A SuperNoVA Family: Philmont: 11,711' Above Sea Level, 7/19/15

A night of tossing and turning that got quite cold, most likely down into the 40s, with a cold rain around 5am and windy, so the wind chill/atmosphere felt a lot colder when we got up at 6. I really think the altitude is affecting my ability to get a full night's sleep. Under way around 8, up to the actual Comanche Peak summit just over the rise, thence to summit our trek's high point on Mt Phillips, 11,711 feet above sea level.

The hike up to Mt Phillips was a little steep, and featured a great view at a false summit. We moved on and around 9am came to the actual summit.

The view, of course, was utterly incomparable, looking out to the west across range after range of mountains and hills, probably all the way to Arizona. The bright blue skies, the blue spruce scarcely taller than us at this altitude, the rare alpine flowers, all made for a perfect setting. I gave thanks for having made it to the summit and for all that we've learned and experienced along the way. After all, as I told the boys last night at the campfire, I'm 47 years old: the likelihood that I'll ever camp and hike this high again in my life is pretty small, so I'm really appreciative of what it means to be here. I found David near the summit flag, gave him a hug, and Mr Johnson took pictures of us at the summit flag. They'll look really sharp when paired with the one I have of him from our first backpacking adventure nine years ago, up on the wall in my office. Several of the boys started building little windbreak "forts" with the stones on the summit, and we all hung out for quite a while savoring the view and our triumph at having made it this far.

"Up" is now over, so we started down the trail towards Clear Creek; the trail on the west face of Mt Phillips was just in atrocious shape--steep, washed out, rocky. I would not have wanted to have climbed up it from that direction at all. At Clear Creek, a great porch-talk welcome at their cabin by a staffer in character as a trapper from 160 years ago. We then engaged in games at the tomahawk-throwing range, which was really a lot of fun, before we went up to shoot black powder rifles. David hit two of three, and I was actually three for three, including shredding Thomas' hat with my final shot. I'd never used a muzzle-loader before, which was really cool to try.

We then hiked down the trail to our camp at Comanche Creek. Along the way, we were following the upper reaches of Rayado Creek, and my gaze at one point happened to notice a certain shine in the water. There were shiny yellow flakes in the river sand at a pourover! Dave and I stopped to pan it, and while some of it may have been pyrite, there were definitely some heavy yellow flakes at the bottom. So, we truly did find gold in them thar hills! A couple of scouts from the main party came back to find us, and we showed them what we had found, otherwise I doubt we'd have been believed. The panning would have taken the rest of the day to get enough out to show people; and besides, leave-no-trace principles mean we're supposed to leave what we find in the river…darn it.

At camp, brought to close a truly memorable day. Another 11.34 miles on the Fitbit, or 24,042 steps, brings us to 59.6 miles and 109,295 steps total since the trailhead. We've now begun our descent, and spent the night at 9,630 feet on our way back to base camp.