More tales from Philmont

 

Philmont day 3 of itinerary

by Matt Adams

     We had woken up after staying the night at cathedral rock, the air is cool and smells of ponderosa pines. Off in the distance we can see a large mass of rock sticking out of the nearby mountain, Coach tells us that it is called cathedral rock and we will be climbing up to it today. We start the day slowly, pumping water and eating breakfast, which is still bland. As we set off on the trail Coach stops us to show us how to use the katadyn tablets and how to bleed the threads properly. As we start up the steep uphill out of camp we continuously hear Justin talking about transformers and Ben’s attempts at singing. We get up on top of the hill and onto a road leading to the hunting lodge; we take a break here and take a drink. We notice that Coach has not let the katadyn tablets work long enough to take its full effect on the water, we question if he will be alright or if he will be in the red roof for the rest of the day.!

     When we continue again we hike on a rugged trail following every contour of the mountain with a lot of ups and downs all along being able to see a smooth flat road no more than 10 feet away and being tempted to just walk on the road but Coach keeps us on the trail. About 10 minutes later we again cross with the road and yet again take off away from the road, as we hike on Justin has joined Ben in singing.

     We continue on and we begin to hear some complaining and arguing between a few scouts, it escalates to yelling and shoving. As the fighting dies down we come up on the nature lodge, where jut yesterday we had received a wonderful talk about forestry from a man named Sam, who seems to be one of Coach’s closer friends. We take yet another break here but only for a moment to figure out where we are going, I as the navigator sort out where we are and where we need to go, but am still pestered by constant criticism from other scouts that believe I am incompetent with the task of guiding us.

     We come up on the road that leads up to the hunting lodge again and I direct us to head back down the road towards the nature lodge, as I announce this I am again assaulted with remarks of criticism from the other scouts. We go down the road and come across the trail we are supposed to take and we head up it. We are shortly confronted by a fork in the road and another crew coming from the left, we ask them where they are heading and then inform them that they are heading the wrong way. Once we start up the hill again we come across the large mass of rock we were able to see from camp and we take a break to take some photos from the top of the rock.

     We continue to climb up the hill, we continue towards window rock where we will stop for lunch. Once we arrive at window rock we rejoice as this will be the highest point we will go today. Before we eat lunch Coach gives us a speech about how he came to Philmont and how much he loves this land and what we can do to help preserve it. During lunch a couple scout climb on top of the large rock, most of us just sat down in the shade of the rock. Lunch that day was crackers and squeeze cheese, with a cliff mojo bar and some pecan cookies.

     During lunch we talked with another crew with many stories, one of which being that their wilderness pledge guia had killed a Mini-Bear. When we finish lunch we begin to walk away from window rock, Justin realizes that he had left his bandana on top of the rock, he drops his pack and runs back to get it.

     The rest of the trail was mostly downhill until we came close to camp. Right before camp we had about 10 switchbacks we had to climb then walk down into camp. When we walk up to the porch we are told to drop our packs and come up to receive our porch talk. Once we are given our campsite number we walk down the road towards camp. We come up to fork in the road and we turn left, after some time of walking I am again assault with more criticism, Not 2 minutes later we arrive at camp and begin to set it up!

      We Finish setting up camp and then walk down to the rock climbing gym to have some fun. When go in we are suddenly blasted with loud rock music, which after 2 days of hearing scouts sing is a pleasant treat. We rock climb for about 2 hours, within the first 30 minutes a couple scouts and I take on one of the easier courses. Towards the end of the course I had made a wrong step and ended up in a bad position to finish the course, I decided to jump for the end and hang there as we were instructed to do to finish a course; I sat there swinging for 10 seconds before I let myself down. There was another course most of our crew had attempted called hangtime, it required us to literally crawl across the ceiling, needless to say only 2 scouts had managed to finish it and the rest came close. As we returned to camp we were told that there was a mountain lion hanging around campsite 25, we were in campsite 23. We went on normally for the rest of the day, Ate dinner, cleaned up and went to bed. The one thing that struck us that day was at the end of the day, When we all realized that Coach would leave us tomorrow.