Desert Hikes (12-02-14)

The main attraction at Big Bend National Park is the hiking- so that’s mostly what we've been doing while we've been here in Terlingua.

Ok, well maybe that’s not quite all we've been doing.  We did have a bourbon tasting session, courtesy of Dave….

I told them to act drunk and this is the best they could do.  At least they tried! 

Anyway, as you can see, we are having quite the fun time here.  And we have gone on quite a few hikes.





What’s nice about having the six of us here is that we can do things together, or we can go off on our own.  We did a little of each over the past week:

Nancy hiked with Paul and I to the Mule Ears Lookout.

 

It was about a 4 mile hike, and we agreed that the mule ears looked more like an eagle or Batman or something.

We all hiked to the Red Buffalo. This is a short hike, about a mile and a half, but there is no trail, so you have to find your own way through the desert.

I had the breadcrumb trail on my GPS from the last time we hiked this, but it didn’t help much because we didn’t really know where we were going last time- we meandered a lot.  This time we found it a lot faster.

So, “it” is a  pictograph of a buffalo.  The rangers don’t want hoards of people flocking to it, so there is no trail and it isn’t on any maps. Paul and I found out about it from someone who volunteered at the park, and we have hiked to it several times.



On the way back we saw two rabbits- one ran away pretty quickly, but this one decided to pretend he was a rock and just hoped we would go away.





Paul and I hiked the 5 mile long Chimney trail by ourselves.  The trail leads across the desert to some rock formations called the chimneys.

The canyon in the background is Santa Elena Canyon.

The rocks were fun to climb on, but they are also interesting because they contain Indian rock art and some ruins left by the previous Indian inhabitants.



 
We all took the scenic drive over to Santa Elena Canyon.  There is so much more water in the river right now, it looks like a different place!




Some of us had an impromptu contest to see who could throw a rock into Mexico (at least halfway across the river). Its a lot further than you think (that’s my story, anyway) and some of our rocks barely made it into the water at all- Paul is the only one who participated who actually threw a rock into Mexico.

This canyon is gorgeous and always makes for a good hike.

Julie and Mike hiked with Paul and I to the Burro Mesa Pour Off.  Basically, this is the path that water would take if it rained, so it’s not a trail you’d do in bad weather. I forgot my camera so we had to take pictures with Paul’s phone.

 


It was a fun, 4 mile trail, but had a fair amount of rock scrambling, so with Julie’s bum knee, she and Mike elected not to go all the way to the end.

Right behind Paul is the Pour Off- the drop just beyond where he is standing is about 130 feet to the desert below.

 

We have also hiked the lower Burro Mesa trail and have seen the pour off from the bottom. Here’s a picture of Paul from 2009 when we hiked the lower portion.





Random Question: Why did the tarantula cross the road?

Big Bend National Park, TX (2-19-11)

February 19, 2011
      I wrote this blog on February 19th, but I don’t know when I will be able to post it, and the pictures that go with it. The RV park we are in has horrible Wi-Fi- essentially non-existent, and AT&T just sent me an email and a text to tell me that I am not on their network and have not been on their network for quite some time, so I need to stop using the internet on my phone until I am. Ugh.

       One day, three adventures. That’s the best way to describe yesterday. We drove across the park to start our first adventure- a hike to Ernst Tinaja. A tinaja is a basin that contains water, I guess, since that’s what we found once we hiked into the canyon. Its not something you’d want to fall into accidently either. It’s really deep, with steep walls of stone, so it would be just about impossible to get out by yourself. The rock formations were really cool in that area and were fun to climb.



 



Ernst Tinaja

       The drive to get there was a little bit hairy. Old Ore Rd. is an old dirt road that is not well maintained. In fact, it’s the worst road our truck has ever been on. Some of the ruts were 3 feet deep and there were boulders sticking up out of the road. Add to that the fact that the scrubby, thorny plant life encroaches on the road, and driving was a very slow process. After walking too many miles the day before though, we were trying to get as close to our destination as possible. Several times Paul got out of the truck and walked the road to see if he thought it would be passable. Eventually, the answer came back “no”, and we had to park the truck and walk the rest of the way. It wasn’t too bad though, we only ended up walking a couple of miles.

       Once we hiked back to the truck, was only a 3 mile ride to get to the hot springs. Unfortunately, by this time, it was about 89 degrees outside, but we decided that since we were that close, we had to go. This hot spring is located right next to the Rio Grande River, and we’ve been there before. I actually ended up splashing cold river water on me more than sitting in the hot spring, but we got to chat with some interesting people.







 After leaving there, we drove down Croton Spring Road. Most people who drive down that road are looking for the spring, but we were looking for something else. Paul had heard that there is a petro glyph on the underside of a boulder and he was on a mission to find it. Me, I was just tagging along, wishing that my GPS battery hadn’t died, so I could at least play with it as we walked another 2 miles.

       We did find the “Red Buffalo”, but I honestly thought the rock formations in that area were more fascinating. There were some that looked like prehistoric bowling balls. Another busy day in Big Bend.
     Although yesterday was supposed to be our “easy” day, it is a 60 mile drive just to get to the other side of the park, so while we were there, we wanted to make sure we did every thing we wanted to do on that side, so we wouldn’t have to go back.


        Today was the long day. We were on the road by 7:30 am, and on the trail by 8:45. Our goal was to hike the Southern rim of the Chisos Mountains. It’s a 12.5 mile hike, with 2000 ft of elevation gain, and it tops out at 7400 ft above sea level. This is the longest hike I have ever done, so I went through the packs and made sure that we really wanted to bring everything that was in them, because with the temperatures predicted to be in the high 80s, we needed to bring extra water (which is way too heavy). Even though the temperatures were still in the 50s when we started out, I left my sweatshirt behind, because I didn’t want to have to carry it after the first 30 minutes. It was a bit chilly at first, but after climbing for a while, suddenly it warmed up.

        We met, passed, and were passed by, several groups of people all day on the trail. We would pass them, and then when we took a break, they would pass us, etc. Sometimes we took a break at the same time and chatted with them for a few minutes. We followed closely behind a mountain lion for a little while, so I had my camera out, just in case we caught sight of him or her. We didn’t, but we saw the fresh prints on the trail and other evidence as well (apparently wild cats cough up fur balls and grass just like domestic cats).


cat tracks along the trail



       Once we made it to the rim, we relaxed and had lunch. There was a haze today that negatively impacted the visibility, but the views were still incredibly impressive. After about 7 hours, we arrived back in the parking lot, where we treated ourselves to an ice cream before heading home.





 

view from the South Rim trail



   We had a great visit to Big Bend, just like we did last time we were here. This time around we actually went out "on the town" in Terlingua. There’s a bar called La Kiva (the cave) that is partially underground, and has an area that IS a cave where you can sit and have a drink (we sat outside instead though). We went there for happy hour before heading to the Starlight Theatre for dinner. It’s called the Starlight Theatre because years ago, when the building was in ruins, and without a roof, they still began to have performances there, under the star light. Nowadays there is a roof, but the original walls are still there. Very interesting place. Dinner was good, although expensive.