Larry Goldsmith's 1998 Philmont Journal
July 6, 1998: Day 3 - Old Abreu to Urraca Camp
| We were up at about 5:30 and out of camp around 6:35. We aren't moving too fast yet. Stopped at Abreu to fill-up water. Sam, the Conservation Manager is sleeping on the porch of the staff cabin when we come through. |
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We decided to head to Urraca via Stonewall Pass. The trail becomes a steep climb as you approach Stonewall. The crew was not willing to try the catapillar on our way up. When they finally did try it, it seemed to work OK but not great. We arrive at about 9:30 and have breakfast in the shade at the edge of a meadow. It is 10:45 by the time we take some pictures and continue on to Urraca.
| As we head to Urraca be stop for a picture break at a lookout point just before reaching the top of Urraca Mesa. It turns into a long break (30+ minutes) with a beautiful view back down toward Abreu. Once we start moving the Crew is playing games amongst themselves and chatting away. Being along for the ride gets frustrating. At least I decide to bite my tougue but I do take the lead and pick up the pace some; they start to get the message and we move a little faster over the Mesa and down the trail to Urraca Camp. |
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We arrive at Urraca Camp about 1:15. The weather is threatening. The crew has to decide whether to get into a campsite and make lunch -- which after having two trail lunches yesterday will be a cooked dinner -- or to try to get the Challenge Events program. They decide for the Challenge Events. The first event is All Aboard -- trying to get the 8 crew members on a 30" x 30" platform with only |
| 7 points of contact. After several tries they do pretty well. Another was to try to get all across the molten river of Jalapeno Squeeze Cheese where there are three beams and about 5 or 6 cinder blocks available for support. They started to learn but were still not a team as they were not yet listening to all the members of the crew's ideas. Several good ideas that were eventually tried and succeeded were actually brought up much earlier by two of the members. Another event was to get everyone through a suspended tire without reach through the plane of the tire while they were holding hands in a chain. Blake was the first one through and the first attempt was a little painful. They eventually succeeded on this one too. The last event was to again get across that infamous molten river of Jalapeno squeeze cheese on rope swing but with one of the members being blindfolded and another not allowed to use their legs. By now they were starting to operate as a team. | |
The rain starts coming down and chases us off the Challenge Course but doesn't last too long. We then get to a campsite and setup. We didn't get lunch so people are starting to get hungry. Going over the food we discover that when the food was being issued at Base Camp that a mistake was made and we were issued Supper 6 for two of the days. At this point we feel fortunate that we didn't catch the error as we now decide to pool those two dinners which together are designed to feed 24. We made enought for 20 -- and the 11 of us ate it all! As this was the first trail dinner, the kitchen work -- and clean-up -- was pretty sloppy. I hope it doesn't take them too long to improve on that.
After dinner, they went to set the bear bags to discover that Blake had lost two of them somewhere along the way. The guess is at our long picture break just before the mesa. Denis and I then escaped to Advisors' Coffee and then it was on to the campfire -- with the traditional Urraca Mesa stories of the blue lights and the Lone Scout. We closed the evening with Tim Lingelbach leading a mini worship service and a round of Thorns-and-Roses. The wake-up time for tomorrow was set at 5:00 AM but we noted that Nathan and Blake didn't really listen to the others about what the plan should be.
