking, we came back to our senses a bit. I stopped chugging water and realized that a handful of rocks in my pockets would probably not do much, and a couple of others just started to wish they had taken a few more walks. All we got from the medical people were a few exasperated looks, and we were told that everything was okay. So so much for wearing three belts and a coat.

The gift shop issue, though, was definitely freak-out worthy. No one else seemed to think that not knowing which belt to get was a problem. No, no one else agreed that if I got the wrong one or the wrong size, it would cause me endless grief. Nooooobody even considered the fact the word Philmont on the back needed to be centered, and as a result I would not be able to punch new holes in it. People just don't get it. Sabrina kept telling me to “decide,” but it just isn't that simple. You can't just “decide” on a belt; you have to agonize about it. You have to consider every possible scenario in which this belt will be worn. You must rehearse scenes in your head in which you are talking about the belt with a stranger. You have to smell the belt. You have to dance around the store, with the belt as your partner. Okay, not that last one, but I did call my Dad and spend an hour figuring out the color of the buckle with him. Eventually I did make a choice, but the store had actually closed by then, and still no one understood my anguish over trying to buy a single belt. I went to bed a sad person.

Day 2, Lovers Leap

The next morning I spent a lot of money. I don't want to go into too much detail with it, but before we move on to the day's adventure, I have to describe my brief morning shopping spree.

So since I clearly spent the night dwelling on the things I couldn't have, as soon as I woke up, I pretty much ran to the trading post. I ended up with a giant spork, two belts, a buckle, some lotion, chapstick, some other random stuff, and a big bag of assorted candy-type food. I will not say how much I spent.

After I recovered some shreds of my sanity, we went to breakfast and then set out early to start our first day of hiking. Our goal was to end up at a rocky overlook area called Lovers Leap, which was only about three miles away. Our packs may have been heavy, but I never really thought about how slowly some people would want to walk, even to such a short distance away. I started getting annoyed with the whole “walk four feet then get smacked in the face with a pan attached to someone's pack because they need to stop and rest, then repeat a minute and a half later” thing.

After a while though, people got used to using their legs, and we managed to get to the Lovers Leap gorge by noon. Needless to say, the group was absolutely exhausted by that time, so we stopped and ate.

While we were stopped for lunch, we also went out onto the rocky ledge and climbed around. It made Erik and I a bit nervous, the two of us being afraid of heights, but nothing like the Saint Louis Arch (which we had all visited on the way to Philmont, and realized too late that it was not for those with a phobia). It was pretty cool to look over the edge, as long as I wasn't too close. Elizabeth took some good pictures, and I think everyone had a good time.

When we left Lovers Leap for our campgrounds, people were in a good mood, and we didn't take nearly as many rest breaks. Things were looking good, and Ethan, our guide, showed us how to do stuff like put up bear bags and wash dishes. We went to sleep after that.

Day 3, Crater Lake

We got up early, or so we thought. The crew doing the same trek as us was already gone, and so was everyone else in the area. Fortunately, we didn't have much farther to go than the previous day, so we would most likely get to our program in time. Our destination was Crater Lake, one of two old-style lumberjack camps.

We got to Crater Lake around noon, and approached the log cabin for instructions. The staff was entertaining from the minute we got there, and they wasted no time mocking the “lake.” It wasn't hard to see a problem with calling it a lake, as it more resembled the frog pond at Camp Lazarus, but I wouldn't have called it a “cesspool” as nonchalantly as they did. I was afraid of hurting its feelings. (Mostly because I think the gunk on the surface tried to speak to me.)

The staff directed us to a campsite for our tents, which was filled with lovely squishy mud. We set everything up, and then most people sat down and moaned in pain. After an agonizingly long, gruelingly difficult, horrifyingly terrible monstrosity of a three mile walk (note my sarcasm), most of us were very tired. And by most of us, I mean everyone but me, and this proved to be an argument starter.

