ursusguy said:

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Yeah, a lot of the local businesses throughout north central New Mexico are hurting pretty bad.

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...and this on the heels of them having suffered through an historically bad snow/ski season.

Morris (Moras) Creek Fire July 2, 2018 at 9:45 a.m.

The Morris (Moras) Creek Fire is at 1,373 acres. The fire was caused by lightning and is burning on private neighboring property and Philmont in the Rayado River Canyon area. The fire is approaching Carson Meadows and there is a concentrated effort from the Philmont Fire Department, as well as other agencies to protect the meadow and the cabin.

The fire is transitioning to a Type 2 Incident Management Team on Tuesday, which will bring in more state and federal resources to fight the fire.

The Philmont Training Center and Base Camp remain safe for our staff and participants. We are continuing to serve our Philmont Family Adventure, NAYLE, and PLC participants.

Our primary focus remains the safety of our participants and staff as well as the management of the fire. We appreciate your patience as we work through this rapidly changing situation.

http://bit.ly/FireInformation




Carson Meadows cabin

Guys, if you had a later summer trek, Philmont just announced that ALL treks for the 2018 summer have been cancelled.

Staff that want to stay will be reassigned to TSI operations.

Any word on the cause of the Ute Park fire?

I can't find any information on what started the fire.

Good luck. Are you going North or South?

It's been 20 years since my passion for bears started.

I was out there last September for a conservation training. A buddy of mine from the 2002 Ponil Complex fire was the full time Conservation Director at the time. I got to spent quite a bit of time in last year's burn area and our work areas from 2002. It was a roller coaster of emotions in many ways. Seeing what the staff last year was able to accomplish really made me happy.

I am trying to finagle going out there in September for the Wilderness First Aid Instructor course.

Have fun, and please bring us some photos.

They never said an exact cause (at least publicly) but they will say "it started in a backyard)".

South

Lovers Leap
Uracca Messa
Black Mountain
Camp on Phillip's at 11,400
Cyphers Miine
Hike in over the Tooth


It is strange that the cause of the fire is 'under investigation'.

Make you feel better, the first bear attack (actually 2) was on Mt. Phillips (give yourself another 300 feet). I damn near killed myself getting up there. Turned out we actually had 2 attacks 6 hours apart. The two crews in camp were not aware of each other, and crew #1 elected to not hike down to Clear Creek in the dark (don't blame them). But crew #2 didn't know anything had happened.

I got called to the radio room at 4:15 AM. We got a sketchy cell phone call at 4:30 saying there were two bear attacks, and they were hiking down. I had the radio room immediately call and send hasty teams from both Clear Creek and Cyphers (we didn't know which way they were coming down). The team coming up from Clear actually made it up in less than 30 minutes, and intercepted both crews before that started down the trail.

Initially they were going to send me out immediately, but then decided to send me up at sunrise with the medical and ranger team. They wanted me to interview both crews before they got out of the backcountry. As we show up, the Clear staff is trying to keep the advisors from the two crews from getting in a fist fight. The second crew was REALLY pissed that they were not madde aware of the first attack. Mind you crew #1 did not know #2 existed, and as you will see the campsite are spread out over a decent distance (campsite #2 and #11). There were shouting matches throughout the interviews.........neither kid had significant injuries. Key point, the bear was seen ALL evening about 75 yards from campsite #2. They jad several Polaroid pictures of a large blond bear. Both crews were adamant their campsites were clean..........up until that night I had exactly one sighting up there for a smaller, dark cinnamon bear.

So up the mountain I go following 6 rangers. The decision had been made to close all the trail camps on the west side of the Central country. Mind you, I operated out of Base and DROVE pretty much everywhere (I had clearance to drive anywhere you could get a truck). So going Base to Clear (~10,700) and then quickly heading up Phillips on foot was not fun. Lots of folks made fun of my radio call in saying I reached the top of Mt. Phillips. Apparently they thought they might have to send a second medical team. Both campsite were extremely clean, but O started finding bear scat and all of it had trash in it. Out of frustration, I kicked a sitting log near the filtering. Holy crap, I find were someone hollowed out a hidy hole and left 2 full meal bags. Me and a ranger start looking under logs and flat rocks, and end up with almost an entire trash bag of actual food.....hince the reason to look under rocks and logs (the rangers faught me hard on this initially, but changed their tune after about a week). Be danged careful in last night camps, people are known to get stupid and not want to carry in extra weight over the Tooth.

We brought in the dogs, and they had me put in a trap at Red Hills (not far from where that photo of the snow was taken). It was about midnight by the time I set the trap at Red Hills. That was one of my longest days at Philmont. Woke up the next morning somehow wrapped around the gear shift.

Little did I know we would have another attack 10 days later at Cathedral Rock (actually pretty serious), and 3 people very minorly injured 2 weeks after that at Rocky Mountain Scout Camp (near Lovers Leap).

Any idea what she is doing?

No. I sent her a message asking, but I haven't heard back. Pretty sure it's not backcountry or rangering though.

Just heard back. She's in Carson meadows doing S&R.

Here is our trek, slow & easy start before we start covering some miles.

That looks like it'll be a great time! Y'all enjoy!

Awesome looking trek. Crooked is one of my favorite places on the ranch. Ponderosa Camp historically has a lot of bears in the area.

You'll get dropped at the Lovers Leap turnaround. Between the well and treeline to the east is a really good place to look for bear tracks and reiterate they are real.

Please shoot photos.

Guy on the Philmont FB page today is wearing and A&M ice hockey hat. Crew 608-AA.

Funny you mention this. My trek was 1997 and I think our 3rd day from returning to base we were supposed to hit ponderosa. We got to the spot on the map pretty early in the day. No sign of any life or camp. Backtracked retraced our steps, passed other crews going other places. NOTHING! Finally we just picked a decent looking spot and set up camp. After dinner we Hiked back down to a meadow we had passed with a water trough and our crew of 12 laid there staring at the stars for hours. Most memorable time from my trek and it was an accident. I'll never forget it. 8 teenage boys and 4 grown men staring silently into the heavens.

It was an eerie nights sleep. We found huge piles of scat around camp. It was a warm night and the wind blew steady 20-30mph nonstop. Felt like a hairdryer blowing our tent around all night.

Once we finally got back to hq we asked around and got the answer that ponderosa had been moved that offseason and maps not updated. That may be total BS but that's what we were told.

I don't care why though. It gave me one of my best nights in the outdoors of my life.