We woke up at 4:30 today. Our ranger left soon after we woke up. Our plan was to get he bear bags down first, but some people did not listen, and those of us that did listen only ended up waiting for them. Once we finally got that done, we had breakfast, which was in camp, since it was a hot breakfast (oatmeal). We got on the trail at 7:07, much later than intended. The weather was much more humid than we expected. We arrived at the French Henry program area at about 9:30. We rested a little, and then tried gold panning. I found a few very small flakes and some quartz. After that, we went blacksmith-ing. The combined efforts of our crew made an S-hook. We ate lunch inside a cabin because it was raining outside.

After lunch, we left French Henry for the mine tour. The mine that we toured is Aztec Ponil 2. We had a tour in, and then the guide turned off the lights and we hat to find our way back in the dark. On the way, Will, who ironically was the Chaplain Aide for the crew, and Brian, who just as ironically was the Crew Leader, ran ahead and left us in the dark on our own. When we got back out, we found out for sure that DJ had left us to stay at French Henry for transportation back to Base Camp because of a knee injury from football camp the week before.

As we started walking up the steep section to Copper Park, called the Wall, the skies opened up. There was thunder, lighting, wind, hail, and pouring rain. Mark’s thermometer said it was 44º F. When we had climbed the mile and a quarter to the top of the Wall, and Copper Park (above ten thousand feet), most of us were very cold. Will was worse than the rest of us, because he had somehow gotten up there without really sturdy rain gear. He had bad hypothermia, and was not always responding to questions, so we did not have time to set up camp. Everyone else went ahead to find a site while Mark, Mr. Hughes, and myself stayed behind with Will. By the time they had returned to tell us that there were no open sites in Copper Park, we had put Will in another crew’s tent because he was so bad. When we went to boil water, we realized that both of our lighters had died, and no one had easily accessible dry matches, so I ran to another site to get them; by the time I returned, someone had been able to get his matches out any way. We ended up setting up camp in that crew’s site, with another crew’s help. Meanwhile, Mr. Hughes and Dan were lucky enough to have enough dry warm clothes left (Many of the rest of us had given our warm, dry clothes to Will.) to make an emergency run to Baldy Town, the nearest staff camp, about a mile away. Mr. Brown, having warm, dry thermals, continued to prepare hot chocolate for the rest of us after we had to stop and go to our tents. The truck came to take Will and another hypothermia victim from our sister crew down to base camp at 6:50. At that point Mark’s thermometer read 38º F. The other crew in our site and Mr. Brown made warm dinner, which we ate before falling asleep.

Day 8: Wednesday, July 8

Our advisors decided not to climb Baldy (the highest mountain at Philmont, at twelve thousand feet), since we had given so many dry, warm clothes to Will, and had gotten more of our clothes wet while helping him, even though it was a nice day when we woke up at 7:30. It was frustrating because the reason we had climbed up to camp at Copper Park was because it was in a good position for climbing Baldy, and this climb was supposed to be the highlight of the trip. After breakfast, we cleaned some gear off and put it out to dry. Because of the extreme conditions the previous night, we were told to light fires, despite a ban that was in place everywhere else. The crew we were camping with left, so we moved our tents and fly into a better place in the site.

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