You see, I had to go to the bathroom. There were two places in the area I could go, one of them being the latrine up the hill, and the other being the nearby, wonderful, “Pilots of Bombadier”-style toilet. Now, the second option was unattractive for a few reasons. One, it was an open-air latrine. No walls. Two, the double seats were side by side. Awkward. Three, this wonderful contraption was right next to the second busiest trail in the area. I never want to have an audience when I use the bathroom, ever. So what was the problem? Well the buddy system decrees that no scout will go anywhere alone, even if no one wants to walk up an entire hill with you. After walking a whole three miles, no one was up for that kind of intense workout, and Elizabeth tried to convince me to use the closer one.

“Come on! That one is a lot closer! I'll even go to the bathroom with you.” A tempting offer, to be sure. I pondered that, and for one glorious moment, I saw how wonderful it would be. We would sit side by side on the seat, pants at our ankles. We would hold hands and give each other encouragement; no one could face Philmont constipation alone. We would share toilet paper as the sun set, bathing us and our trail-side audience in a warm, orange glow. With a wad of paper in each free hand, we would wipe our butts, and applause would fill the clearing.

The momentary image faded, and I declined. I managed to get Elizabeth to walk up the hill, but she was pretty irritated with me after that.

Anyways, we went to our program, and it was fun. Climbing spar poles like real lumberjacks was something only Mark had done before, but everyone in our crew made it to the top of one. I highly recommend that anyone even remotely interested in climbing trees with a belt and pokey shoes try it.

The best part of the climbing, though, was the fact that we had to yell cheesy pickup lines at the person belaying(Sp?) us. The guidelines for this were somewhat vague, but apparently the line wasn't supposed to be creepy. I guess I never realized how a line like “Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?” sounds to normal people.

The last thing we did before returning to our campsite for the night was attend the Crater Lake campfire. The campfire was more of a concert, and it may have been the most epic concert ever. Not only were the musicians talented and diverse (among the instruments used were a bass, a violin, a guitar, a banjo, and something I didn't know what it was), but they told funny jokes the entire time, and were so into their skits that you couldn't help but be amused. I really can't describe how amazing all of this was to someone who hadn't been there, so I won't try. But take it from me that it was cool.

After the campfire, we went back to the campsite. We had a few more annoyed arguments between tired people, and collapsed.

Day 4, Beaubien

This was a fairly good day. We got up at a reasonable hour, and were less irritated in general. Everyone was used to walking by now, and we weren't carrying as much food. I was the only one to notice Ethan (the guide) leaving without a word to us, the last crew he would lead before going home to Kansas.

Our agenda for the day was to get to the Beaubien ranch, where we would be eating a chuck wagon dinner. Basically, it meant we got stew.

On the way, we planned on hiking up to see the B-24 plane wreckage. Apparently a military training flight went wrong, and they crashed on a mountain, where everyone on the plane died. We all wanted to go up there to see it.

Sabrina had some difficulty hiking, and we kept stopping. We got there in a while, though, and it was good that we were able to do something like that to make us sweat a bit. At the top, Sabrina claimed that it was the hardest thing she had ever done (but it wouldn't be for long).

While we were there, we examined the wreckage from the plane. It was kinda eerie to see all of that shiny metal scattered everywhere in the quiet woods. There were plastic rosaries (?) all over the tree that the plaque was on. I looked at it for a while, because it indicated that a few of the victims had been scouts. It also had the ages, and not one of them was out of their twenties.

As we hiked down, it was an easier walk, but we kept seeing shiny metal parts, even close to the bottom of the mountain. I wondered how big the crash must have been, to have flung the pieces that far. After a few hours, though, we stopped seeing the metal, and the terrain became more even. We were on flatter ground, and there was a bit more open space. This should have been helpful to our crew's weaker members but sadly it was not. We slowed down so much that we didn't make it to Beaubien in time for any activities, and we were late for dinner preparations.

When at last we did arrive, we wandered into the area knowing exactly where we were. Unlike every other place we had been so far, there were tons of people crowded in. It was like a woodland city of tents, and as we walked through, people pointed us in the right direction. Everyone knew we were looking the main cabin, as about a hundred other people had done that day, albeit earlier than we had.

