Anyone got an Octopus?

I could use the arms to count the number of crews, eight! At the start of the season it was predicted that the average number of crews that a Ranger would lead was likely eight, so I'm thrilled to have reached this number with some time left in the season.

A good sign that the typical afternoon storms are done for the day!

This crew was from Cedar Knolls, NJ, so we had a lot to talk about as it's not that far from where I grew up in Netcong. If I had stayed with scouting, I would have been in the same council, Patriots' Path Council, which I always thought was a cool name for a scout council. Their council patches were pretty cool. Plus, the council takes responsibility for organizing the majority of the treks to Philmont (and other high adventure bases like Northern Tier and Sea Base), going so far as to organize training, shakedown hikes, and providing so much really cool swag. Besides the normal council patch, a few of the scouts and scouters were wearing custom Philmont focused council patches that matched shirts and hats and nametags and so on and so on. Didn't have the heart to ask what it cost them for all of that, Philmont is already pretty expensive.

This crew did seem to have the unusual ability to loose the food bags they are issued. More correctly, the bags didn't go missing, they go hidden. That is, at some point the scouts grab the bags to carry individually, and then forget which ones they have, and then swear they've taken them all out of their packs, when in fact they haven't. I had bags of my own food, that I would put in the piles to be put up in the bear bags, but they didn't seem to come down. Crazy. It did mean that a lunch bag went missing (I had to lean on my snacks) and a breakfast bag the following morning (my hike-in day, so the plan was to just grab breakfast when I returned). They need the food more than I do, so I didn't mind. Too much. But it was weird how often this happened. Maybe there was a stealth food eater and I never saw it?

Good Morning Sun!

One drawback to this crew was that I had already hiked this itinerary, first day at Lover's Leap and the second day at Miners Park, so not much new for me. I guess I have to remember that the crew is first and my jaunts are second, but with time running out on my summer, I would have preferred some new locations. Oh well. One benefit is that I knew the better campsites to choose from, and while I didn't directly choose (that's a crew leader's job!), maybe I had a small influence so the crew could get the nicer sites!

It's also a bit misleading because the initial hike was about 2.5 miles and the hike to the second camp was another 2.5 miles, without too much elevation. This can lead the crew to underestimate the challenges ahead of them. This was a 12 day trek, so the next 9 days or so would have significantly more mileage and elevation. The best I could do was review their plan, make some suggestions, and caution them to be prepared. It looks like I'll be back on trail when they return to basecamp, which is too bad, because I'd really like to hear how they did! I think they will do great, but Philmont can always throw you a curve!

An emerging Pinesap plant, whose latin name means "below pine" which is where I found it!

I am scheduled for back-to-back crews, so I needed to leave them and get back to basecamp and get ready for crew #9 (SO thrilled!), which I picked up today (7/22, hitting the trail tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.). I had loosely coordinated hiking back with two other Rangers who were at the same campsite, but my crew got ready late and so I wound up hiking back alone. Which I don't mind. It can be cathartic to just motor along, putting miles behind me. Crazy to think that I hiked more in that return trip than the crew did in the two days to get out there (we took a bus from basecamp to the trailhead, I just hiked all the way back in). And it only took two hours, but not in time to grab breakfast, darn.