6-11-O2

"Down 3 Men and Still the Toughest Crew!"

Philmont 2003

Black Mountain Here is more of the break on Black mountain. By this time it was 4 PM. The latest time we had ever gotten to a camp was 3:30 and that was Santa Claus, where we hiked from Ewell's Park and did our Conservation at Head Of Dean. We had even made it to Cypher's Mine by 3 PM, after we left Clark's Fork at noon due to horse back riding. We knew we wouldn't be at our destination for at least 2 more hours.

Black Mountain (The Real One) Since we took a break on the first peak of Black Mountain, Skip gave us 2 minutes to take pictures on the real peak.

Shaefer's Pass The catchphrase of the hike from Black to Shaefer's Pass was "just over this hill." We counted the hills, and we were always certain it would be the next hill. We arrived at Shaefer's Pass at 7:45 PM, which means we spent over 12 hours on the trail. When we arrived, we saw Mr. Meadow's tent. He had been okay, and they were ready to send him back out. Since he could not hike alone, he had persuaded 2 staff members to hike with him from Clark's Fork to Shaefer's Pass (a hike that takes about 1 hour). Three days before, we had been at Cypher's Mine, which means we traveled over 40 miles to gain 1 mile of distance.

Shaefer's Pass We were then faced with our next problem. Where do we get water. Shaefer's Pass is technically dry, but Mr. Meadows had tested the well, and found it would spit out 1 Nalgene worth every hour. We only had about 10 hours before we had to set out again, so we had enough hours for everyone to have 1 quart of water to hike all of Tooth Ridge. We tried to find an alternative. We even asked the other crew that was in the camp if they had any water that would could buy or trade for. They said no, but they were hiking to Clark's Fork the next morning. At 1 AM, Mango and I woke up to move one of our pots out of the well and put the other pot in. This gave us enough for everyone to have their allotted 1 quart. The other crew actually tried to get some water from us, but we didn't give them any. After all they had an hour to hike. We had 3 hours dry.

Shaefer's Pass This is actually what we slept in on our last night. We were all too tired to put up tents, so we just slept under the dining fly. Of course it happened to be the windiest night of our trek and so the dining fly fell over... 3 times! Eventually it became a community blanket and stayed down. Everyone proceeded to yell at Kevin when he woke up and did not know why the dining fly was down. He slept through the rebuilding of it, all three times.

Tooth Of Time From Afar The next morning we hiked the Tooth, on a very very windy day. I was worried about flying off when I was on Tooth Ridge, but that is not all that amazing, since I am 6'2" and only weigh 130 pounds. However, Omar, our resident football player, who is 6' tall and weighs about 200 pounds not counting his 55 pound backpack had to stop several times because he was getting blown over with one foot off the ground.

Tooth of Time- Mango We finally made it to the Tooth of Time. This is Mango (his real name is Jose Carlos, but he was dubbed Mango on the first day because of his Mandarin colored fleece). The sun is not in his eyes; it is the wind.

Tooth of Time-Ben Here I am on top of the Tooth. While we were up there, we met a rather aged staff member who had climbed the Tooth 10 times before. He told us this was the windiest he had ever seen it.

Tooth of Time- Base Camp Here is base camp from the Tooth: where we would be shortly. We were all looking forward to being able to fill up our water supply.

Tooth of Time- Skip and Omar Here is Omar (the football player) and Skip climbing the final steps on the Tooth. Being the first one up, the only one with a real camera (non-disposable), and since I had 2 rolls of film left, I took pictures of everyone as they climbed up.