My first impression, upon reaching the Beaubien cabin, was that I should try very hard not to laugh. Just out front were about a dozen people swinging ropes in circles in the air, trying to lasso a log. I also found the whole cowboy hat thing amusing. Our greeting person was wearing one, and so was every other person on staff. Our greeter told us that this was one of many areas used for cattle ranching, since the woodland tent city was cut off by a large field. He pointed to some cows, which we pretended to find interesting, and then pointed to the shower house, which REALLY got our attention. At this point in our hike, we had not yet had the chance to take a shower, and I did not like that much. I made it my goal to take a shower here, ice cold or not (which it would be, because the fire heaters were off).

So after getting settled and all, we went to eat food. This was pretty good because everyone got real stew. And by everyone, I mean everyone who ate meat. I was given canned vegetable soup, but since it had letters in it, I couldn't protest. Alphabet soup is boss.

After that, there was a late night campfire, but it was decidedly underwhelming after seeing the Crater Lake band and I won't talk about something pointless.

Day 5, Comanche Camp [ADD HOMESTEADING STUFF]

We managed to schedule a service project at about 8 AM, which rent a gaping hole in my shower plans. Ah well. The project itself wasn't difficult; breaking up brush piles into itty-bitty pieces and scattering them was the entire task. Unfortunately, though, the project caused us to start hiking later than usual, and this would become a big issue later.

But at the time, we though everything was going to be okay. I was to be the navigator (mistake number one), and I was given the map. We started out of Beaubien just fine, and and were off to the Phillips Junction food pickup spot. Everyone was cheerful and rested, so we got there pretty quickly.

While picking up our food, Elizabeth fell in love with the blond guy running the area. He clearly wasn't the sharpest tack in the drawer, though, and some confusion started us throwing our food bags at each other. It kind of turned into a game, and we got our bags.

We decided to immediately ditch from the bags everything we weren't going to eat, so we wouldn't have to carry it. This was fun, too, and as we dumped the stuff we didn't want, I found five whole bags of tuna in the swap box. I thought it was going to be a lucky day (mistake number two).

As we left there, I consulted our map. “Let's go that way,” I said, and pointed straight ahead. This sparked a lovely half-hour debate about whether I was right. The group eventually decided to ignore me, and we went right. After a few minutes, the trail curved left.

“This is exactly where we were!” And so it was declared that we should listen to the person with the map. Imagine that. We continue walking until another problem appears.

“Looks to me like the trail goes there,” say I, but doubt is like a disease with these people, and so we go the other direction. This trail is hard to see, but I do my best.

“Where's the trail?” say voices other than mine, a few minutes later, and so the packs are ditched, the adults consult one another, and I am left to look ahead a bit to see where the trail goes. I have my whistle and am told not to go far. With this in mind, I go as far as it takes to find out where the damn trail leads. Oddly enough, I find that the trail connects to the trail that I had suggested in the first place. That side of the trail looks easier to follow, but there is a river in between them. This is what I tell the others when I return.

“Oh no!” is the general reaction when the group realizes that there is a furiously rushing, roaring, dried up stream that they must cross. A few of us have little issue with this, and cross quickly. The others must be helped along with patience.

“This way!” “No, I think its this way....”

After a few more issues with telling the person with the map that she is wrong, and then ending up in the same place with a lot more walking, it is getting later. We are heading around the mountain Big Red, and though we are not going up the mountain itself, we are still rising in elevation.

There are a lot of rivers up here. It is getting eerily quiet, and its rocky too. I keep seeing things that look like other things, like a log that seems like a duck laughing at me. If it weren't dusk this would not be unsettling, but it didn't look nice. I believe in omens, so nervousness is setting in. What if we don't get to Comanche Camp by dark...?

We keep crossing rivers and streams. People are getting sick of this, and someone starts to say something that sounds an awful lot like, “Maybe we should go the other direc-” when I cut in with, “No. I am the navigator, so shut up.”

The mistake here (number three, for those counting) was not saying something sooner, because now we really are lost. We all know it and no one wants to say it.

Speaking of omens, it is getting cold, and starting to rain. The rain decides to alternate between pouring and drizzling, because that is the best way to ensure hopelessness in lost travelers.

