AJ with his guitar as we get ready to hike out:
I woke up just after 5:30 at Lover’s Leap Campground and went for a walk to see if there was any wildlife. When I got back most of the scouts were up and busy. I filled and sanitized my water. Our tent was wet and muddy, so Matthew and I hung it up to try and dry it out while we were eating breakfast. We boiled some water and ate breakfast, and then everybody finished packing up. Matthew led a group devotion, and then we got on the trail a little later than we wanted. I was given the job of carrying the group’s trash.
We had to circle back on the trail because we were on the other side of the ridge below (you can see the top of the Tooth of Time).
We cut across a beautiful meadow , but when we got to the other side Spencer started feeling a little nauseous, so we took several breaks on the way up.
We eventually distributed some of the load from his pack to make it easier (given that he was sick, and started throwing up after lunchtime! AJ told him to throw up in a bag and hike it out – ugh). We had lunch on top of the Uracca mesa, which was absolutely gorgeous. We looked to the south and it stretched out for miles.
This was a picture of Matthew and myself when we reached the top of Uracca mesa.
The group ate lunch in a beautiful spot……
After lunch we saw three mule deer hanging out in the shade, and we saw more deer as we walked down the switchbacks to arrive at Urraca Camp, which consisted of a lodge with a meadow in front with the American flag run up a wooden flagpole. We were greeted and shown our sites. Mike Bodden was starving . Everyone was tired, but we only had an hour or so before the “challenge games” run by the staff. I walked up to the gathering point at 2PM, but I just started to feel so horrible that I went back to my tent. I had a nasty headache, started to feel nauseous, and then started dry heaving. AJ thought I was experiencing altitude sickness and would be fine in the morning (he was right).
Most of the scouts went to the challenge games, which were cooperation and ropes-course types of games, and from all accounts, they had a blast. They also started playing in the meadow with MikeB’s squishy ball. I crashed in the tent until dinner, but I couldn’t eat. At 7:15 they had advisor’s coffee, where I met up with Kaleb from EMC. At 8PM the Uracca crew was having a campfire for us, so I decided to go along even though I wasn’t feeling well. The campfire had lots of singing and storytelling. Uracca has a lot of “ghost stories” associated with it, and we all enjoyed hearing about it, especially about the kid that wanders around and says “I’m cold” (don’t touch him or you’ll die). Apparently there’s a legend about some sort of “blue light” that floats around Uracca late at night. The scouts also enjoyed one of the staff, a guy named “Sparks” that looked like a mini version of Jack Black.
After the campfire AJ entertained us with a variety of corny jokes, most of which had us laughing pretty good. We did “Roses, Thorns, and Buds”, had our final advisor meeting with AJ, and then fixed a bear bag problem (the oops bag caribeaner wasn’t secured properly!).
We hiked about 4 1/2 miles today.
