Day 10

Day 10 - Vista Grande to Clark's Fork

Day 10 – 7-14-99 – Wednesday

4 AM. Clear and very dark. More stars in the sky then I’ve seen in a long time. We who live in the city forget just how beautiful the night sky is when you don’t have all of the light pollution that a large city puts out. I couldn’t identify many of the constellations, but was able to locate Polaris, the North Star. I wanted to just stand there and stare at the stars, but we had a long day ahead of us.

Our crew leader hadn’t gotten up. Again. He had assured me the night before that he would be up at 4 AM, and would get the rest of the crew going. Oh, well.

Tom and I went around to the other tents, and asked everyone to get up and get packed. Most of the guys responded and were soon up and moving, but we did have a few stragglers, our crew leader among them. But in spite of the early hour and the darkness, we were on the trail at 5:25, just as the light of day arrived. Not too bad.

Our first target today would be the Ute Commissary. But that was a good six miles away, and along the way we would pass Upper Bench camp, Devil’s Washbasin camp, and cross Ute Pass before descending into Ute canyon and finally arriving at the Commissary. The trail was mostly uphill, but a very reasonable grade. As the morning progressed, we had some tremendous views of Baldy and North Country. We stopped in a nice clearing at 7 AM to eat breakfast, and were back on the trail 15 minutes latter. At 9 AM sharp, we rolled into Ute Commissary. I’d heard reports that the staff there was very unfriendly, but we experienced just the opposite. We got our last issue of food, and the pleasant young lady offered us all fresh, red apples. What a treat! Most of us visited the trading post, and sampled some of their wares. Dan bought a roll of film, and had to pay five dollars for it. I spent a whopping 50 cents on a candy bar, and gave the other 50 cents to Tommy, and that was my big expenditure!

We also filled up on water there, used the “Red Roof Inn”, and checked with the staff on which trail to use to get to Cimarroncito, (or “Cito” as it’s more commonly called). The map was a little confusing in this area.

At 9:25, our sister crew got to the commissary, with some bad news. The day before, their crew leader had hurt a toe while at Head of Dean, and hadn’t told anyone about it. So all the way down to the river and beyond, he had been compensating for it. He’d woke this morning with a very sore knee, and the crew decided that it was better for him to go back to the road, a distance of about a mile, than to attempt to get to the commissary, a distance of about six miles. Three other members of their crew went with him, and waited in the culvert under the road. The remainder of the crew had hustled to Ute Commissary, and informed the staff about their problem. The staff radioed Camping HQ, and got things rolling there. We could understand how they felt, as we had lost a crewmember in a similar fashion. They hoped that everything would come out OK, and that their crewmembers could be reunited at Clarks Fork. Time would tell.

About 9:45, we headed up to Cito, along a new trail. The sign we found said it would cut a whopping five minutes off of the time usually required if the road was used. Wow! But the trail was smooth, and by this time, any reduction in the number of rocks we had to step on or over was greatly appreciated!

We got into Cito at 11:10, just missing the last climbing of the morning. We had to wait until 1 PM, so we found a shady area, and proceeded to eat lunch and relax. The guys soon got into a lively game of “BS”, while the advisors tried to take a quick nap, read, or otherwise while the time away.

At 12:50, we headed up to the climbing area. Dan and Denise had stayed behind with several of the boys who didn’t wish to climb. Tom and I went up with the rest. The rocks are about 300 feet above the camp area, and the last 100 yards are quite steep. The sun was beating down on the rocks, and it soon got quite warm. We were instructed to grab a climbing harness and helmet from large boxes, and were soon receiving instruction on the use of these items from… a maniac! The young man must have thought he was a comedian, but his humor left much to be desired. His mode of operation consisted of rude and lude jokes, silly songs, and rapid fire “conversation” with his friend “Mikey” who was one of the climbing belayers above us on the rock. We were soon quite tired of his pander, and several of the other advisors and I voiced our concern to one-another. I tried to get him to calm down, but to no avail. Several of us thought that he and his friend were exhibiting several classic examples of drug use, especially as more than a few of his “jokes” had to do with drugs. This was definitely not the time nor place for anything like that. In spite of this young man’s raucous behavior, several of the boys did climb on his pitch. Our crew worked with a nice young lady named “Dev”, who was obviously quite embarrassed by the behavior of her fellow staff members. Her excuses for the antics were that they’d been there all summer, and boredom was setting in. I’m sure that this is true, but that is no reason to carry on as they were.

