The Adventures of T&A

Between the wind, the traffic and the train, I got very little sleep last night.  The wind brought in a cold front, this morning the temp was 26 degrees, but thankfully, the wind died down.  We made coffee and tea on the tailgate and headed into Marfa for internet access.  

It seems nothing in Marfa opens before 9am, so we went back to Alpine, 30 minutes away and had coffee at La Trattoria, an internet cafe.  We stayed there through lunch and uploaded some stuff to the web.  At lunch we overheard that there is a fire in Big Bend and they’ve closed parts of the park, the Basin, where we were backpacking just a few days ago.  

We went to the library to work on some photos and videos off line.  Andrew is editing a video for our Big Bend Adventures and I’m sorting through hundreds of photos, adding notes and editing.  We closed the library and stepped around the block to Edelweiss, a restaurant and brewery (purely for research, of course!)  They had 4 beers on tap and their “Brewster Brew” was pretty good (this is Brewster County).  We sampled and then went to find our camp spot for the night.  Texas has picnic areas with no facilities that you are allowed to camp at.  The last one we camped at was nice and quiet and not too far from Alpine, so we’re going down the road to find another one.  Just as we were getting into bed, a police car pulled in, flashed his brights on our truck, then turned and left.  Maybe they were just checking for abandoned cars…

We decided not to hike this morning, we’re both still pretty sore and tired form our backpack.  We just took our time getting breakfast and packed up.  As we were heading out of the park, we stopped at the park office for a minute and passed a camper that looked a lot like our old camper, a SunLite, the one we sold two years ago in Georgia.  As we pulled in, we took a closer look at the bumper stickers on the back… IT IS OUR OLD CAMPER!!!  How strange!  We sold it in Georgia and now we run into it in one of the least visited parks in the National Park system!  We found Greg Scott, the new owner, just coming into the park.  He’s a birder and a photographer.  He’s never been to Big Bend before so we suggested a few spots and some likely birding areas.  We exchanged camper info and suggested places that shouldn’t be missed.  He told us about Maderas Canyon and we told him about the Arches/Canyonlands area.  We went into Alpine, the nearest little town, for some groceries and errands.  About dinner time we headed for the nearby “Marfa Mystery Lights” viewing area.  It seems there are these mysterious lights that have been seen for a hundred years or more in this area that haven’t been identified.  The Native Americans knew about them, cowboys and settlers reported them.  When approached, the lights disappear.  We waited all night, but didn’t see any lights.  The wind, however, was ferocious!  We felt the truck rocking all night in the gale force winds.

Another beautiful sunrise.  Since we hiked about 22 hard miles in two days, we’re taking it easy today.  We unpacked and stowed our backpacks and other gear in the “attic”, our Thule carrier on the roof.  We’re making coffee and tea ]when we’re greeted by some volunteers who are checking permits and cleaning sites.  Ed and Nancy Bump, i.e.. “Bumps on the Road”, are retired and traveling, for a couple of years and counting.  They live out of their trailer and volunteer for a couple of months at a time at different parks.  We talked with them for a while about our trip and our rig.  Ed talked about a similar setup he had years ago for fishing trips.  They had to go about their duties and we headed off for the hot springs to soak our sore muscles.  

The hot springs was packed with people, but after a minute, I could tell it was one family with five kids and a just one or two others.  We soaked for a while and talked briefly with some women who were trying to paddle up the Rio Grande.  They were having trouble with shallow water and the Mexican guy selling walking sticks on the other side helped them find deeper water.  

Since the borders tightened with Mexico, we can no longer go from the park across into little Mexican towns like Santa Elena (that got electricity the year before we visited in 2001), or Boquillas del Carmen (that didn’t have electricity at that time).  These little towns exist off subsistence farming and a little revenue from tourists that visit.  Tightening the borders really hurt these towns.  At the hot springs, every time we’ve been there, we’ve seen someone trying to sell walking sticks, rocks, jewelry, anything they think a tourist might buy.  

As we were leaving we talked with a German family that had just showed up.  The father translated, the mother and son didn’t seem to speak English.  We bid them “Aufwedersehn” and headed out for lunch.

