L. Goldsmith Philmont 98 Journal: July 5, 1998

Larry Goldsmith's 1998 Philmont Journal

Philmont

July 5, 1998: Day 2 - Base Camp to Old Abreu

Even though we are not leaving Base Camp until 3:00 PM, we are still up at 5:30 AM. We get over to breakfast at 6:30 and then clean out the tents and get our packs over to the Welcome Center by 9:00. It is now time to find out if we will get to go out as a Crew. Denis and I head over to the Health Lodge and after a few minutes of confusion, we discover that Nathan has been released and is looking for us. The morning is spend with the crew doing laundry so they will have clean uniforms for the trip home as well as the Crew Picture.

Sitting by the Snack Bar at Base Camp and eating Spreadables for lunch is not my idea of a great meal but since we had been issued the meals before the change in bus schedule there is not much we can do.

After lunch, we stopped by Logistic to recheck the trails board as Paul had said that the trail up to Stonewall Pass was closed so that we would have to go to Urraca via Toothache Springs. A quick review showed that the closed trail was between Stonewall Pass and Aquila so we were not affected. We then looked at where our Conservation Project was as they indicated that it moved from Lovers Leap to Crater Lake. We were looking at the board and the problems of getting from Urraca Camp to Miners Park and getting program. Then we noticed a small note indicating that additional conservation opportunities were at Abreu and several other locations doing cabin restoration. We thought that maybe we could do it at Abreu tomorrow on the way to Urraca and put the Challenge Events at risk instead of the Rock Climbing the following day. While in Logistics we thanked Dave Woodson again for his help in changing our bus departure time and told him that we were successful in getting our Crew Leader back. He thanked us again for the t-shirt and even said that he had worn it last night.

We head to the Welcome Center at 1:30 to meet up with Brendan for Ranger Training before we get on the bus. The bus arrives on time and we are finally leaving Base Camp at 3:00 PM. We arrive at Zastrow Turnaround at 3:40 PM and we are finally on the trail!

Well, almost on the trail. We have missed the hiking trail and end up coming into Abreu on the road. As we were walking to Abreu, we asked Brendan if he would mind in we tried to do our conservation project at Abreu the next morning on our way to Urraca. He had no problem.

When we arrived at Abreu on our way to our starting camp at Old Abreu, Denis and Nathan stopped to talk to Sam Sorkin, the Conservation Manager at Abreu about the possibilities to do the project there. The project is the construction of a new staff cabin made from adobe brick. They take one crew at a time. When we arrived about 4:30 there was a crew working then. Sam said that he also had a crew already scheduled for tomorrow morning. Denis said something about it would have really helped our trek if we had been able to do the project there. At that point, Sam said that he wouldn't mind a late evening it we didn't and that he would be willing to have us do the project from 5:30 to 8:30 PM that evening. We said we would be glad to.

We hustled down to Old Abreu and setup the tarp, bear bags, and our tent. And then we headed back to Abreu (with another trail lunch) to start the project at a little after 5:30. Sam had the crew mixing mortar and laying the adobe bricks. I started to get a chill so about 7:30, Denis, Brendan, and I went back to Old Abreu to get an additional layer of clothes. About the time we arrived back at Abreu the crew finished up with the project. We sat outside the Cantina at Abreu and ate some more Spreadables! But we were happy that our Conservation Project was behind us. We figured that we must of set a record by having our Conservation Project completed just six hours after leaving Base Camp!