The climbing at Cito is rather tame. The longer of the two pitches, which we climbed, is rather simple, with good foot and finger holds the entire way up. Then you clip into a safety rope, traverse across the top, and come to the rappelling area. The staff there was quite professional, and very calm. The rappel down is easy, and most of the guys really seemed to enjoy it.

We finished the climbing at 2:30, bid a VERY fond farewell to the maniacs, and hustled down the hill to camp. I was going to speak to the Camp Director about the climbing staff, but she and other staff members were zoned out on the porch of the cabin, engrossed in singing and playing the guitar. I’ll forward my complaints to the powers that be at camping HQ. I just pray that no one gets hurt at Cito this summer!

Logistics had told us that we had to have two guys at Clark’s Fork at 4 PM to help cook dinner. As it was now after 3, our fastest Scouts headed off down the trail, map in hand. Those of us who weren’t as fast followed as rapidly as possible. A conservation crew was in the process of rebuilding the trail out of Cito. They were lining both sides of the trail with 8” diameter logs, filling the space between tem with crushed rock, and then toping everything with a thick layer of dirt. They made sure that the new trail had a slight curve to it for drainage. What a job! But it will be great once they finish. The old trail is quite worn and rocky. We soon passed the hunting lodge, and then came into view of Cathedral Lake. I’d passed this way on my 1996 trek, and the lake had quite a bit more water in it than in ’96. The trail from the lake to Clark’s Fork is VERY rough and rocky. I hope that the trail construction at Cito will continue all the way to Clark’s.

When we got to Clark’s Fork, we found the other part of our crew sitting under a tree, waiting for us. The two guys that had planned to cook weren’t there, and we figured that they had gone on to work. We got to the staff cabin, and were greeted by a staff member (whom I later found to be the camp director), saying that he needed to talk to the advisors. This seemed rather ominous. He then proceeded to chew us out for splitting the crew, and sending two boys by themselves. After I explained to him that we hadn’t done that, and that there were four more boys sitting across the road in the shade, he calmed down. He also asked us where we got the information about having to be there by 4 PM. I told him about the instruction we had received in logistics. He was quite perturbed by this, and said that logistics was giving out all sorts of erroneous information. We actually needed the guys there by 3:30, but it turned out that it wasn’t a problem. They’d still feed us!

After we finished our check in, we were taken to our campsite, east of the main camp. There were lots of large ponderosa’s in the site, with a “red roof inn” right there. We set up the tents, and then I started to try to get the bear bag rope over the cable, which was a good thirty feet above the ground. As I struggled with it, Keith came over to me, his eyes wide. “Mr. Bregar, I just saw a rattlesnake!” I asked him where, and he wasn’t too sure. There were two trails in the area, and he said it was on one of the two. We slowly waked along the trails, keeping our eyes peeled. Soon, we heard the “Bzzzzz” of the snake. It was about five feet long, and a pale green color. I sent Keith and another boy to get the camp staff, and I kept a close eye on the snake. I soon coiled up under a log, and for the next ten minutes or so the snake and I had a stare-out. Two staff members came down carrying long sticks. It was obvious that neither of these fellows had ever seen a snake before. They said we could leave, as we “probably didn’t want to see what they were going to do”. I assured them that I had no problem with them killing the snake, due to the proximity of the campers. We stood back, and watched them do their thing. Or try to. They hit at the snake, tried to pin it down, but only succeeded in making it mad. Finally, I picked up a large rock, and threw it at the snake, breaking it’s back. Then on of the staff pinned it down, and using a huge bowie knife, cut the snake’s head off. Dan told them how to skin and dry the snakeskin, and they said they would cook the snake for us.

After all of the excitement, we were a bit late for dinner. But there was plenty left, and after a long day, the beef stew tasted good. We had peach cobbler for dessert, and then relaxed a bit until the advisor’s coffee at 7 PM.

There were ten crews in the camp that night, so the porch of the cabin was crowded. I spent most of the time there talking to Greg, the advisor from our sister crew. We swapped email addresses, and talked about our jobs back home. This was the first time I’d really thought about work in the past week or so, and I found myself actually missing it. Greg was in the IS department at 3M, and had gotten his start in the computer business much the way I had. Soon it was 8 PM, and time for the campfire program.

Everyone circled around the porch, and the staff took turns singing, telling stories, or reciting cowboy poetry. The program lasted until about 9:30, when we headed off for the campsite. Tom and I crawled into the tent, and were sawing logs in no time flat. The noisy end to a long, exciting day.