On the Trail: Sioux Camp

There is a destiny that makes us brothers -
None goes his way alone;
All that which we send into the lives of others,
Comes back onto our own.

~ Edwin Markham

It's finally the big day: the day we head out on the trail and start knocking down our 69+ miles. We woke early, excited about the big day ahead of us.

My first order of business is getting a shower. Seems kind of strange to mention that, but the next opportunity to get one is going to be FIVE days into the future. I've grown up spoiled and much too civilized; I'm not sure how I'm going to feel a day or two from now after miles and miles of hiking and not showering. Better get one in while I can.

After breakfast we have a couple things we need to do. One is a "shakedown," a Ranger-led activity where we pull our beds from out tents, empty our packs of all our gear, and watch as Greg goes through all the things we'll need for the trek, and offers suggestions on what we probably don't. There's the obvious (such as sleeping bags, water bottles, tents, first aid kits, etc.), and the not so obvious: matches, sun screen, bug spray, stoves, fuel, water purifiers... Some things he had issues with - everyone having a pocket knife, carrying a camp stool so that you don't have to always sit on the ground. All the adults had one, and I'm set on bringing mine - I'm sure it is well worth the extra weight. We end up ditching about half the cooking pots, the dining fly poles (we'll use hiking poles) and a couple of the issued tents as almost everyone brought their own.

After the shakedown and repack, we made our way across the camp to a picture station where we had our group photo taken with the Tooth of Time in the background. This was a gaggle because three boys wandered off without saying anything, so we had to send someone back to find them, and they were all too cool to hurry. Pretty much this was the one time when they acted like little kids on the whole trip. However, when it was all said and done, it was a beautiful day with a crystal clear sky, so I'm sure the photo turned out spectacular.

So it's 1000 and we're ready to go. We've moved out of our tents, our packs are loaded, our extraneous gear is stored... unfortunately we have to wait for our scheduled bus time of 1300, as we're being dropped off about 10 miles from the Base Camp and there are only a couple of buses which are busy making drop off and pick up runs throughout the reservation.

There was one last cafeteria lunch, which killed about an hour, and we made a last tour of the trading post, but mostly we just had to hang out and sweat in the shade as the day got warmer and warmer.

Finally, our Trek was called and on to the bus we scrambled. The trip took about 30 minutes, passing through the nearby town of Cimarron, and then up a dirt road for several miles. One of the highlights of the ride was passing a herd of about 100 elk grazing next to the road. They didn't even lift their heads as we passed by. Guess they're used to people who don't threaten them in any way.

Our bus dropped us off at a place named "Ponil Turnaround" which pretty much matched it's name: a cul-de-sac at the end of the line. We tumbled out, grabbed our packs, and watched as the bus drove away in a trail of dust. Civilization was two weeks away.

The first order of business was some instruction from Ranger Greg: the proper way to cross a stream, the importance of sticking together, not getting too close or too spread out on the trail, and the proper use of the Red Roof Inns. Philmont has outhouses spread throughout the property, and though they are mainly clustered near the camping sites, they are located sporadically (though never strategically) along the trails. They can be identified by their red roofs, hence the nickname. In providing his instruction on how to use the latrine (no urine, toilette paper and fecal matter only...) he showed how to use a stick to chase away any bugs or creatures that might be lurking in the privy seat before use. As he went to discard the stick with a mighty throw, he put his entire weight into the toss, but forgot to let go, and followed the stick right THROUGH the wall and out onto the ground outside!!! It was pretty spectacular! Luckily he wasn't hurt, just temporarily humbled as we all recovered from our initial shock and started laughing. Nice ice breaker!

After repairing the Red Roof Inn, we saddled up and started our hike. Today was a relatively easy walk... about 3 miles to get broken in. We followed a small stream for about a mile, then passed through Ponil Staff camp. We looked longingly at the cantina as we passed, but headed up a rocky road for about 500 yards till we found a side trail that took off steeply up the side of a ridge, until we eventually found our camp site for the night: Sioux.

Since it was still early, we had plenty of time to go through the lessons of setting up camp at Philmont: setting up the "Bear-muda" food triangle: cooking gear by a sump; food preparation area/cooking circle; and hanging the bear bags to put all our smellables out of reach of any curious animals (i.e. bears). Finally, locating the tents in a cluster outside the food triangle to preclude bears from stumbling into us in the middle of the night.

Greg went over all these items and then coached the first set of chefs through the process of one-pot cooking. This is the concept of cooking all your menu items together in one pot. That means if you have soup and mashed potatoes and corn bread, you dump them all in the same pot, add water and cook them as one entree'. While this sounds easy (and it is), in practice this seldom worked out as a palate pleaser in a manner that Julia Child would approve! At Sioux we actually cooked a Mexican meal, where mixing it all together was actually pretty tasty. Rice, refried beans, sloppy joes were all mixed together and layered on tortillas. Probably the best meal of the trip, though we didn't know that at the time!

After dinner, our resident expert, Lynn, who had been at Philmont 4 or 5 times, suggested that we take the boys back down to Ponil where the staff put on a cantina show, and serve rootbeer for $1 a mug. The boys were all up for that, so Greg and I escorted them back down the trail about a mile to the cantina. Unfortunately, the place was packed and they had quit serving the rootbeer about 15 minutes before we arrived. The evening weather was cool and clear, and the music from inside the cantina filled the valley, so the boys all sat down and started playing cards and swapping stories, relaxing after two long days of preparation and anticipation.

I think this demonstrated the one thing that impressed me the most about this group of boys. They came from three different troops from diverse parts of the Pittsburgh area, and had never met before we started our practice hikes. Yet they came together, accepted each other at face value, and worked extremely well together as a group. I doubt any life-long friendships developed, but the fact that they all came together and worked well as unit so quickly, was a truly nice surprise.

The cantina show wrapped up around 2100, so we gathered the group up and herded them back through the dark to camp. Definitely a bit harder to follow the trail when you have nothing but a pen light to light the way.

Tomorrow we pick up the burro. THAT should be fun!