6-11-O2

"Down 3 Men and Still the Toughest Crew!"

Philmont 2003

The Trail to Baldy Notice that I said we were not lost then. We came to a large path which was not on the map. At the time we thought it was the 4x4 road, so we needed to turn left; turn left up the huge escarpment. Kevin volunteered to go up and check if that was the way. He reached the top, and saw the road, so he called us up. We climbed up and were on our way to Baldy. We later found out that the huge hill was actually a fire barricade. We ran into this same fire barricade later, where it ruined the great view of Baldy Skyline. Instead of Baldy Skyline, there was Dead Trees and Brush Skyline, or simply No Skyline.

Ute Valley from Baldy Town Once we arrived at Baldy Town, we ate breakfast and took a few pictures. Baldy Town has one of the best views in all of Philmont. This is Ute Valley, which we would be hiking along (but above) for the next few days.

Baldy from Baldy Town Baldy is the mountain towering to 12,441 ft above sea level. For those of us who lived at 30 ft above sea level, this was a pretty large jump in elevation.

Almost There After the two hour hike we made with the help of the Catapillar and songs, we made it to the saddle and could see the final summit. (A word for the wise: It doesn't really work to try and sing a song while cattepillaring because everyone is at a different point in the song and it just confuses everyone). When we reached the saddle, there was a large pile of snow, and for those of us who live where it is 90 degrees in the winter, this was exciting.

Mafia on Baldy We decided to take a break before climbing, and sat down in the meadow to play Mafia (with cards! We did not kill anyone), and eat lunch.

The Final Leg of Baldy In the final climb, Kevin and I were at the very front the entire time. The final summit itself takes some care climbing, and so you cannot go two fast. Mr. Meadows, who stayed at Baldy Town, made us promise that when climbing down, we would have Trent go first. Trent had recently injured his knee, and Mr. Meadows did not want us to go too fast. Even following his command, Daniel got hurt on the climb down. I, along with 3 other people, ended up spending 4 hours on Baldy's saddle with Daniel.

On Top of Baldy This is one of my few (and probably the best) picture of me. Kevin and I were on top of Baldy for about 15 minutes before anyone else arrived, so we took plenty of pictures.

On Top of Baldy Baldy is visible from all of Philmont, and consequently all of Philmont is visible from Baldy. In 2001, when we came last, we were able to see scorch marks from where Ponil was almost evacuated..

On Top of Baldy Adrian didn't actually spend 3 hours thinking in this position on top of Baldy. He just wanted a picture like this.

The Gopher Just a few minutes before this picture was taken, Trent was telling us about the Gopher that lives on top of Baldy. Everyone laughed, thinking he was joking when someone saw it.