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.