We went to a little oasis for lunch called Dugout Wells.  Dugout Wells in a natural spring “seep” in the desert that has been “dugout” to increase water flow at some time in the past.  It’s now the location of larger trees and Cottonwoods and provides much welcome shade in the heat of the day.  We stopped there to make lunch and so did several others.  We ended up sharing our picnic table with some folks from Tennessee visiting their mother “who lives in Texas but is not FROM Texas”, as she was clear in telling us.  They had been to Big Bend many times over the years.  They gave us a chunk of some wonderful beef jerky that they had picked up somewhere along their travels.  Yummm… We cleaned up and headed up to our next campsite, Nine Point Draw.  We walked around the site a little and found what looks like an old homestead.  It looked like the foundation of an old building with lots of rusted cans and bottle caps, broken glass and broken porcelain plates.  I can’t believe the number of people who have tried to live out here in the middle of the desert!  We’re taking some time this evening to download some photos and computer stuff.  We plan on a day hike tomorrow morning and then we leave Big Bend.

Early morning start, heading for Emory Peak, 7,825 feet, the second highest peak in Texas (the highest in Guadalupe Peak, also on our list).  It’s about a four mile hike, but the last mile has a 900 ft elevation gain.  900 feet!  In one mile!  OUCH!!  We were feeling good about hiking today, despite hiking 10 miles yesterday.  When we got to the base of the peak, the last 40-50 feet was a rock climb.  It wasn’t hard from a climbing aspect, but the exposure!  Oh my god!  We were well over two thousand feet above the Chisos Basin, we’re on a rock outcropping that’s maybe 100 feet across, the wind was blowing and small birds called Swifts were soaring everywhere.  Holy #%@#, it was scary!  Ok, ok, we’re up here… take some pictures… GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!!   The climbing down was scary too, because you had to look down and you could see the entire basin two thousand feet below.  Yikes!  On our way down, again we run into our friend-who-looks-like-our-friend-Coyote.  With a full dose of adrenaline, we hiked 4 miles back to camp, rest a while and pack up to hike out.  On our hike out, we see more deer that didn’t seem certain about our intent.  We took our photos and went on.

We had scheduled to stay another night and even though we’d just hiked twelve hard miles, we opted to hike out early and splurge on a dinner at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, the only restaurant in the park.  Since we came out early, we had to get a permit to camp in the backcountry for the night.  When we got to the park office, we discovered that the park office in the basin closes at 3:30.  

We had to drive 20+ miles to the Panther Junction Office which stays open later, to get out permit.  The permits are free, but it does help disperse people and help in your camping enjoyment, but also let’s the ranger know where people are in case of emergency.  So, after getting our permit, we drove back to the Lodge and split a hamburger “Big as Texas” and did some serious damage to their salad bar.  And drank an entire pitcher of water!  We got to our camp for the night, stuffed our backpacks in the cab of the truck and fell asleep.  We’ll deal with unpacking in the morning. 

We set our alarm to get up early.  We want to get on the trail before it gets too hot.  On our drive in we see some javelina (hav-a-lina), a type of wild pig, crossing the road.  We’re hiking in the Chisos Mountains, an ancient volcanic geologic basin formation that is in the middle of the desert.  It’s only a 3.7 mile hike, but we gain 1,600 feet in elevation.  It’s pretty much straight up.  And there is no water anywhere on the trail, we have to carry all our water for our two days. At a suggested gallon of water per person per day, we would be out three days, two nights; we are carrying three gallons each of water at a total of an additional 24 pounds of weight.  This is in addition to our regular camping gear.  Heavy packs, but it’s a really neat area to spend the night.  As we hike, we can see the rock layers change in color and texture.  The vegetation here is very different than outside the basin.  Because of the steep canyons and mountains, this area seems to retain moisture better, so there are larger trees and different grasses here.  We got to our camp and Andrew suggested a snack of Ramen noodles for lunch.  This is when I realize I had put my titanium spork (we have two) in my cook kit last time we went backpacking on Cumberland Island.  Because we were carrying so much weight in water, I left my cook kit at the truck.  So, here we are at camp for two nights, six or seven meals, one spork.  What to do…?   I found a couple of dead sticks that looked kind of straight and carved up a set of chopsticks.    They worked great!  We set up camp and rested for an hour or so and took a day hike with just water and a snack.  On the trail we talked to someone from Belgium that suggested we visit Lueven, instead of Burgees when in  Belgium (we’ll have to look into that).  We did a loop trail that went along the south rim, about a 6 mile loop, and saw a few deer that weren’t too afraid.  I’m not sure if they’ve been fed by humans or not.  On top of our four mile hike in, we did ten miles of rocky trail with quite a bit of elevation gain.  By the time we got back to camp, we were tired!  

