Philmont 2012 - Day 2 at Abreu and Carson Meadows

Originally published September 4, 2012

Julie and I awoke by 7am to warm light and a calm meadow. Our night-time routine was like this:

• Julie and Chris get into tent and change into sleeping clothes. Sleeping clothes need to be clothes that you don't wear during the day and don't eat in. This is to keep bear attracting scents out of the tent. I wore light running shorts and a Uniqlo HeatTech long-sleeve top. Julie wore a full HeatTech long underwear set.
• We put all of our clothes into a dry sack that was sort of an inside bag / liner for our backpacks. This allowed us to hike without pack covers in the rain -- it worked very well.
• I would then walk our dry sacks over to the backpacks under our rain fly in the BEAR-muda triangle.

We would repeat (reverse) this process in the morning. While I went out to grab the bags in the morning Julie would already be packing up her sleeping bag, pad, etc. The photo above is Matthew coming out of his tent in his sleeping clothes.

We left camp at 9:40am headed for Abreu and arrived at 10:50am. Abreu is a southwestern style ranch and cabin with adobe cantina.

At Abreu, the boys made adobe bricks by sifting sandy clay from the gravel and rocks. They added water and straw then poured the mix into a brick mold.

The boys cleaned up and then we all had root beer in the cantina – nice & cold.

Julie sent 2 postcards and we wandered around a bit, checking out the chickens, goats, burros, and lots of little girls there on an outing from the training center. We filled our water bottles, but Abreu water didn’t taste so good.

A short hike of 35 minutes found as at our next camp -- Carson Meadows. You can see in the photo above our versatile Tyvek rain fly. Our standard setup was to use two hiking poles with a line of parachute cord run through the middle, with guylines on the corners. This is mainly for our gear but later in the trip we would find it very adequate for protecting the hikers as well.

Carson Meadows has a beautiful cabin. The porch is huge and has a great view of Tooth of Time. We saw lots of hummingbirds - Derek started to wear his safety glasses due to imminent threat of a hummingbird in eye (a true tale told by a Meadows staffer). We dumped our Abreu water and refilled with better tasting water. We also saw lots of wild turkeys on the way back to camp from the cabin. Carson Meadows had one of our favorite program areas of the trip, thanks to Carl, Frank and Caroline. We all participated in a search and rescue simulation that was fun and informative.

At 7pm we all went back for advisor coffee and at 7:30 the boys showed up for games. They were the only scouts so they did small games with Corey. We learned Bungee, Wah! (so funny), and Wild Wild West. Before bed, we did the Wilderness Pledge with Nathan. This would be our last night with Nathan. Tomorrow we head to Fish Camp and Agua Fria.

This article is part of my Philmont 2012 series. You can find all articles here.