Philmont ’98 – Travel to Taos

It was Saturday. July 4th of ’98. I had turned 15 just 3 days earlier. After many months of weekend hiking trips, multiple shakedowns, and a few trips to the old Birdville Stadium to climb the stairs, it was time. Time for my longest excursion in the wilderness. Dad and I got the road early that morning. I’d say sometime around 3am or so. We drove until the sun came up and then filled up somewhere. Probably Childress. Then kept on driving. We were in the old ’89 blue F150, that had its share of war wounds from the ’95 hail storm, and a questionable A/C system. I’d like to say that dad made that trip without a speeding ticket, but ol’ Smokey in either Claude or Clarendon probably got him. We passed The Big Texan in Amarillo and made our way north through Dumas(dad proceeds to tell story about back in the day when he and mom and my uncle came this way to Red River to ski and their car broke down in a “blizzard” and they call a tow truck from the CB radio and spent the night here) and Dalhart, finally crossing the border and made it Clayton. The famous outlaw ,Black Jack Ketchum, was hanged in Clayton after getting wounded and captured during a train robbery. By this time the weather had cooled down. Not alot, but still noticeable. The next 80+ miles to Springer has got to be the longest, most boring part of the drive. Nothing, absolutely nothing to look at but the emptiness of the dried up land. Arriving in Springer, we headed up I25 a few miles to fill up at the truck stop and proceeded east down 58. Dad points tries to point out certain features of the mountains from when he came as kid to Philmont. We make it to the village of Cimarron and had lunch at Heck’s Hungry Traveler. We didn’t hang around town for long as we still had to make it Taos.

We loaded back up and took the windy and curvy road that paralleled the Cimarron River up through the canyon, taking the north part of the Enchanted Circle through Red River and down into Taos. I was mesmerized at the views and just didn’t know what to think of it. We made it to the Sage Brush Inn, on the south end of town,  and checked in. There was a small group, from the two crews, that wanted to arrive early and go rafting down the Rio Grande on the 5th. They arrived shortly after us and we went swimming and hung out in the hot tub. I’m not sure if dinner was at the Pizza Emergency or if it was downtown at this bar/restaurant. I’m not sure the name of it, but they had a shuffleboard table. Either way, they next day for dinner we had the other.

On the 5th we got up and had the complementary breakfast(eggs bacon biscuits gravy etc) and made our way down to Pilar where the rafting took place. There were a few charters that launched out of the same place. Far Flung is the one they had chosen. We loaded up in a bus and made it to the ‘put in’ area. They showed us the in’s and the out’s and what not to do. We were on the water i’m guessing maybe 2 hours or so.

The rest of the day we just chilled around town. Did a little shopping and site seeing. A few people, dad included, drove down to the Taos ski valley and then to the Rio Grande gorge bridge.  The majority voted to stay back and we ended up watching Sex in the City on HBO. I’d never heard of the show before, but the episode was titled “The Power of Female Sex” I believe that was/is the only episode I have ever watched.

The next day we got up and headed back through the canyon and finished up the Enchanted Circle and made it to base camp.

to be continued…..