I thought I'd forward a relatively brief report on 622-N5, trek 16. My co-advisor, Brad Slaten, took extensive notes and hopefully he'll publish a detailed log one of these days.
Day 1: Camping HQ. We arrived the night before so had a full day to take care of everything. It's hard to imagine doing it in less than a full day, we sure seemed to fill this day up!
Day 2/Olympia: Dropped off at Carson Museum, toured that for a couple of hours (boys really enjoyed it, especially the guy with the really funny accent). Hike to Olympia as our first camp. Trail is just a set of 4wd roads, poorly marked, and we let them get lost a couple of times on the way, after which they took map reading more seriously. Saw a bald eagle soaring, figured that was a good omen! The river was up and some got wet feet on a couple of crossings. Campsite at Olympia was pleasant but the bear cable was a *long* way away (1/4 mile or so). Plenty of water available in the river, needs purification of course.
Day 3/Toothache Springs: Hiked to Toothache Springs via Zastrow (stopped there for water, it was before 8am so we didn't do any program). Hiked up the 4wd road from Zastrow turnaround, worst hike of the trip as far as steepness and poor footing, plus little shade was available. Our crew leader started having problems with dehydration near the top, so we filled him up with Gatorade and carried his stuff so we could make it into camp. After that we made sure he had plenty of Gatorade each day. Campsite was great, we had the camp to ourselves. The spring is about 400 yards up the hill and feeds into a tank with a faucet – still needs purification and had a few swimmers in it. Most of us side-hiked up Uracca Mesa and over to the other side – spectacular view down toward base camp and the Tooth.
Day 4/Miner's Park: Hike to Miner's Park via Stonewall Pass and Lover's Leap camp. Kinda steep but decent trail up Uracca Mesa, then ups and downs to the 4wd road, then downhill on that to the trail to Lover's Leap. At the Lover's Leap end of that trail there was a sign saying to use the new trail to Stonewall Pass, but we saw no sign of a new trail coming the other way. Did see a couple of coyotes along the edge of that meadow though. Pretty good trail from Lover's Leap to Miner's Park although mostly uphill. Got there, got a climbing time slot and set up camp, but rain rolled in and climbing was canceled for the afternoon. The staff made a valiant but ultimately futile effort to put on a program around climbing equipment, and after that we enjoyed showers and laundry (propane heated, no Tabasco donkey feeding required).
Day 5/Lower Bonito: Hiked via Crater Lake to Lower Bonito. We reached Crater Lake fairly early, got a 10am spar pole climbing slot, enjoyed the staff presentation on it, and about half the guys got to climb before rain set in. It got muddy enough that it would be several hours before the poles reopened, so we packed up and headed up over Fowler Pass. It's a pretty good climb, and was raining most of the way up and over. Windy and cool at the top despite our exercise developed heat, and the 3 boys without waterproof/breathable raingear were soaked with sweat. We wanted to side hike Trail Peak but we were running somewhat late and anyway it didn't look there would be much visibility up there so we blew that off. Rain had stopped by the time we got to Lower Bonito, and there was nobody there so we got a beautiful campsite near the edge of the meadow. Another crew came in later in the evening, although they were supposed to be somewhere else they had decided they were too tired to proceed. We had a bit of dry weather to set up, then more rain came in and we had hail a couple of times – the last time about half inch. Water there was a spring, flowing well but did need purification. There were some mosquitos, at least when it wasn't storming.
Day 6/Apache Springs: Hiked over Webster Pass to Fish Camp. One of the Scouts asked me if it was a hard hike to Fish Camp and I told him "Not bad, it's all downhill except the first half". This somehow caused him to feel relieved about it. Weather was good by the time we got to Fish Camp; after the lodge tour we did the fly tying thing (the staffer teaching it was really funny), and then tried our hand at fishing. Several had strikes but I don't think anyone got a fish out of the water. Many lost their flies, it would have been a good idea to bring along a handful of cheap flies so they could continue fishing. We headed out about 2pm up Agua Fria Creek toward Apache Springs. Not a bad hike along the creek but lots of opportunities to get feet wet. Then up the "Seven Switchbacks from Hell" to Apache Springs. Actually we didn't think they were all that bad. Apache Springs meadow was full of cattle, apparently they like it and hang out there a lot. Got a nice campsite across the meadow from staff cabin and settled in. Skipped the sunset hike with intention of doing it the next night as some boys were pretty tired. Did pick up a couple days food here. Mosquitos not too bad.
Day 7/Apache Springs: This was our layover day. Cons project in the morning – working on a new trail to bypass the aforementioned "Seven Switchbacks from Hell". I was impressed by the cons crew, both enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Our guys had fun with the work and thankfully rain held off. This was our layover day, so afternoon we did 3D archery and then the sweat lodge. For 3D archery they were running out of arrows and hadn't gotten more from base camp so we were the last crew for a while that got to do it. Everyone really enjoyed the sweat lodge, we discovered that while it was as refreshing as a shower, it didn't make us smell much better. We checked out the tipis and ended up sitting out a rain shower in one of them for a bit; this was pretty much the last rain of the trip. That evening it cleared off and we did the sunset hike – up to a high meadow with a clear westerly view toward Wheeler. There was a good snowbank up there which the guys enjoyed on the way down. Beautiful sunset and well worth the hike.
