Philmont - Itinerary 9 - Day 7 - Day Hike to the Top of Baldy Mt., Baldy Town, and French Henry Camp, Monday, August 7, 2006
Day 7, day hike to the top of Baldy Mountain (elevation
11495 feet), to Baldy Town (elevation 9920), to French
Henry Camp (elevation 9600), and
back to Copper Park (elevation 10,400).
Total distance about 7 miles.
Today's hike proved to be the most difficult of the entire
trip. While the distance to the top of Baldy wasn't great (it
was only about 1.5 miles) it was very steep. During much of
the hike it was an easy matter to use one hand to steady
yourself as you climbed. Unfortunately the clouds moved
in as we summitted. It was cold and windy when we reached
the top so we didn't hang around. We were disappointed
to see that the skies cleared about 30 minutes after we left.
On the good side we had a good cell phone connection on
the way down from Baldy and everyone was happy to talk to
their families after being gone for over a week.
We dropped down on the northern side of Baldy and stopped
in Baldy town to shower and to resupply.
We then hiked to French Henry Camp where we took pa
t
in the gold panning and blacksmithing programs (we had missed
these activities on Sunday due to the rain). We couldn't
visit the mine as it was flooded because of the rains. The
hike from French Henry Camp wasn't far but we were tired
as we were carrying the food for from our resupply.
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