Day 5 was a sleep in day, we got up at 6:00. After rain all night, it was sunny! Who said it only rains for an hour in the afternoon.
Our sister crew was up early and had stretched lines across the trail to dry things out. This made if difficult for us to pass. We headed to the peak again where we took pictures. Are those clouds back there? Here's a closer look. We hiked down the mountain into those clouds and the sunny day became foggy. Fortunately, it cleared when we got to Clear Creek staff camp. We had a great breakfast and dried our stuff in the sun while we caught some program.
There was a trapper's lodge tour with many displays of skins and tools used in the business, black power rifle shooting where Chris hit the Philmont hat on the first shot taking off the top of the hat and a a tomahok throw where staff teach you how to hit a mark. After the fur trapping program, we repacked our dry gear. As our crew was doing the rifle shooting, our sister crew from Texas showed up. They said that they tried to dry their equipment on Phillips but that it had become cloudy and they just packed it up wet. While at the rifle shooting area, it began to sprinkle. The rifle staff told our sister crew that they might not be able to shoot if it started to rain. It held off and they were able to get it in, but their equipment was not going to get dried that day.
Advisor Clark stopped in to have Randy, the camp director, radio to the health lodge concerning a pain that had develped in his side at Cypher's and worsened on Phillips. The diagnosis was that he could continue. While there, he mentioned that we were short a dinner and that we would have to hike to Phillips Junction and back to pick it up. Randy collected some good Mac & Cheese, green beans, and cookies and gave it to us. Jon and I went up and collected it, but when we returned we found that "Doc" had located a regular chicken & rice dehydrated trail dinner for us. We decided to go with Randy's food and return the extra dinner.
We hiked through Rayado canyon along a stream to our camp, Porcupine, stopping for lunch at Commanche camp. I always wondered what it would be like to hike in the rain. I found out. It rained and thundered for most of the hike letting up only enough to simplify lunch. Amazingly enough, it stopped when we got to Porcupine camp. This made setting up camp much easier and allowed us to keep our equipment dry. Porcupine was a nonstaff camp located on a stream.
Our sister crew arrived a little later and camped in a site across the stream from us. While they were cooking dinner, one of their advisors opened the valve on a liquid fuel stove and lit it. There were flames shooting up and out in all directions. Rich flew over there to see if everyone was all right. Rich, I always thought you had to take the bridge to cross the stream. The advisor didn't know that the stove had to be preheated with a little gas in the cup at the bottom.
Quote of the day from Rich: Life doesn't get any better than this!
