Wednesday, July 7th (Day 12)

4:02 PM
Well, I was going to write more last night, but I dropped my pencil on the Tooth of Time and it fell in a crack. Darn. Like I said before, our whole troop went to the top (except for a few early sleepers). By the way, there was no trail to the top, 'cuz the whole tooth was pretty much just a giant heap of rocks. The view from the top was awesome. It was kinda sad,too, since it was the last really great view we had. I was all bummed out after that.
This morning, we left for Base Camp, which is where I am now. It's nice being clean! I completely used up half of one of those hotel soap bars... dang, was I dirty. I like wearing clothes that haven't already been worn for five or six days. And my tennis shoes feel really weird after seventy-two miles in my boots. Ribs, green beans, salad, fruit, and POTATO CHIPS (!!!) for lunch turned out to be perfect for first real foods. I've already been to the trading post; I've spent over a hundred dollars on a belt, buckle, Philmont nalgene, map, hundredth anniversary Philmont Patch, and a couple other little things. It was all worth every cent.

It was a little hard parting with all of that money, but like I said then, it was worth it. I traced the trails we took on the regional map, so know I'll be able to remember for the rest of my life. That's a pretty great souvenir, I'd say. Some more advice that I'd give to all future trekkies would be to take a second sleeping bag for off the trail... after that first shower, your sleeping bag from the trail is suddenly disgusting.