After a while, people are beginning to whine. I actually am secretly impressed by this, because for some of the more out of shape people, this is likely one of the more exhausting times they have had in their plump, squishy lives. Its taken a while for them to show outwardly how ready to lie down they are. I try not to convey how hopelessly bamboozled I am, because if I did they would probably all collapse.

Some time later, Michele points out something bad. We had been going uphill the whole time. Now, suddenly, we were walking downhill. This is bad for two reasons; one, if we are going downhill then we must have missed a turn, because we are going back the way we came; two, we do not know where the turn was and probably will not find it. We are very lost, and it is getting dark.

We keep going straight, since along with doubt, denial is one of the group issues as well. This one has me badly infected, because it is wet and cold and dark now. I really want to get to the campsite before something bad happens, since we were told about all of the dangers of Philmont at night.

My main concern is having my throat torn out by a mountain lion, but close behind is my fear of breaking my ankle on these rocky, root-filled steps we are taking. There will be little help up here, and the forest is so quiet. We decide to break some of this creepy silence with something useful.

“Rock.”

“She said there's a rock.”

“There's a rock.”

“Root!”

“Root.”

“They said a root.”

“Rock.”

“There's a rock.”

“Rock soon.”

“Root and rock.”

“Root and a rock”

“Root. Rock.”

This depressingly bland conversation from the group allays only one of my fears.

We continue like this as long as we can, but after a while, we know there is no chance of finding Comanche. The knowledge is depressing, and some people are starting to see things. We find a relatively flat spot on the dark, rocky path, and decide that there is room for only one youth female tent. This is fine with us though, it being cold and wet, and so Elizabeth, Sabrina, Michaela, and I pile into one two-person tent. We eat a sad dinner of pomegranate gummy snacks, which are good but not filling, and use each other as pillows for the night.

Day 6, Cyphers Mine

Waking up in a tent completely filled with squishy person-mass is amusing, especially when you are no longer skittish, tired, or cold from the previous day's disaster. It is nice to know that a tent you are in is about 20 degrees warmer than the outside air.

As we struggled to get dressed while surrounded by three other people, a way too small tent, and the flailing limbs of those other people (who are also trying to dress), we wasted a good amount of time. We started kind of late, which, combined with our backtracking from yesterday, meant we would have to try really hard to make it to Cyphers Mine before the program stuff closed.

After a long argument about being totally and completely sure of the right direction, which would be the theme of the day, we went back up the trail to where we had gotten lost. It seems that a tree had fallen over the trail marker, and we had missed it in the night.

As we went along, it seemed that scout-led navigation was being thrown out the window. At every single turn, the youth would agree on a direction, and the adults would sit and argue for a while about what the right way really was. They nearly always ended up agreeing with us, but they did succeed in wasting a lot of time.

When we reached the mine, it had been closed for a hour. We all felt bad about it because Erik had really wanted to see it. Fortunately, one of the staff peoples felt similarly, and gave him a short tour. He even got some wolverine-style coal smears down his face.

As we were wandering around our campsite, we managed to run into Troop 94! We were extremely surprised, since we thought our treks would never run into each others'. We were greeted with mountain men girs, which caused our guide guy to think that the first few people to greet each other were fighting. We found this to be very funny, and we had to explain that we had all gone to Chief Logan and earned claws together.

Later, we ate dinner (veggie lasagna, yum) and got put in an Adirondack, which is this shelf-type thing that is open on one end, and the ceiling goes like /. This would be our last night on the trail, and we all were a bit sad.

Day 7, Cimarroncito Turnaround

This is our last day on the trail, and I think that's why some of the slow people are feeling energized for once. Elizabeth and I are excited to go to the Tooth of Time, so we start running every so often. And no matter where we go, we keep running into Troop 94.

The trail is almost all downhill, so the slow people are happier. We are in a part of Philmont that has the least desert-like feel to it than any place we have been so far; there are streams and bugs and lots of plants, and it seems almost tropical. The trail is not only sloped downward, but most of it is in a large gorge as well, which means that there are huge walls of rock rising alongside us. We keep seeing areas that have had rock slides, and the pictures just do not do them justice.

