Philmont Adventure - Day 5 - Sioux to Flume Canyon

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Up before the crew (4:30 AM instead of 5:30 AM). Got tent and sleeping pad dried out. Broke camp and hiked back to Ponil. Ate breakfast. Boys picked out a burro. Burro training. Messed up the diamond hitch demonstration twice. Christian and Carl both selected to help with the demonstration. Both called “Freckles”. Boys did not get the burro they had picked out because it had just gotten off the trail. Got B-17 instead. Still named it “El Guapo”. Our crew was the first one done getting the burro ready, so they were asked to help out another crew. Finally on the trail with El Guapo. Hiked on a road straight to Flume Canyon with only a few short stops. El Guapo was pretty good except for looking for any opportunity to eat. Kermit rode on El Guapo. Keegan and Christian corralled El Guapo while the others set up camp. Challenged to set up camp in 20 minutes. Did not accomplish that since Keegan and Christian had things we needed. Ate lunch. Completed ranger training. Filtered water. Some time to relax. Camp site was very nice, but it did have a few flies. Had a bit of trouble hiking today but able to keep up. Rinsed myself off in the stream with my bandana – felt wonderful. Went to watch the feeding of El Guapo. Dinner of turkey and breakfast skillet which we had swapped for the stuffing. Hiked to Pueblano for loggerball and campfire. Loggerball was basically baseball with logs for bats and a large ball of duct tape for the ball. One oddity was running the bases backwards for the second inning. Staff vs youth. Staff won. Garrett and Brian both got hits. Brian hurt his finger fielding a pop up in the crowd of Scouts. Saw a double rainbow during the game. Had to hike a ways to the campfire which was really good. Lots of songs with 2 guitars, 2 banjos, a mandolin and a wash board. Also had stories and “Logger Love Connection” which included Garrett. Campfire ended with a heartfelt talk on the Philmont experience. On the way back to Flume Canyon we helped a Scout without a flashlight and separated from his crew back to his camp. We sang songs along the way to scare off bears and mountain lions. We also did “roses, thorns and buds” on the way. Then straight to bed around 10:30 PM.