Scouting in the Pecos

I had made plans with my parents to take an eleven day road trip starting on Monday. We were going to stay with Jennie in Denver for a night, then head up to Great Falls, Montana to celebrate the Johnson Hotel turning 100 years old. That was to be followed by a week of camping in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Unfortunately, the trip had to be canceled. We got a call from my mom as we were driving home from our backpacking adventure. She let us know that my sister's husband, Ed, had fallen and was in the hospital with a serious head injury. He ended up having surgery the next day and my mom was needed to help support him and Jennifer. We were all disappointed for sure, but understanding of the situation which was entirely out of our control. As of today, he is still in the hospital, but no longer in critical condition. He seems to be improving and they are starting to talk about where to move him for rehabilitation.

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Ed's accident threw a wrench not only in our plans, but also in the plans Matthew and Jeb had made for our absence. They were looking forward to many late nights playing Shining in the Darkness and perhaps a scouting trip. Matthew still ended up going over to play video games on Monday night, and stayed late after archery on Wednesday as well. As for the scouting, we made it a family outing rather than a boys only camping trip. Hyrum and Mercy really wanted to show Abraham and I the fun spot they camped two weekends ago, and Matthew had a few areas he wanted to check out more closely, so we headed back up to the Pecos for the weekend.

We would have liked to leave on Thursday morning, since Matthew needs to take some time off or he'll stop accruing vacation, but I just got called as a seminary teacher and the first class was on Friday morning. I'm just observing until I get fully trained, but we felt like it was still best for me not to miss the first day, so we packed up and left yesterday morning instead. While we went to a repeat site, this trip was novel in that we brought Mabel with us for the first time. I got her final puppy vaccination and rabies shots earlier this week, so now she's safe to take to the woods. She may be innoculated, but she's still definitely prone to car sickness and vomited twice on the way up.

The dirt roads were rough, but not as terrible as Matthew made them out to be, and we arrived at our destination in the early afternoon. We set up camp, ate lunch, and enjoyed the hammocks for a while, then went on a bushwhacking scouting expedition. Mabel loved it! We didn't find any signs that were particularly promising as far as elk were concerned, but we set up some trail cameras to see what movement there might be in the night. 

In the evening we had a fire, roasted hot dogs and sausages for dinner, and enjoyed s'mores. Hyrum and Mabel fell asleep in Hyrum's hammock tent and stayed that way late into the night. Some inconsiderate campers on four wheelers parked just down the road from us and played extremely loud music from 11pm until nearly midnight. Hyrum couldn't handle the noise, so he made his way into the tent. To ensure the dog didn't get eaten by something bigger than her, she also got to come into the tent, though she slept in her crate.

We were up by 7:00 this morning and enjoyed a big breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and hot chocolate. I love backpacking, but car camping has some fun perks to it as well. The boxed pancake mix plus blueberry syrup was tangibly nostalgic for me. The kids really wanted to hang out at camp and play in the woods, so I stayed with them while Matthew went out to scout alone. They each built a fort and played a version of capture the flag, only they whittled or found treasures to guard and try to capture. They had so much fun, while I sat in a hammock reading a book, and Matthew found some fresh poo and some more potential hunting locations, so it was a win for everyone. 

Mere minutes after Matthew returned to camp, it started to rain. We ate lunch in the tent, listened to scriptures in the tent, read books in the tent, and otherwise spent about two hours in the tent while it torrentially poured outside. 

We peeked out and it looked as though it was likely to rain the rest of the day, so we decided to try and pack up during a lighter spell. It was a pain to take down soaking wet hammocks, and the sopping canvas bell tent was something of a nightmare, but we got everything loaded up despite the weather. If only we had waited about half an hour. Just as we finished stuffing the bulky tent into the back of the truck, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We figured we might as well take advantage of the temporarily blue skies, so we went on another short hike along long abandoned forest service roads looking for signs of elk. I'm glad we did because the woods were brilliant green and deep brown, all sounds were muted, and the air smelled so fresh. It was almost magical. The rain started up again about an hour later, just as we were returning from our walk, so timing ended up working out just fine. The drive down the mountain was terrifying. The amount of water that fell made driving in the mud akin to driving on sheer ice. A truck coming up the mountain got stuck in the ruts and nearly plowed right into us, then later on while on the freeway, an accident happened on the slick road right in front of us. Thankfully we were able to swerve safely to avoid it. 

We picked up dinner at Burger King, and got home tired but all in one piece around 6pm. Matthew and I then began the arduous task of dealing with a truckload of wet camping gear. Despite the rain, it was a really fantastic trip. The kids loved whittling sticks and building forts and generally running free in the forest. Plus, we saw more wildlife on this trip than we have in all our outdoor adventures so far this year. Matthew shot a chipmunk with his bow, which we roasted in the fire and ate with dinner. We had several cows walk through our camp, which fascinated Mabel to no end. Matthew spotted eleven turkeys while he was out scouting, as well as some grouse. We saw a bighorn sheep, four female deer, one very handsome buck with velvet 3x3 antlers, and to top it all off, we spotted 3 cow elk maybe half a mile down the road from our campsite on the way out. To lay eyes on elk makes any adventure worth the effort!