A 4.1k post party, 1 year @ PBF and a return from 2 week "vacation" thread-all in 1
Yeah, holy **** i just saw how big this thing is. I REALLY typed alot. Don't ***** for a tl;dr u won't get one. If u care enough to click on this thread then read to find just what i was doing.
Some of u may have noticed i didn't make a 4k post thread, partily b/c i didn't care, and partly b/c i wanted to wait to do this trip and just make 1 huge thread. So bobide where were u? Well I was in New Mexico. Yeah...that place. Anyway, wtf was i there? Philmont.
yeah, it's this huge like scout ranch w/ tons of backpacking trails. U do 10 days on the trail w/ all ur gear w/ u and pick up food at camps spread around the camp.
So, i guess i want to tell u most of what i did and just try and convey how awesome it was being the in the southern tip of the rocky mountain range. I'll do my best to keep this interesting.
So the trip out there is by bus and takes ~18 hours. Waking up to see the New Mexican countryside at 3am is a little disorinting. So anyway, we get there and do the long boring setup thing. Our crew consists of 11 totoal, 8 guys (15/16 and older) and 3 adults (basically slow) My pack weights about 40.5 lbs w/ full water and just about max load of food i'll carry for the crew. Blah blah blah, skip ahead.
Day 1: Easy 1.5 mile hike that lasted a little too long IMO. We have our ranger w/ us to make sure we don't screw up. (he leaves after day 2) We are in the bottom of a canyon following a creek. The forest around here is totally gone, just burnt trees that survived the huge 2002 forest fire remain. Yet still....it's so bueatiful. I enjoy staring at the canyon as i hike.
Day 2: We stop by the ONLY complete and verified t-rex footprint in the world. I'm a little dissapointed, it's actually like a mold, and not a print per say. Also smaller then i thought. Then we finish the 2/3 something mile hike to the next camp and learn about the Anazai (or something) indians who lived there, we look at various carvings in the cliffs. The stars are so PERFECT in this night sky, it's amazing and we all spend time staring up.
Day 3: Joel, our ranger, leaves us this morning. Todays the first big hike 5+ miles, up out of the canyon, over Hart's peak (~9,300ft) and down to Ponil. When we creat the peak. We can see most of the north section of camp AND
the ****ing rocky mountains yeah i can see the things from new mexico. I'm amazed and take many photos (which hopefully don't suck) At Ponil they have a cantinia, where they serve cold barqs rootbear. Needless to say, we drink lots-and suffer the consequences, caffine is a natural laxitive, enough said. For dinner is a Beef stew, peach cobbler, and biskets, made fresh (no dehydrated stuff this day!) it's called a chuck wagon dinner, and we love it. We also get a chuck wagon breakfast of pancakes and sausage in the morning.
Day 4: Another long hike. We don't take the exact route we want, but meh, this one has water along the way, and a nice hike through another canyon. Down at Dean Cow we meet the staff for this rock climbing camp. They have a porch challenge. A rock climbing course hung from the rafters of their cabin, if we complete it....we get brownies
. I do pretty well (best in crew) but only get halfway. At night there is climbing on a rockwall, staff launched water ballons at climbers.
Day 5: We stay to climb the rock faces at Dean Cow. IT's hard, few good handholds, and i'm wearing hiking boots. A few of the crew piss off the guy belaying ppl down so the dude decided to hand 2 of our crew by the balls as he brought them down (basically wouldn't let them lowerthemselves, and jerked them to a stop, pinching the umm "region") Now we are off the Harlen, Dean Cow has a rivalry w/ this camp and negotiates for us to carry a
DEAD RAT to their camp for 1 pudding pack. The hike is also long, but not as hard, w/ less uphill. Waiting for the adults to keep up near the end gets annoying. As we were about halfway, it rained pretty hard, which sucks b/c the road we followed turned to mud and lost all grip. We ate lunch under a highway overpass that cuts through camp. More pretty terain, and getting to some live forest near Harlen is nice.
Day 6: Harlen is a neat camp, they took the rat very well. They are also all Cubs fans.....so they hate the cardinals. But meh, some ppl just aren't bright. In the morning we LOADED our own 12 gauge shotgun shells (3 each) and proceded down to the skeet range. I'm pumped, not only did i make my own shells (very manly) but i can now finally shoot a shotgun AND skeet (never done either) I get used to the "birds" flight path, and manage to get 3 of 5 "birds" I'm very pleased. I'm a okay shot, and did well for my 1st shotgun and skeet. We stay for lunch and eat a dinner to save weight and b/c we don't know if the next camp has water. The 2 mile hike to deer lake mesa gives a good view and a easy trail.
