The base camp drill just wasnít going to get any easier, though. We had trouble with one of the lockers, so we had the security gang check it out. The staffer fidgeted with the latch and declared it fixed. She even offered to stop by it periodically while we were on the trail to check it out. Thatís nice service. To be on the safe side (pun intended) I checked at the trading post for locks, but they didnít sell them. Oh well, as long as I was over there I stopped in to the snack bar and treated myself to an ice cream. That eased the base-camp burden a bit.

At 10:30 we gathered for our crew photo, then some of the guys did laundry and Dave Wiesenfeld checked out the stoves to verify that they were properly working. We got two new lockers for our gear (numbers 82 and 83), but one of these wouldnít stay locked either. Once again, a security staffer came to our rescue. He worked the latch over with his leatherman tool and it seemed to work okay. We just had to hope for the best.

We ate our first trail lunch at 11:45 at the tables outside of the snack bar. It was a wonderful meal, consisting of chicken spreadables, pilot biscuits (very dry), beef jerky, raisins, and fig newtons, all washed down with plain water. Yummy. At least we were together as a crew again.

At 1:30 PM Brendon reviewed first aid and orienteering skills with the crew under the Welcome Center pavilion. The guys did their best to pay attention, but everyone was anxious to get on the trail. Brendon was patient, though, and understanding. He remarked that it appeared to him that our crew was reasonably well prepared.

We gathered extra money and valuables from each of the crew members for safe storage at the registration office while we were on the trail, then at 2:55 we boarded the school bus and headed out to the backcountry.

As I had observed with other Philmont crews, the map-reading skills of these guys were to be seriously tested. There were two routes that led from our drop-off point to the first of our camps: one was scenic, but somewhat hidden, and the other was a jeep trail that nobody could miss. Well, at least they didnít miss the second choice.

On passing through Abreu on our way to Old Abreu (our starting camp), we stopped to ask about doing our conservation project there (they were in the process of building an adobe house at Abreu). We had gotten a late start out of base camp and doing a project on the way between Urraca and Miners Park (as was planned) would make for a very long day, plus it would be difficult to work in the rock climbing program. The 8 AM time slot was full (only one crew at a time could work on the project), but Sam Sorkin (the conservation project manager at Abreu) offered to work overtime and let us start at 5:30 that night.

We thanked Sam, then hustled out to Old Abreu (only about a mile away), set up our campsite, hung the bear bags, gathered our supper meal, water bottles, rain gear, and other essentials and headed back to Abreu. At 5:40 the guys were busy laying adobe bricks. Larry and I were assigned the responsibility of sitting on one of the framed windowsills to make sure it didnít float away. We also got to take pictures. This replica of the Abreu family home was being built from a photograph, since the original architectural plans were not available.

As a side note, in July of 1999 I went back to Philmont to take a course at the Training Center, and Dee went with me. She went on a day hike to Abreu and saw the finished product. Hereís the general layout, not to scale of course:

This building is being used to house some of the Abreu staff in 1999. Philmont will add homesteading to the program at Abreu in the summer of 2000.

Sam ended the project early, at 8:20, because we were running out of light (and he must have been very tired). We figured that we must have set some sort of record, having completed our conservation project less than 5 and a half hours out of base camp! It was a rather unique project, and the guys seemed to have a lot of fun doing it.

We ambled down to the tables outside of the cantina and ate our dinner: another trail lunch, this time featuring tuna spreadables! Oh, for joy. Well, at least we had made a major accomplishment that would make the rest of our trek a bit easier.