We reach the turnaround with about an hour to spare, a remarkable feat for our crew. Everyone is cheerful, and a staff guy who is also waiting decides to play some really good music on his guitar, which we all appreciate. We end up back at base camp around noon.

Day7, The Tooth

Since we had gotten back so early, we figured we had time to make it to the top of the Tooth of Time. I had been wanting to go there the entire trip, and Sabrina had never wanted to go at all. Nevertheless, we went. Most people wanted a picture of themselves at the top of the Tooth.

We began to ascend the mountain, and it started easily enough. We had ditched our packs and were now only carrying day bags with water in them. When we started, we were told that we had to follow these irritating switchbacks that I was not a fan of. They were fairly pointless, and went back and forth across a relatively flat area. We were barely moving up. So I started hinting that we take some short cuts. No one went for the idea at first because it meant that they would be expending more effort, even if it would cut a third of our trip. But they went for it later, when we were coming back down.

Anyways, as we were starting up, another crew was coming down. They told us that we shouldn't have started so late, and that we wouldn't make it back before nightfall. We didn't realize that they were trying to be helpful instead of snobby, so we ignored them. See, we didn't know it at the time, but it was an eight hour hike, not a five hour hike. But we would learn.

On the way up at one point, it started to rain a little, and I was a bit far ahead from excitedly walking too fast.. So I found a very me-sized crevice in the rock along side the trail, and sat in it. It sheltered me a bit and was actually pretty comfortable. About ten minutes later, I heard Elizabeth panting, trying to keep up. She nearly walked right past me, and then she saw that I was in a little rock crevice. Her confusion was wonderful.

After a few more awesomely hilarious moments that only I seemed to find funny, I started acting like a normal person. Our group was beginning to separate, but since we though that the hike was shorter than it was, we were not concerned. For the entire trip so far we had stuck pretty close together while hiking, but now we were becoming somewhat lax. As we passed through the scrubby area and entered the woods, the group ended up separating. There was me, who was slightly ahead of Erik and Michele, and they were a few miles ahead of everyone else. Elizabeth had slipped back to make sure Sabrina was okay.

Now, I didn't realize I was so far ahead of everyone. I only stopped when I got lost, and by then, I was alone. So I backtracked, and found Erik and Michele, who were very tired. We rested a while, and then I told them that I was unsure about what I had found ahead. I told them that this was the only part of the trail so far that had split in any way, and that the way heading to the Tooth appeared to be heading downward. They agreed that it sounded odd, and we all went to look at it together.

[MAKE SURE THIS IS HOW THIS ALL HAPPENED] Michele went back to ask Mark what to do, since he had been here before. It seemed though, that he had problems of his own, and couldn't come ahead to join us. The back group had apparently been having issues.

Many things had been going on in the back that we were not aware of. All of the Newlons were exhausted, and Sabrina had decided that she wanted to go no further. Michaela was having issues as well, and Elizabeth was trying to keep people going. Mark was now faced with a decision. He could either turn back with them, or try to keep them going. If they couldn't do it and he tried to keep them walking, someone would end up having to go back down to base camp to find help for them.

When Michele came back with this news, we were unsure of what to do. With some more relayed messages, we decided that we would go on, and hope to see them there. (During these relayed messages, Mark also revealed that he had miscalculated, and that the trip would take at least a half an hour more from where Erik and I were.)

As we continued on, we were relieved to see that the trail did indeed turn up again. We started to see things that looked large and rocky, and every time we saw something that looked like it might be the Tooth, we saw something bigger a little ways away. We were getting frustrated, when we saw some Philmont Staff sitting on a log.

There might have been four or five staff scattered around that area, and it was clear that they were having a “goodbye Philmont” get-together. It made me a little sad for them, but then I saw that they had a pink princess castle tent, and I completely forgot that sad things existed.

After they pointed us in the right way, we hiked along until we saw it. I was just getting discouraged, thinking I would never see it, and then there it was. I was too close to the bottom to see it fully, but I could appreciate how the trees just stopped. It was the biggest pile of rocks that I had ever seen.

