A SuperNoVA Family: Philmont: Home On The Range, 7/20/15

Decent night's sleep, for once, but everyone's beginning to look and sound a bit tired. Last night probably didn't help; after dinner we'd invited our sister crew (713-B-1, out of Colorado Springs, who are doing the same trek as us) to join us for fellowship at campfire. They did, and while we adults snuck away to bed around 9, the boys stayed up laughing for another hour and a half.

On the trail just past 8 all the same, and made good time down to Phillips Junction (8,840'), our final food depot for the trek. Then up the canyon to Beaubien, where we'll spend two nights at 9,340'. We arrived around 11:30, and our welcoming porch talk was interrupted by news of a bear in campsite 16 at that very moment. Four staffers rushed off with the adult advisor who'd reported it, to see if they could scare it off. We later learned this was Barry, a particular nuisance bear who's been roaming among three camps in the area. He's a yearling, but he'd been fed by some scouts (the boys heard that that troop's entire Council has now been banned from Philmont as a result), and consequently has now lost all fear of humans, knows where the food's kept, and wanders right through campsites looking for it. I'll now be anxious for the next couple of nights, knowing a bear who doesn't give a damn is in the neighborhood. We'll need to be airtight in our bear procedures for sure.

Light rain throughout the afternoon, starting just as the boys went on their horseback ride for an hour. Most of the boys had never been on horseback before, so it was fun to watch. Dave and I couldn't go, so we went back to camp and made a hot lunch for them on their return around 2:30. Rain continued much of the rest of the day and took a brief break only around 6pm. This is our first experience of sustained rain all this trip, albeit only a lightly falling one. We truly have been blessed with good weather all the same.

Dinner was Beaubien's chuckwagon dinner--beef stew and biscuit, with peach cobbler for dessert, all provided by Philmont and the latter two baked in Dutch ovens. I thought it was fine, and appreciated that we didn't have to cook, but the boys were disappointed, hoping for stew--or anything!--that didn't come from a bag. Alas, we are still 1 1/2 miles up…

After dinner, I came across David, Stephen and Sean headed down to the main cabin; they wanted lassoing lessons, and invited me to tag along. I have to say, I never thought our suburban Virginia teens would get into lassoing as much as they did! The staff cowboy shows them how, and Sean turned out to be a natural at it. David was OK, and Stephen really struggled. Other boys from other crews joined them in an impromptu competition, then at 7pm, the staff held their official evening lassoing competition for the boys, with pudding cups on the line for the winners. Sean won one of the cups! It was really great to see how much fun the boys were having with this.

Horseshoes to finish the evening, then back to camp in more rain, there to find Mr Johnson furious that the boys had left their bear bags down on the ground when they went to program. And after we knew there was a nuisance bear in the area! At least before turning in, Jacob found the beef stick he had in his pocket, so that didn't attract any attention overnight. As I mentioned, people starting to get tired, and hence distracted, I suspect.

Comanche Creek to Beaubien brought us to 9,340' and took 23,722 steps covering 11.8 miles today, for a total of 133,017 steps and 70.8 miles overall--we've now gone past our 61 miles planned trail distance and we still have four days of hiking to go!