This page of photos are from Day 7, Mount Baldy. It was the peak experience of the whole Philmont trek! Our fearless crew leader got us up at Ute Meadows (9200 feet) at 4:00 a.m., and we were hiking by headlamp at 4:20, well before any day light. Unfortunately, we got a bit lost in the dark and wasted about an hour. But we still made it to the top (12,411 feet) before it started clouding up. We cooked a couple cans of SPAM at the top that we carried from the SPAM Museuem in Minnesota, and Jasper played his bugle at the top. Classy! We went down the back ridge and into French Henry, where we did some blacksmithing and panned for gold. Then on to Baldytown where some of us got quick showers and we picked up five days' worth of food for the remainder of the trek. It started raining that afternoon. We think we hiked about 12 miles that day.

- Tom Arneberg (toma@arneberg.com)