I waited until the other two had caught up to me, and then we waited as a group on the bottom-most rocks of the Tooth, pretending to take a break. We were really waiting to see if the others would turn up.

Twenty minutes or so later, with my amazing bat-like hearing, I heard the others! “Hey I hear them!” I said, and then Erik and Michele wanted to know if I was completely sure. After some more waiting and listening, I was about to say, “I guess it might not have been,” when the entire group of them came into view.

“Oh My God!”, “Heyyy!”, and “I thought you wouldn't make it!” were all things said within the first two seconds of the group reunion by multiple people. It was exciting to know that every single person had made it this far, and they told us how they did it.

Apparently Sabrina had had a meltdown, while the adults were feeling some crusty, ancient joint problems. When people started talking about going back, Elizabeth and Michaela started shouting and screaming encouragement sprinkled with cussing. They wouldn't back off Sabrina, and eventually they made it to us. They looked worn down but proud of themselves.

We waited some more for them to get rested, and then began to climb the Tooth of Time itself, together.

There was no hiking at this point. We were all literally climbing. It really made me wonder where all of the rocks came from, because they looked like they fell from somewhere, even though this was the highest point in the area. This train of thought bothered me so much that I didn't realize I was getting so close to the top. It might have made me tired if I knew what I was doing.

When I reached the top, I flinched. It was way too high, and there weren't even birds. You could see red specks that were entire areas filled with buildings. I could not wait to leave. Unfortunately, I did end up waiting, because no one else was there yet.

While I waited, I occupied myself with imagining all of the different way to die up there. I huddled myself into a little rock crevice and tried not to look over the edge. Any of the edges, actually.

When everyone was finally at the top of the top, some people reacted similarly to me, and freaked out and decided to hide. We did manage to take pictures though, and I managed not to look terrified in one of them. For one of the most difficult places we had to get to in the entire trip, we stayed there a very short amount of time. As soon as it was made known that we were leaving, I bolted down the rocks before anyone else. I think Elizabeth thought I was showing off instead of being scared, and she was shouting cuss words at me as I climbed down.

While we were walking, this time all together, we realized that we were going to have a hell of a time getting down before dark. So as soon as we made it out of the wooded area, I finally got my way. We took some weird short cuts, and a few times I wasn't sure where we were, but I pretended confidence, and everything turned out fine. We got down late, and we could hear the awards ceremony going on without us.

As we stumbled into the parking lot to get our things for tomorrow, I was completely exhausted; I never stay up late. But we got to take the first shower since we had started, which is, in my opinion, disgusting. After that, we went to sleep.

Day 8, Leaving

The last day was kind of sad, because we were leaving after we had had so much fun. I wished we could have had a longer trek, but ah well.

One last exciting thing: As we were about to go eat our last meal ever at Philmont, I saw something. Right next to the line was a swap box. In the swap box was... no less than forty packets of tuna. I was in utter shock.

When I did at last recover myself from this beautiful, shiny, awe-inspiring sight, I scooped them all up into an orange dry sack and carried them around with me. It looked like I was carrying a headless orange baby, but I didn't care. I left Philmont a happy person.

A Reflection; Things Learned

There are some things I have learned to appreciate from this trip, and they include physical fitness, and actual latrines instead of public dump holes. I also learned that I probably have a healthier diet than most people in my crew, because I really loved Philmont's organic and nut based foods. Carnivores are not appreciative of this, though.

I am also no longer concerned with foot fungus after a week without showering. It didn't happen, though that may have due to the dry climate. And storing dirty used food utensils inside a dry sack and then using it again without washing it also seems fine to do after you get used to horrible personal hygiene.

Related to food again, any person who abandons a tuna packet is a royal dumbass. Though that ended up working in my favor 45 times.

I ended up questioning how a person enters a place with an even number of socks, and exits with an odd number.

Roadside wall-less toilets are not an option.

Mountains give new perspective on life. They help you see how small you are, and yet how majestic they are. It helps you realize that you are part of a beautiful world, and that it is a privilege to be included in it, and experience its wonders.