First Impressions {iwgbtp}

Almost daily, I continue to remember little moments from my summer at Philmont. The fun, the hard, the disappointing and the hilarious moments. I want to share some of them. In no particular order. Just as they come to me.

The first story is about a cat. Little Grim, the quickly growing kitten of Harlan. I met him when I passed through Harlan with my 3rd crew in early June. The staff warned everyone of his unpredictable and usually aggressive behavior. I really didn't understand what they were talking about as the cute little puffball fell asleep in my arms. Maybe I was just a cat whisperer.

Fast forward two months. 

I was with my last scheduled crew of the season. The night before, I had talked so my sister crew ranger, Parker, and we had agreed to hike back to the bus turn around together. We said goodbye to our crews and left Lost Gap camp. We tumbled and slid back down the incredibly steep road that we had hiked up the evening before. As we neared the bottom, we came upon a crew who was huffing their way up. They stopped and called to us, asking if we'd return a certain cat who had been following them since they had left Harlan that morning. There, sitting behind one of the adviser's legs, was Grim who was now grooming himself. I looked at Parker, not sure of what to do. We had been planning on hiking straight to Cito turnaround and going to Harlan would be a slight detour, making it more difficult to catch the first, and possibly only, morning bus.
The reliability of the bus system was about as good as telling a three year old to clean their room and expecting them to actually pick up more than 5 things before you have to tell them again. So, the earlier you got there, the better. Being stranded for hours wasn't unusual at all so getting there as soon as possible was in our best interest.
But, we couldn't just leave the cat with this crew, who didn't seem too keen on turning around. We agreed to take him back to his rightful home. He protested as I picked him up. We finished descending and turned towards Harlan. Grims struggling became more and more violent as we went and I nearly lost my grip on him a few times, knowing full well that if he made it out of my arms, we'd have a heck of a time getting him back. I assured the cat that we'd be home soon and that I'd put him down there. Several times he threatened to bite and scratch me so I'd hold him by the scruff and let him hang until he calmed down. This battle went on all the way to Harlan as I began to regret ever agreeing to this task. The cat obviously didn't want to go back right now.
We were on the outskirts of the camp when he seemed to calm down. I held him closer and, unwisely, near my face. Big mistake. He lashed out and I felt his teeth hit my chin. There was hardly any blood but thank heavens we were there because I was done with this cat! He definitely wasn't the sweet kitty I had met weeks earlier. We arrived at the cabin and I set him down on the porch. A staff member came out and we explained what had happened. He just shrugged and said that it happened all the time. I was a little hurt that I didn't even get a "thank you" but it was early so he had probably just woken up and wasn't fully awake. I, on the other hand, was definitely awake. And we still had a bus to catch...

P.S. We missed the bus. We saw it's dust trail as we neared the bottom of the mountain. Thankfully, an unscheduled bus arrived as we made it to the turn around. All in a days work.