Today we will say goodbye to Ranger
Ben. He's been with us since we arrived at base camp and he has made
sure that we know everything we will need to know to complete our
trek safely. We'll all be sad to see him go.
We'll be hiking from Metcalf Station to
Seally Canyon today. It's about a 9 mile hike, almost all of which
follows the North Ponil Creek bed through a canyon.
We woke up early, broke down our camp
and then headed over to meet the staff members at Metcalf Station for
the blacksmithing program activity. All of the boys got a chance to
participate and they made a letter opener that we were able to take
with us as a souvenir.
After blacksmithing, it was time to say goodbye to Ben. We thanked Ben, said our goodbyes, and then headed North. Philmont treks cross lands owned by Philmont Scout Ranch, other private lands and some public land. Our trek today would be taking us across some private cattle ranches, and then into the Valle Vidal, a part of the Carson National Forest. We hiked for a while and then decided to stop for a breakfast break.
It was a beautiful morning, but it was already getting really hot in the canyon. As we were walking through a cattle ranch, there were lots of "cow-pies" we had to watch out for ... "cow-pies" are gross!!! We continued on our way, with some beautiful scenery in front of us.
After a while, I started to become a little concerned that we may have taken a wrong turn. Part of my concern was due to the fact that at one of our map checks, we didn't orient the map properly when we checked it. Note to self … ALWAYS make sure that the map is oriented properly before doing any navigation!!! After a short lunch break …
... we eventually reached the fence that
marked the boundary for the Carson National Forest. After about
another hour of hiking, we saw another canyon intersecting the one we
had been hiking in. It was our destination for the night, Seally
Canyon. As we approached the intersection of the two canyons, we saw
three Philmont staff members walking towards us from Seally Canyon.
It turned out, these were the staffers from Seally Canyon Camp. They
didn't have any other crews in camp, so they had decided to go for a
walk.
We figured that we might have a bit of
a wait for our sister crew, so we decided to leave our packs and take
a walk with the staff members further North to the site of a former
settlement in the canyon. There was a small cemetary and a few
scattered remains of some structures. We returned back to the canyon
intersection and waited for our sister crew.
After a while, our sister crew finally
appeared, off in the distance!
We continued on the final leg of our
hike to get to Seally Canyon camp. The program activity at Seally
Canyon is search & rescue. The staff members asked us if we
wanted to do any of the program activities, but given that it was
getting kind of late, and we were pretty tired, we all decided to
just set up camp & relax for a while. After dinner, the staff
members came for a visit and asked us if we'd like to take a short
hike to the top of a ridge behind the camp. They told us that the
views from the ridge were incredible, and, as a bonus, we might be
able to get cell phone reception from up there!!! That was all we
needed to hear, so off we went.
The climb up to the top of the ridge was very challenging. It was really steep, and there was a lot of loose rock. I had to maintain a “three points of contact” approach to the climb at all times. I'm not usually afraid of heights, but I was definitely nervous about slipping, and then sliding and/or tumbling all the way down to the bottom!!! When we finally got to the top, as advertised, the views were incredible.
We could see the Tooth of Time way off
in the distance as well as Mt. Baldy.
Off in the distance, we could see a
small white speck, marking the yurt at Whiteman Vega … our
destination for tomorrow! Some of us were able to get cell phone
reception. Most of the boys called home to check in. Everyone was in
great spirits! We stayed on the ridge until sunset, and then it was
time to hike back to camp for the night.
It had been a long day, but it had also
been a lot of fun.
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