Cypher's Mine had structures that we could stay in so we only needed to pack up in the morning. We said good bye to Curt who deemed us trained to take on the rest of the trek. Curt said that he might hike back in via Black Mountain. It was a long and difficult day for us but we took it slowly. We crossed Commanche Peak and stopped for lunch and for water which we would need on Mount Phillips, which is a dry camp. More about how dry Mount Phillips was later. There is a spring in the ravine in the back of Commanche Camp. It was a lot farther than we expected, over a mile or so. I went down to the spring with the boys while Don and Rich stayed behind. When we returned they had given Matt, a staff member that worked in the cantinta at New Abreau, some extra water for his hike over Black Mountain. Good thing too. He had a story to tell us when we got to the cantina, where he worked, in the New Abreau camp.
With food and water, we were now ready for the final leg up Mount Phillips to nearly 11,700 feet above sea level. As we hiked up the North west side, we saw many dead trees near the top. They had been struck by lightning. We stopped at a vista just before the camp site to enjoy the view. Hmmmm, those are some interesting looking clouds. You can see the thoughts going through Rich's and Adam's mind as they study those clouds. Like, maybe we better get to our site and setup our tents.
We arrived at our camp site at 3:00. It was about 60 degrees. The dark clouds were approaching rapidly. By 3:45 we had the tarps and tents setup and it began to rain, hail 3/4 inch ice, and thunder and lightning with some landing near by. The temperature dropped to 40 or less. We watched as our sister crew just pulled into camp. They managed to get some of their stuff setup and when there was a break they set the rest of the tents up and got in for the rest of the night. We huddled under our tarp until there was a break.
It became clear why you have to consider the 5 "W"s with attention to water. Large streams formed in the heavy rains and one of them ran through the center of our dining tarp. We moved the food to the side and let the stream run right through the center of the tarp. My tent had a very small stream running under it, but everything inside remained dry. We ate supper, Plemlikin bars. Yum! Love those bars. It was my first and last one on the trip.
After dinner, we hiked to the peak of Mount Phillips for a service. Halfway through, the clouds you see in that picture rolled in and we heard thunder and it begain to rain again. After a quick 7 minute hike back to the camp site, we continued the service under the tarp.
