Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful......

Our first night camped at the Tres Ritos campground here in New Mexico was a chilly one. There was some question the day before about putting a tarp over a small tent that we set up to use as a closet for all the girls things and also putting a tarp over the pile of fire wood. We basically decided that since it was so beautiful that rain really wasn't a possibility and if by chance it decided to rain we would remedy the situation then. Well, 5 am rolls around and I hear the rain. I lay in my mummy bag thinking that surely one of the real leaders (I wasn't in charge this year) would get up and start throwing tarps over things. Finally I caved and hopped out of my cocoon of warmth and ran outside to start getting things covered. The actual camp director followed me out and when we got everything situated we decided to get some water boiling for hot chocolate. We decided to enjoy the quiet and sat there sipping our hot chocolate in the early morning of the day. It was now about 6 am and these little white balls started falling from the sky. I wondered if it was hail and one of the male leaders said "oh no, that's sleet- it will snow soon". Well, no sooner had he walked away did the heavens open up and dump snow on us. We had 4 inches of wet heavy snow fall on us in a matter of about 40 minutes. We had to start trying to get the snow off the tents before it collapsed them.
Oh, the fire is so delightful!
It may have been cold, wet and muddy, but it sure was beautiful. There is something magical and quiet and calming about snow. No one even really complained which was quiet remarkable for a group of 14 teenage girls!
I had to shovel the snow away from the tents so that when the snow started to melt our tents wouldn't flood with the run off. We only had this little portable shovel, so it took a while to get 6 tents out of the melt zone.

By the next day it was sunny, warm and dry. Crazy weather! We went on a hike and found these wild orchids just growing out there on the mountain. We found another set farther along the trail- awesome! I love hiking through the woods. It is just so beautiful and peaceful and you never know what you will discover out there. Something about it just seems almost sacred.

The other camp director, Wendy, and I tried out our wicked awesome skills with the dutch oven. Pretty impressive eh? What I shouldn't tell you is that the stack on the left was slightly sloping which lead to a near disaster when the lid of the top dutch oven was removed to check on it. That whole 1st oven went sliding off and to the ground. Luckily only minor damage was suffered and we had to come up with a different plan. All in all we had a fantastic time at camp. I came home thoroughly exhausted and coated in camp fire smoke, but truly loved every minute of it.