As we awoke on heavy dew at sunrise, we were greeted by a clear sky, promising a hot day of hiking. We were scheduled to meet our ranger guide at 6:45am, to be led along with our sister crew from Kentucky through the fragile ecosystem left behind by the 2018 Ute Park Fire. The uphill sections were steep, and George, the lead advisor for the Kentucky crew, soon began to struggle. He had been battling altitude sickness and dehydration since Mt. Baldy. Jake, our enthusiastic ranger, first took some of the weight from George's pack, and eventually carried the entire pack, allowing George to continue. The landscape we traveled through was a stark, alien one — filled with the blackened corpses of trees. And yet, wildflowers and young aspens covered the eroding hillsides, beginning to stabilize the loose rock and soil. Jake told us that Philmont expected it to take 15 years before trail camps and paths within the burn area could be used again.
Due to the slow pace and frequent stops, our 7.7 mile hike to Sawmill staff camp took about 6 hours. A hot and thirsty group of scouts entered the camp for a late lunch and our final food pickup. For our last 5 days, we would carry all our food and trash back to Base Camp. The boys were excited to not only be able to shoot .306 rifles but to reload their own bullets. Each scout was taught to fill their 3 cartridges with powder, add a priming cap, and seal with the bullet tip. While they hiked to the firing range, I napped on the porch — a nap soon interrupted by an afternoon hailstorm.
Once the shooting was done, we packed up and hiked in the late afternoon to our camp at Whistle Punk — a short 2.5 miles. After a day hiking 10.2 miles, we were tired, but happy to settle into a warm dinner with generous helpings of jambalaya. Whistle Punk was a strange environment, littered with hundreds of dead, bleached branches and trees, and the remaining live trees draped with Spanish Moss. A campfire followed by stargazing completed the evening.
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