Day 8/Crooked Creek: Hiked via Bear Canyon and Buck Creek to Phillips Junction. Picked up the rest of our food there, tanked up on water as well as doing a few postcards, etc. Then headed up via Porcupine Camp to Crooked Creek. I think we enjoyed this camp more than any – it's primitive for a staffed camp, no purified water (but a nice cold spring), supplies packed in by burro, but the staff was great and the activities low-key but fun. The guys liked chicken-chasing a lot, but also enjoyed making candles, mountain man bowling, etc. Staff said that a bear had been wandering the opposite edge of the meadow at dusk each of the past 5 nights but he didn't show the night we were there. This was the only staff camp that wouldn't take trash (because it has to be packed out by burro). There was a good breeze until dusk which kept the mosquitos away but after it died down there were several out.
Day 9/Clear Creek: We hiked up to Clear Creek – got an early start and arrived pretty early, went up along Rayado Creek via Comanche Camp. Decent trail, steady uphill but not terribly steep. Got in early enough to get times for black powder shooting, etc. Mosquitos were terrible here, good thing I'd brought along some of the 100% deet stuff. Regular "Off" didn't discourage them much. Campsite was ok but a bit steep. The boys enjoyed tomahawk throwing and fielded a team in the evening competition. Their team won the loser's round; perhaps with more practice they could have done better. Good camp and staff but it felt pretty crowded with all the crews coming and going toward Mt. Phillips. Plenty of purified water here.
Day 10/Red Hills: We got up early for the climb up Mt. Phillips. As many have said, it's pretty steep and pretty rocky. Still, we made it to the top in an hour and 45 minutes with no packs-off breaks. We spent 3-4 hours on top as we didn't have much further to go; the boys found a big snowbank and used a crazy creek chair as a sled. The adults enjoyed a pleasant sunny high altitude nap during this time. We finally headed down – found the downhill hike tougher (at least for us older folks with bad knees) than the climb up. But we made it into Red Hills at a reasonable time. It's a pleasant camp along a creek (which was the only water). We considered trying to swing by Cypher's Mine on the following day but after studying the map the crew leader decided that the extra distance was probably a bad idea.
Day 11/Clark's Fork: Any way you go, this is a pretty long day. We took the trail out to the north east (skirting the North side of Big Red), then took a 4wd road over to connect to the Comanche Pass trail. From there we went down along the Middle Fork of Cimarroncito Creek into Hunting Lodge. Long but pretty hike, and after the first bit, mostly downhill. We didn't do the Lodge tour but did stop there for lunch and to refill on water. Then we headed over past Cimarroncito Reservoir into Clark's Fork. We got in mid afternoon, so definitely we'd have been late if we'd tried going via Cypher's. We did manage to work in branding before the chuck wagon dinner (which tasted really good despite being only stew and them running out of cobbler). Clark's Fork wasn't really all that inspiring, just felt crowded to us.
Day 12/Camping HQ: We wanted to try to make it in early, so we got up early and hit the trail at about 5am. Made good time on the climb up to Shaefers Pass, where we filled up all available water bottles. Then headed up around the back of Shaefers Peak and onto Tooth Ridge. Beautiful hike but poor footing due to being really rocky, lots of up and down. Made it to the base of the tooth ok, dropped our packs and bearbagged the little remaining food and went up to the top. There were a lot of gnats (non biting) up there that annoyed some, but the view was great. Got back down, ate lunch, and headed along. Just past Tooth Ridge Camp, our crew leader started having dehydration problems again. This seemed mysterious since we knew he'd been drinking plenty – we later found out that one of his meds is probably a diuretic which explains it. We got some more fluids into him, and split up his load among everyone, and had two of the nimbler scouts walk along right with him in case he stumbled. We had to make frequent stops in the shade to cool him off and try to get more fluids into him, but we made it most of the way down. Finally, at about the last switchback (around 20 minutes from the gate) he just couldn't go on, so we settled him in the shade of a scrubby juniper and pulled out a cell phone and called medical. They sent up 3 people, two medics and a conservation guy as a general helper. The medics put in an IV and put 1.5 liters of fluid into him, and they'd also brought along a couple of big bags of ice which they put on his chest to cool him down. We also got him to drink some more Gatorade and water. They really wanted the crew to stay together, so they encouraged us all to stay up there, which we did. We finally got him up and mobile, and hiked the rest of the way out, so we arrived at HQ at about 5:30pm. They took our crew leader off to the health lodge to be checked out, and the rest of us grabbed dinner and then started the process of dealing with checking out when everyone was closed (6am bus the next morning so next day wasn't an option). Everyone was incredibly helpful and we managed it although I did end up having to miss closing campfire to get the last couple of things done. Our crew leader was released in time to go though, so it all worked out ok. He's going to be speaking with his doctor about the diuretic thing and what can be done about it.
All in all, we had a great trek, and things worked out pretty well. The new water purification tablets worked fine and were easy to use, and the "exchange program" where you can trade in your empty packets was pretty painless. We used quite a few tablets without any real issue. As my co-advisor Brad said, "trekking poles are vastly underrated". We both really appreciated them. The new maps are great, after the first day we didn't have any navigation problems – on about day 5, one of my Eagle scouts who'd sort of assumed responsibility of chief navigator – told me "Mr. Cook, we're not naviguessing, we're navigating. We haven't made a mistake since the first day, and we're not going to." Turned out he was right; and by the last few days I didn't even bother to look at the map unless they asked me, which didn't happen very much. We did make a few campfires, mostly for the smoke to try to discourage mosquitos. We got a great ranger, Patrick Arsenault (who's on this list – hi Patrick!); he really clicked with the boys and did a great job of getting us off on the right start. Our crew leader did a fine job of pulling together a fairly young crew too. I was really proud of them!
Oh, and a special thanks to those of you on the list who provided lots
of useful advice - it was a great help, we've have been much less
prepared without it.
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T.W. Cook - SM Troop 151 - Georgetown, Texas
http://www.troop151.org
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