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Several years ago, I had the oppurtunity to take a trip with my boy scout troop to Philmont. We arrived the first day and checked into base camp, got our bearing, took a group pic, met our guide, checked out gear and food, and prepped ourselves for our adventure. The next morning we woke up and had our final gear shakedown. After everyone hydrated, used the restroom, and boarded the bus, we were off to our first camp in a yellow school bus. We arrived at the Rayado River camp which turned out to be somewhat of a pueblo where we had some activities planned for us to do such as branding, touring, and listening to some of the history of the area.
After a little bit, we collectively decided to gather our gear and begin our 108 mile long backpacking trip. Unfortunately, the weather decided not to cooperate for the entire day. It rained and rained and rained.... We crossed raging streams and arrived at our campsite called Rayado. At Rayado we, for the first time, saw the bear boxes (which were much more conveniant than bear bags...). We set up all of our tents in a cluster in order to lower the chance of an animal wondering through camp. We created the Bearmuda Triangle by setting our gear on one corner, rainfly and cooking area in another, and our tents on another. We spent the day talking under the rainfly trying to avoid the rain. That night, we all heard a strange grunting sound as we were trying to fall asleep and we were all convinced it was either a bear or a cow. A funny thing that happened was Preston was snoring like a cow and we had PPArker (his tent mate) hit him.
The next morning we woke up to beautiful sunny skies. We packed up and ate breakfast, tied all of our wet clothes to the outside of our backpacks to dry them and began hiking to our next campsite, Bear Caves. We arrived at Bear caves and set up camp. We tried to figure out what we wanted to do and we decided we would take a side hike to Crater's Lake and attend their campfire program. We headed over there and saw our first real staff camp. There was pole climbing, a small pond, a donkey skull, a cabin, and a beutiful view down into a valley with the Tooth of Time sticking out of the mountains on the other side. While were there, Luke threw my Hale frisbee into the lake and we spent an hour trying to get out and finally being unsuccessful. That night we took a little hike to the area where the people of Crater Lake performed their campfire program. The view from this area was amazing. Picture clear skies, with a large drop off only 20 feet in front of you. Across the valley there is a range of mountians with the famous Tooth of Time at the end. The sun is going down, the stars are coming out, and there is a full moon shining behind the performs. They sang, dance, and performed skits until the end when we walked back to Bear caves, looked at the stars, and eventually went to sleep.
The next moring we woke up, took down the bear bags, and prepared to leave. Today, our ranger was leaving us and going back to base camp.
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