We woke up a little before six today, and left just before seven. The first part of our hike was back through Baldy Town. Now that our packs are so heavy from taking on DJ and Will’s crew gear, it is quite a chore to lift them . We got to Baldy Town at 7:40, since it was a fairly easy downhill hike. We ate breakfast there, and then had a four day food pickup- adding even more weight to our overburdened packs. At least it was only for ten, because we believe that DJ will not return. We also refilled water and fuel bottles, and, as a definite plus, received fresh apples. We then sorted the food and returned what we knew we would not eat. Even with this help in reducing weight, our packs were much heavier than recommended for safe backpacking, since we had to carry gear for eleven (we had not thought to send much back with DJ or Will) and food for ten with nine people. It was quite the exercise in packing. We left Baldy Town around 9:00. We had a fast hike downhill, and got a really good look back up at Baldy.

We reached Miranda, a staff camp, at about 10:30, and set up camp and ate lunch. After lunch, we went down to black powder rifle shooting. Then we went back up to throw tomahawks, which is not nearly as easy as it looks. When another crew showed up to throw, we went back up to our site. Will and DJ showed up in a truck a few minutes later. It turned out that a contributing factor to Will’s hypothermia was that he was dehydrated, drinking only one quart of water a day, as opposed to the recommended six to eight quarts, and he had the nerve to brag about the time he spent in base camp! At 4:00, we walked up to the staff cabin for a talk on mountain living. When that was over, we went back to camp and had dinner. Because we only picked up food for ten at Baldy Town, thinking that DJ would not return, food will have to be strictly rationed from now until our next food pickup. It does not matter so much at dinner as it does at lunch and breakfast, however. We were asleep by 7:45.

Day 10: Friday, July 10

We woke up at 5:00 today. Our hike for the day it about six miles to Head of Dean. We left Miranda after breakfast at 6:10. The trail went up a mesa after awhile and had good views. We went down to a overlook, where we could see back to the north. Ironically, the trail had better views than the overlook. We soon had to stop again because Will again was not drinking enough. We arrived at Head of Dean, the staffed camp where we were staying, at 9:30. We got a nice campsite and then went down to the low ropes challenge course. While I had done much of the challenges before, it was still a lot of fun. When that was over we went back up to lunch at our site.

Since Head of Dean is our conservation site, we went to sign up for the project at 1:00. It started with nearly an hour long talk on trailbuilding and tools. The big project that all crews assigned to conservation here work on is the construction of the new Head of Dean trail. Our first task was moving some cut up tree parts off of the trail, and then further away from it. Then we pushed over one tree in the way of the trail that other crews had had trouble with, and nearly finished knocking over another, but had to got back and eat dinner. We went to our tents around 7:45.

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