6-11-O2

"Down 3 Men and Still the Toughest Crew!"

Philmont 2003

Cypher's Mine
Cypher's Mine's staff was possibly the best staff in all of Philmont. They served Hot Chocolate and Cider inside, and were very friendly. Adrian disappeared for a while (while he was supposed to be cooking!) and came back with a smile on his face. He had been talking to a staff member and mentioned that we were eating spaghetti. The staff member gave Adrian 3 cans of tomato sauce. We treasured these cans, and used them the next night when we at spaghetti (it was the BEST spaghetti I had ever tasted). This is a picture of us making our S-Hook. We especially found the anvil with BSA printed on it humorous, and several jokes about BSA putting a logo on anything and charging an extra 20 bucks for it followed.

Breakfast at Comanche Peak
After our trouble on Comanche Peak (Mr. Meadows had a panic attack, so we spent the night at Thunder Ridge), we hiked up to Comanche Peak to eat breakfast the next morning. When I opened my bag, I noticed a piece of chocolate. My reaction was not one of excitement, rather of disgust. When I found has a quarter of an open Butterfinger bar. I told the rest of the crew, and they didn't believe me until they saw it.
The Great View from Comanche Peak
We had decided to eat breakfast at Comanche Peak because Trent had told us that it had a great view. We arrived, and there was no great view. In fact there was no view at all.
Red Hills
After breakfast at Comanche Peak, we continued to Red Hills. We were planning on taking a trail that would let us bypass Red Hills and Big Red, so we were surprised when we arrived at Red Hills. (The trail had been removed) We were even more surprised when we saw a creek flowing through Red Hills. At Cypher's Mine we were advised that Red Hills was dry, so Red Hills is known to us as "The only dry camp with a river running through it that we saw without meaning to go to it."

Big Red
When I tell the story of our last day, I always give special detail to Big Red. I usually start off saying, "One of the properties of water is to flow down a mountain at the fastest possible speed. This means it flows in the steepest path possible. On our way up Big Red, we climbed up the path water goes down." Needless to say it was very steep. In fact, it was even steeper than Baldy or Baldy's fire barricade.
Big Red
No I did not Photoshop this picture to come out red. This was the second to the last picture on the roll of film I accidentally overexposed, so my pictures of Big Red came out Red. While on top of Big Red, we noticed a note that a previous crew left bragging about being on trek 30. We just chuckled, knowing that we had been hiking for 5 hours already and would be hiking for another 7 or 8 that day.
Bear Mountain
The next mountain we climbed was Bear Mountain. We didn't actually climb all the way up this mountain, but I include it because we climbed all but 400 ft of it. On our last day, the last three mountains we climbed (Big Red, Bear, and Black) were all roughly the same height. Sounds simple until you look at the map. To get to Big Red, you climb 1000 feet, at a 60 degree angle. You then climb down 1000 feet. To get up Bear, you climb 1000 feet. You then climb down 1000 feet. To get to Black you climb up 1000 feet, arrive at a peak, then climb an addition 50 feet and arrive at the real peak.
Black From Afar
From Bear Mountain, we could see Black Mountain, and were not looking forward to climbing it. Trent had told us how it was a very hard mountain to climb, even for his Rayado crew.
The View from Black Mountain
The view from Black was breathtaking. Notice I am not saying it was worth the hike :). No, it was actually a very good mountain, and worth the climb (if only it hadn't been the 4th one that day).
Black Mountain
We took a 20 minute break on top of Black Mountain's first peak. For those of you who have not climbed Black, I have devised a way of comparing it to Baldy and the Tooth. Take the rockiness of the Tooth and the steepness of Baldy. Make a very small, twisty trail, and paint the rocks black. That is Black Mountain.
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