To Die For

We are running up the side of the rocky shale peak.  Just five minutes before, we had been at the saddle of the 12,441 foot mountain and playing in the snow that had been deposited the night before.  It was the first time many of our crew of twelve had seen snow.  It was only eight in the morning, and we had been climbing for three hours.  We were all exhausted, but the snow brought us fresh energy.  We all had sat down and had a leisurely breakfast a few minutes before.  Now I am focusing on what lies in front of me.

Climbing up the steep shale side is using all my energy. Julio is staying by my side as we run up the peak. We stop every few minutes to rest.  This is the time I use to think about what has happened over the past five days.

We started our journey with the news of forest fires, all about our scheduled camps, yet even in the midst of the danger, I realized I had never seen a more beautiful place in my life.  Our itinerary was completely changed.  We were scheduled to go south instead of north.  The first night in the backcountry, while we were observing an unbelievably orange sunset, a yellow Surburban with “Philmont Scout Ranch” written on the driver’s door drove into our campsite.  A camp executive got out and let us know that there were forest fires to the West, East, and North of us, but not to worry, because they were far away. 

After he left, our 21-year-old ranger laughed and said, “The fires he is talking about are just one and a half miles away.”  We all realized why the sunset was so orange. We all silently walked to our tents to sleep in fear.

“Let’s go!” Julio is yelling to me.  I run to catch up with him.  We are still a good 10 minutes ahead of the rest of the crew, but we are rested and can keep going.  The climb is getting easier, so my mind starts wandering.

“Let’s get up,” Marco, our crew leader, was calling to us early the next morning.  We all were slow to rise from our tents.  After breakfast we talked about the night before.  We packed up to go for our “extra long” hike of half of a mile.  Five minutes later we were there, at the Western-style Camp of Ponil.  We set up camp again.  After we played some “compacted trash” baseball, we get word that later that same afternoon all crews would be getting a new itinerary.  After we received our new itinerary, we realized that we had to pick up five days worth of food that afternoon.  The next morning we left with a pack that was five to seven pounds heavier than the day before.

It was my turn to guide the crew, and we arrived at the next camp earlier than we expected.   That afternoon we did the camp activity of climbing twenty-five foot telephone poles.  It still hadn’t rained, even though we were told that it would rain every afternoon.

“Wait up,” Julio is calling to me.  My wandering mind seems to have given me more energy.  I decide that I am tired too, and sit and rest, looking over the beautiful view of the surrounding miles and miles of area.  Just two days before we heard a rumor that Ponil, the largest camp in the Ranch, had been evacuated.  We asked some of the staff at the next camp we went to, Pueblano, and they said, that they weren’t aware of that.  It was still freaky, nonetheless.  That night I could barely stay awake during the campfire, where I heard the second most memorable song from the camp, “Mountain Dew,” a song with clever verses and a funny chorus about making liquor in the mountains.  That night I almost fell asleep while I walked back to our tent. 

“Let’s get this show on the road,” I tell Julio.  I am rested, and ready to keep going.  The climb gets a bit harder.  It reminds me of a climb down we made the day before.  However, it also reminds me that we will be climbing up that hill the next day, with packs.  The day before, we climbed down Baldy Skyline, which gets its name for being just as steep as Baldy, if not steeper.  We had to be careful while climbing down, or we would have fallen off the steep side.  But once we had made it down, we were at our camping spot for the night.  We arrived at about three in the afternoon, after resting for a long lunch at an area of a forest that had been burned down the year before, and then thirty minutes later, we stopped to gather water in a large meadow.  Ute Meadows, our campsite for that night, was the prettiest one I had seen so far.  There was a stream running next to our campsite, with a little waterfall.  There was lots of aspen wood, as well as a beaver dam, which probably had as many snakes as beavers.  We went to sleep early, so we would be able to wake up early this morning to arrive where we are now. 

“We’re almost there!” Julio yells to me.  We are both enthralled.  I start running ahead so I can say I got to the top of Baldy first.  Julio lets me and stops to take one last break.  Once at the top, we wander around the suddenly cold peak.  Most of the clouds are below us.  I realize that this is the first mountain I have ever climbed.

I yell out, “We made it!”  We felt like Merry and Pippin as they first heard about Gandalf returning.  We run to the other side of the peak, and look down where we had been.  We realize the devastation the fires caused by the black marks left on the ground one mile below us. 

This causes both of us to mellow down, because although it has been a short five days since we have been at Philmont, we are both in love with it.  We agree that if we get the chance to ever come back then we will.

 We are contemplating nature, when we hear Marco yell out “Hey, we made it!”  Julio and I get up and grin because we realized that thirty minutes before, when we first made it to the peak.