From: Larry Sims (Larry.Sims@HALLIBURTON.com)
Date: Thu Jan 16 2003 - 10:59:52 CST
(I began this post a while back on the Best Campsite thread, pulled it out
of draft folder, dusted it off, and added to it)
Our crew was not fast out of camp or especially fast on the trail, so
advisor leisure time was limited. I believe that an afternoon nap and an
earlier bedtime might have enriched my Philmont experience. Supper was
usually a race with darkness and you probably already know which won. Even a
good night's sleep is not always enough to recover from the strenuous
activities of Philmont and advisor's often do not sleep as well or soundly
as the youth of the crew.
I remember clearly (since closing my eyes and walking around my roof pretty
well recreates the effect) the third trip to the bear bag at Mt. Phillips on
a foggy night after a late arrival into camp. We knew there was an active
bear in the area so there was no incentive to ignore bear bag protocol. I
was with another advisor. We had a most difficult time finding the bear
bags in the fog even though we had been there before. We were nervous about
meeting the camp bear during our wanderings. We were very tired. We had
been up since 530 am, hiked a long difficult trail from Sawmill to Mt.
Phillips with a side hike to Cypher's Mine for water. We might have even
been exhausted. After locating the bear bags, we had another difficult time
finding our campsite. We found other crew's campsites, but ours was
somewhere out of reach in the mist and blackness. We did finally find our
tents, but it was an iterative process and involved little skill or
woodsmanship.
While we were packing up at Mt. Phillips, the sump of our campsite was
closely inspected by the second of the two bears we saw that morning. We
had observed this bear moving toward our camp, moving rocks and logs, as he
searched for his breakfast. We gathered at the fire ring and tried to look
big. Our sump received a "not interesting" rating from the bear and he
ambled off and left our awe struck crew behind.
The first bear had been ambling down the trail thru Mt. Phillips camp. We
finished packing and ascended the final few hundred feet to the top of Mt.
Phillips. A misty, gray fog enclosed us. We took pictures and celebrated
our success. The sunshine was up there somewhere and we were headed
"downhill".
Stay tuned for our trip down Mt. Phllips and our next bear encounter of the
"too close" kind.
Larry Sims
'65, '02, IWTGBTP '04
Katy, Tx
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