Day 7: So yea, day 6 sucked, a big thunderstorm rolled in and we had to scatter in the woods to decreased chances of getting hit by lightning. 30 min in cold rain and some hail blows. Almost got hypothemea. I woke up in the night to hear the tent strain against the wind. I remember i hung my raingear in a tree.....i pray it is still there. IT IS! Hurrah! So happy, we break camp and head along the mesa and into Ute Gulch commisary to stock up on food. I buy another camera and a chocolate bar
. We then take a HUGE leap of 1400ft up to the next camp. Needless to say we are tired and don't appreciate the ~.5 klick hike to the campsite from the main cabin.
Day 8: Oh yeah, this time we are loading 30-06 (ought six, is how it's said) shells by hand. We trek to the rifle range. I hear the gun go off when the range master demonstrates firing position.....i literally jumped it was so loud. When it's my turn to shoot i do okay, coming close 2x of 3 shots (tried at 50yrds and like 60something) For my 2nd set of 3 i hit 1, and come close again. My left shoulder hurts since i couldn't get it tucked in well and it kicked harder then the 12 gauge.
From Sawmill we hike DOWN pretty much all of the elevation we gained, and over to webster, not that bad a hike, but got tedious towards the end. So we are at Webster now, and we are beat. Somehow Jeff manages to
break a nalgene which are pretty much unbreakable. Ppl have driven suburbans over the things and they still survive.
http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/ It's a known fact that if u break one, nalgene will guve u another free. So yeah, after breaking it w/ a stick (i dunno, they did it somehow) we decide........hey, we got a big field over there, why not hit the nalgene w/ a stick and have like a homerun derby?? And we did
That night before going to bed we spot 5 mule deer bucks go through the meadow.
*Jeff was convinced that lighting his armpit hair on fire was a good idea, it STANK, and actually flared up once*
Day 9: Upper Clarks Fork is the destination and the hike ain't bad. We go chill at camp site. A crew hikes by, they have girls. Needless to say, we stared at the hottest one till she was gone. We hike down for another chuckwagon dinner. This one is lame however, since it's drizzling, and our crew is towards the end of the ones called (not happy there we've been on the trail sine 7-06 and 7-11 crews are eating ahead of us, there is no justice) We come up w/ a system to just cheat ahead into line during desert. We just cut in and have a cook from our crew serve us. It works well, and we eat lots.
Day 10: We hike UP 700ft in a klick (a kilometer) to shafer's peak (the view was simply OMG u can see the rockies again) and then along the ridge to the Tooth of Time (very famous there) The trial BLOWS. Pretty much entierly loose rocks at least 1ftx1ft or bigger. The pace is slow as the adults have great difficulty w/ the terrain. Finally arriving at camp we find some nice 200-300ft rocks scattered around and we procede to boudler over them. Climbing w/ no fear or thought. **** load of fun.
We wake at 4am and hike up to the tooth of time to observe.......sunrise. U can see across the plains over the prairie/desert to the horizen. The sun stains the sky w/ orange, red, and finally pink. It finally pops up-the size of a thumbtack. Amazing, and i'm sure i failed to give a good discription.
A few things to remember. When i say camp, i don't mean like a nice nat. park camp. I mean, here's a field, there's ur fire pit and sump, put ur tents wherever. Usually it is staffed (they run the activities) and the staff lives in a cabin somewhere in there. So it's pretty basic. We don't shower at night and i actually only got a meager shower in at a nice staff camp. There is no deoderant (bears can smell it) ur mommy ain't there to help u set things up and make sure ur gear keeps working. Meals are all prepackaged food, like lunch was always cheese and cracks, MAYBE a can of tuna. Dinner is boiled water, w/ packets of dehydrated food dumped in (all into 1 pot). We have 3 meals w/ mashed patotes (sp) That sucked, b/c u can't taste ur rice in the patoes. But u don't care, b/c ur hungry and u would rather be digging just how great the outdoors look.
Pics of the Philmont trip are being worked on, i didn't bring a digi b/c i was in the wilderness. I'll try and have them hosted......or not.
http://img303.imageshack.us/gal.php?...105425a7uw.jpg
post me some nice 4k party pics, u know cake, tits, money, women, the works
Oh yeah, a pic, so u may all laugh at my mug. (laughing at the cat is not allowed Cat>u)
http://www.paintballforum.com/forum/...33#post1447433
-Doug
I missed u PBF
...Other times I know I'm not
zpyro and armoarchangel...owning retards since 2005