This morning we got the bike tires pumped up and chains lubed and we’re ready for a bike ride.  Our ride is about 1/2 mile to Ernst Tinaja.  This is a natural formation of rocks in hte bottom of a canyon runoff that holds water in times of rain.  The word “tinaja” means “earthen jug”.  The largest pool is maybe 10 feet by 25 feet oval, but several feet deep.  The sides are very deep and the rangers have said they’ve found a mountain lion and several deer that have drowned in the pool, unable to climb the steep sides.  The day we’re there, a vulture if floating in the water, victim to his thirst.  The colors of the sandstone forming the canyon are all the colors of the rainbow.  We saw some other guys there who told us about some dog racing in nearby Terlingua.  Chihuahua races!  We may have to check this out.  As we were leaving, we run into the guy we met in Pine Canyon that reminded us of our friend Coyote (we never did catch that guy’s name).

We rode our bikes along the dirt road, but I had no idea this ride would be this difficult!  It’s not the heat or the rocks, but the sand!  We rode through pockets of sand that sucked up all of our momentum and throws you off course.  We rode a little while, but the sand was too much for me.  I headed back to the truck while Andrew continued his ride.  

After lunch we packed up the truck and headed for the park office to get move water and see what they knew about Chihuahua races in Terlingua.  

Terlingua is a little town just outside of the park, so we head that way.  We’ve been to Terlingua on a pervious trip here and it was pretty much a ghost town (on the park map it is described as a ghost town).  This little town has grown in five years!  They now have a theater, bar and a couple of gift shops and art galleries.  And…. an annual Chihuahua race!  We’re in the Chihuan desert, so of course, they race Chihuahuas.  We saw several of the racers and their handlers strutting their stuff.  It was a hoot!  We talked to some folks from Albuquerque, NM, Ralph and Arlene Odenwald.  They told us about some mountain biking in the Terlingua and Lajitas area.  I took some photos of the old cemetery and adobe ruins.  We hated to go, but we had to get our backpacking gear together tonight.  

We found our site at Paint Gap and found we had neighbors.  We showered on the other side of the truck.  [smile]  We got our backpacked all loaded and ready to go.

Our campsite is the last one before the trailhead.  We’re sleeping in, or at least, enjoying the sunrise from the back of the truck.  We got ourselves together finally and headed up to the trailhead.  Shortly after we arrived, a park service truck pulled up and he headed up the trail, we assume, for trail maintenance.  Our hike started off in direct sun with a few low shrubs.  It’s about a two mile hike in and the first half in exposed and the second half is under trees and in the shade of a narrow canyon.  The trail ends at the base of a “pour-off”.  A pour-off is a low place in the canyon above that, during times of rain, the water collects and pours-off into the canyon below.  After a rain, this is a beautiful waterfall.  As we hiked back out, we saw something off trail and went to investigate.  It looked like some type of experimental station with two large water tanks and several plots of land roped off.  

Back at the truck we took a few minutes to eat.  We talk briefly with a guy who is hiking with his grandson in a few days and is trying to get back in shape.  He reminds us both of our friend Coyote in Tennessee.  Our days in the desert begin early, at day break, and we do our hike in the morning and try to be back by noon.  During the hottest part of the day, we are in the truck, with air conditioning, heading off to our next campsite.  Once there, we level our truck (usually with rocks under the tires), pull our the chairs and find a patch of shade.  Usually, it’s the shade of the truck.  We’ve used to solar shower a couple of times and it works great.  we have enough privacy to clean up occasionally.  In the dry desert air, we don’t sweat too much, but we’ve doused ourselves with sunscreen before hiking and we want to wash that stuff off. 

Our next stop in at Ernst Tinaja.  We camp nearby at La Noria, the closer ones are booked.  On the road in, we saw a couple of trucks that reported trouble with the 4-wheel drive road, but we didn’t have any trouble.  We took it easy in the afternoon and got the bikes down.   We have dinner, trying to clean out all the stuff in the cooler, so we don’t have to buy ice (at $3.00 a bag) to keep stuff cold while we are backpacking.  

