Day 8

Butterfly

Butterfly

Well, all we have to do today is get to our campsite, Iris Park. It's another Leave No Trace Camping Area, but there are no activities or stops along the way today.
Today we got up at seven. This was a nice change. The light outside and the noises of others who couldn't sleep woke me up, but I was determined to sleep. As tired as I was, I needed the sleep. We packed up camp in around an hour and a half, which was slower than hoped for.
We hiked about twenty minutes down the trail and came to a sign that said Upper Greenwood Canyon LNT Camping Area. We had missed our campsite again. No wonder we had such a hard time trying to find places to put each of the parts of our campsite.

Ladybug

On our hike, there were multitudinous stream crossings. Nearly everyone got their boots wet.
Iris Park has a windmill to work the well. The water still needs filtering and purification, but this was the first windmill we had seen at Philmont. We never could find a campsite map, but we searched everywhere around the area and it seems much more suited to a campsite here.
Our camp setup was not great; mostly it's the bear bags that are so hard to do. We finished everything up before it was absolutely pitch black outside, though, which was a change from last night.
That night, as we were going to bed, one of the crew members reopened a deep cut in his thumb. Luckily, it wasn't gushing blood all over his tent and sleeping gear. However, his tent-mate had to help us get down the oops bag and re-bandage his thumb so he would not get blood anywhere. Blood is extremely smellable.
Tomorrow we have a food pickup from Ring Place, so we are hiking with light packs.