I didn’t sleep well at all. The weird angle of the tent and the faucet my nose has become kept waking me about every hour. I got up at 4:30am and got the crew up at 4:45am. We moved fairly quickly this morning and loaded up and left our campsite at 5:45am to walk down to the Sawmill cabin to watch the sunrise. The view from the Sawmill cabin may be the best cabin view on the ranch and the sunrise was beautiful.

The plan for the day was to make it to Cimarroncito by 11am to get our conservation done at the 11am cons time, then walk on to Hunting Lodge to get a campsite and do program there. We left Sawmill at 6:15am and walked down Sawmill canyon past Upper & Lower Sawmill faster than I imagined possible. The crew decided to push on to the Ute Gulch Commissary for breakfast and food pick-up. We arrived at Ute Gulch at 8:10am – a little over 5 miles in just under 2 hours.

The commissary was not busy so food pick up did not take very long. Again, the staff was willing to trade us a lunch for a dinner for our dry dinner up at Tooth Ridge. Breakfast was supposed to be oatmeal and pop-tarts, but the crew decided to forgo the oatmeal (too much time in heating the water and cleaning up), so we all scavenged the swap box for any tasty treats to go along with the pop-tarts. Staff also gave us oranges to go along with our breakfast. This late in the trip no one really wanted to buy anything in the small store there, so no time was spent there. The breakfast and food pick up took 40 minutes total – pretty fast for a big stop like that.

From Ute Gulch, it was back up Grouse Canyon to the Cimarroncito trail. As we walked into the Cito meadow we could see people doing conservation – meadow restoration and forest thinning. We arrived at the Cito cabin at 9:40am and checked-in and asked to join the 11am conservation schedule. The head conservationist was the first worthless staffer we had encountered on our trek. Unknown to us, he alone had set a limit of four crews per conservation time to work. Logistics had no idea of the 4 crew limit so had not told us that. The 11am time was already full with crews that were on lay-over day, and "head cons" would not even consider allowing a walk-through crew to join the time. He was very snobbish and arrogant, and informed us that if we wanted to do conservation we could return to Cito for the 2pm conservation time. He didn’t care that we would lose our afternoon program at Hunting Lodge. According to "head cons", it was only a 10 minute walk or a 5 minute jog to Hunting Lodge.

We walked on down to Hunting Lodge (26 minutes) and got checked in. We were the first and only crew of the day for Hunting Lodge. The staffer was very friendly and gave us a good campsite quickly. The crew worked well in setting up camp. I immediately worked on getting my tent set up, then changed clothes, secured my gear for weather, grabbed water and rain gear, then high-tailed back up to Cimarroncito to have a discussion with the Cito camp director about our crew’s situation and "head cons'" attitude and actions towards the crew. It took me 18 minutes walking full out to return up the trail to Cito.

The first thing I noticed when I got to the Cito cabin was that "head cons" had not signed the crew up for the 2pm cons like he said he would. The first time through Cito no crews were signed up for 2pm – now there were three signed up. The CD was personable, but could really do nothing to help the situation.

After the conversation with the CD, I waited around Cito hoping crews 1 & 2 would show up, but they did not arrive before we started our conservation work. At around 1pm my crew arrived at Cito, just as a thunderstorm moved in. We sat out the hour until cons on the newly constructed covered front porch of the Cito cabin. The rain was not hard but the thunder was loud and rolled through the valley.

At 2pm it was still raining, so our crew along with four other crews (for some reason "head cons" let five crews work the 2pm…) walked over to the Jewish chapel at Cito to listen to the cons talk. Rhys crashed during the talk and had to be wakened when the rain stopped and we moved to the work site. Elmer, Robert, Robin, Travis, & I were assigned a newly felled tree to cut into fireplace lengths. The trouble was that the tree was almost two feet in diameter and our bow-saws had about a 10 inch cutting depth. We decided that this project might be the most stupid use of free labor ever. In two hours of cutting, we managed to cut three pieces off of the tree – had to use an axe to cut a notch to allow a deeper saw cut. The saws were all DULL. With a chainsaw, I alone could have cut up that tree in about 10 minutes. To make matters worse, all three other cons guys came by to check on our progress and told us they would have let us work the 11am cons. We stopped working at about 4:45pm. Rhys was suffering from a little dehydration so we stayed up at Cito until about 5:20pm.

During our cons, crew 2 had arrived and checked in at Cito, so I found my way up to their “campsite” – Cito has bad campsites – and talked a few minutes while Rhys was rehydrating. We also had staff call to check on Elmer J’s and James B’s status. We were told both were released to home.

We walked back to camp at Hunting Lodge and the kids began dinner. Elmer & I bought our way out of KP that evening with ice cream cones for all crew members on return to base camp because we were to meet Hampton and Keith at the 7pm advisors’ coffee. They were walking down from Cito. Since dinner was not going to be ready until around 7pm, Marshall offered to bring the advisors our dinner down at the cabin when it was ready. Wow!

The advisors walked down to the cabin at 6:45pm. As we were passing the RRI near the cabin, John Moody greeted us. Crew 1 was taking a break on the way up to Cito. The rest of crew 1 was over near the picnic tables. They were almost done with a long day – Mt. Phillips camp to Cimarroncito. They were all a little tired, but were smiling and seemed to be having a great time. Seeing them this way lifted our spirits because we had worried a little about them.

As they prepared to walk on to Cito, Hampton & Keith and our supper arrived at about the same time. The food (mac & cheese) and the conversation were both good. At 7:35pm John – staffer – asked where the crew was, so I took our dirty dishes back up to camp and told the crew they had 20 minutes to finish eating and KP and get the oops bag done. They balked at the idea until I told them staff was expecting them and had something baking for them in the Dutch ovens. Then they began moving.

A group of “mountain girls” were also staying at Hunting Lodge and were roasting marshmallows when the crew arrived at 8pm. By then the advisors had moved from the picnic tables over to the cabin’s porch. We were offered fresh hot biscuits with butter and honey. Who could turn that down? The crew had started roasting marshmallows, but stopped that when they noticed the biscuits. The biscuits didn’t last 10 minutes once offered.

Hampton & Keith left a little after 8pm and we returned to camp to prepare for bed. We did our TB&R at 8:30pm. My thorn was the whole cons mess. My roses were the way the crew excelled in the day’s hike and the evening program. My bud was tomorrow’s downtime while the crew rode horses. I got into the tent at 9:10pm and went to sleep around 9:30pm after journaling a bit.

(journal of Shane Hoffman)