At several of our campsites, we’ve seen tracks that might be mountain lion.  The park acknowledges there are about two dozen mountain lions in the park and have had a few recent sightings.  For the most part, they stay away from people, but they have had one recently that has been “curious” about humans and wasn’t scared off easily. 

A 40 degree morning and a gentle breeze.  All night I heard animals splashing in the river.  We sat an alarm to get up before sunrise, but by the time we got going, the sun was well into the sky.  Our hike today is from the hot springs to Rio Grande Village (and the village store with cold drinks) and back.  It’s a beautiful hike, along the Rio Grande for a while and then through the desert.  The hike was supposed to be three miles, but Andrew’s GPS showed it to be closer to four miles, one way; making our hike 8 miles round trip.  We took a break at the store with a cold drink and a bag of chips.  By the time we headed back, it was close to noon.  It was well past noon by the time we got back, but we got in the springs for a minute anyway.  Andrew stayed longer, but I got out and headed back the 1/4 mile hike to the truck… and the air conditioning!  After cooling off and drinking everything we could hold, we took off for our next site.  

Our next site is Pine Canyon, but I don’t see any pines, just flat, dry desert.  We are going to hike the Pine Canyon trail in the morning.  The signs around the trailhead warn of mountain lions in the area and caution hiking too early in the morning.  Darn, we’ll have to sleep in tomorrow! 

We had a beautiful sunrise at the picnic area and stayed for breakfast.  We were about an hour from the entrance to Big Bend.  Big Bend National Park is in the Chihuan desert in the southern tip of Texas, at the “big bend” of the Rio Grande River.  We stopped at the park headquarters and they were really busy, so we just sat in the parking and made a soup snack.  While we were there, we heard a big crash.  Someone from the Chisos Mountain Lodge (within the park) had just backed the company van into a parked car’s hitch-mounted bike rack!  They broke out their own back window and then left, with maybe 10 people in the parking lot watching.  One of the rangers did fill out an accident report when the bicyclist got back to his car.  The park office finally slowed down a bit and we went in to layout our stay.  Most people who are here are in large campers, so they are staying at the full service park campground, the Rio Grande Village.   We always go for the backcountry sites, down 4-wheel drive roads, so we pretty much have the place to ourselves.  Most of the backcountry sites here are quite a way from other sites, so you really have some privacy.  

Our first night is at La Clocha, near the hot springs.  The Hot Springs in Big Bend were commercialized in the early 1900’s or so.  There are still several structures standing and the primary foundation for the hot springs building.  The hot springs building is gone, lost in the frequent flooding of the Rio Grande, but the foundation still exists, creating a pool about knee deep to soak in.  We got to our campsite and just relaxed for the afternoon.  A week ago we were freezing in 10 degrees, and now we’re baking in 98 degrees!  It took us a little while to adjust.  We had enough privacy at camp that Andrew was hanging out playing his guitar in the buff.  Around sunset we drove over to the hot springs for a soak and on the way we saw a coyote crossing in front of us.  We met a couple of nice folks, one guy from Alpine and another couple who were school teachers from Texas, but they have a place in Grand Junction, CO.  They told us about how wonderful the city was.  We may have to take a closer look at Grande Junction, CO.

Later that evening we split our last beer and sat out by the Rio Grande watching a zillion stars. 

Aguirre Springs, Organ Mountains, outside Las Cruces, New Mexico.  The wind last night was incredible!!!  When night fell, the wind picked up, but it wasn’t consistent.  it would be a gentle breeze for a while and then a 35 mph gust.  This went on much of the evening.  We heard the wind moving our small plastic ladder and this morning it was 5 feet from the truck.  The wind rocked the truck much of the night but finally quieted down after 1 am.  This morning we went to the other side of the Organ Mountains to find a park called “Dripping Springs“.  This used to be a resort for the Las cruces community in the late 1800’s and several old wooden buildings still exist.  The springs were captured at that time to supply water to the resort hotel and a tuberculosis sanitarium.  The old catchment wall is still there.  We took a short hike, maybe three miles.  It was finally warm enough for us to hike in a t-shirt.

Our last stop before entering Big Bend National Park is Alpine, TX.  We stopped to get a couple of last minute things at the grocery store.  We weren’t going to make it to Big Bend tonight before they lock the gates, so we found a “picnic area” (with no facilities) along the road to camp for the night.