big bend trip '98
here is my really long account of my trip to big bend last june. i put up some pictures which you can see by clicking that link.
in the summer of 94, I got to travel with my best friend jeff and his dad and little brother to west texas for four days. during the trip, we camped in big bend national park and trekked over quite a bit of the area, visited the ghost town of terlingua, walked through fort davis historical site, camped in the davis mountains state park, and took a tour of the mcdonald observatory. the trip was a great deal of fun, and it made an impact on me--so much that after a little while I became almost obsessed with going back.
well, it took four years, but I finally went back. this time around, it was jeff and me, and paul (5th member of the legendary jonny g men). obviously, no trip that includes nearly the same route and destinations of a similar trip four years before would be complete without some comparing and alluding to. as it was, jeff and I spent much of the trip reminiscing about the previous trip and talking about how things were different from the last time. lots of things about this trip were similar to the first trip--we rode in the same truck (jeff's dad's truck), stopped at pepper's (a gas station in del rio), took a break at the pecos river bridge, camped in the basin in the chisos mountains, hiked to the window, attended park ranger programs after dark, etc., etc., and we brought along a microcassette recorder to make a tape journal of the trip, just like the first one.
this trip took a lot of planning--jeff and I had been talking about it for years, perhaps, and the personnel of our group changed throughout the planning. originally, it was to be the original 4 jonny g men who would venture out to the magical lands west of the pecos. however, jon never said he could go (in fact he really couldn't, he had vacation bible school to attend), and sal was going to join us up until the point when he learned that he couldn't get off work for the week (he got a job at the hyatt hill country resort, and as it turned out, they were a little short-handed, and his boss would not give him days off to go on the trip). paul filled the void left by these two--and filled it well, as you will find out. we met one day the week before to determine the cost of the trip--we actually planned out which foods we wanted to bring and how much--down to the very last slice of cheese.
on the night of Sunday, june 7, 1998, paul and I met jeff up at HEB after he got off work, and we purchased all the food for the trip. we went to jeff's house and slept in his living room for the night, and woke up around 5 so we could leave around 6. once we had all the gear packed into the truck's toolbox, all our bags in the cab, and the coolers and food in the bed of the truck, we took off. jeff drove, I was in the passenger seat, and paul sat in the back seat. progress was slow, but that is normal, as it is about a 7 or 8 hour trip to big bend from san antonio (depending on how fast you go and how many stops you make in between). early on we started a roadkill count, tallying each dead carcass we encountered. later in the day we also started a stranded car count, which was less numerous, but at the time seemed appropriate.
we made it to del rio in good time, and stopped at pepper's--the first place we revisited, technically. jeff and I go a long way back with pepper's--actually only four years, but I have seen pepper's every time i've been to del rio--including the two times I was with the marshall ram band going to football games. I bought two scratch lotto tickets (both losers), jeff filled up on gas, paul and jeff bought honey buns, and we were back on the road. soon we came to lake amistad, and we were greeted by our first clue that west texas had received very little rain during that season. the lake was 50 feet below its normal level, and boating was out of the question, as we learned from the park radio station.
a little while longer, we came to langtry, home of judge roy bean's house. the visitor's center had been remodeled since the last trip, and I think bean's house itself had seen some remodeling, too. the large cactus that I had photographed the last time around was no longer standing, but the cactus garden was still there in all its dried-up glory. no one was there in the visitor's center to answer questions or help us out, just a janitor cleaning up outside.
after a quick snack, we hit the road again, this time paul was driving, jeff was in the passenger seat, and I was in the back. it took paul a little while to get used to the clutch in the truck, but eventually we were back on the highway and heading west again. despite my vow to stay awake for the rest of the journey (I fell asleep for this part of the trip last time), I fell asleep for about 20 minutes (according to jeff) but then I stayed awake the rest of the drive. much of the scenery was new to me--the entire stretch of road between langtry and marathon looked alien to me, as I was truly laying eyes on it for the first time.
we reached marathon around lunch time and parked the truck near some train tracks. we had seen a train approaching marathon down the track, so we placed three pennies on the track, and waited for it to pass. paul counted 100 cars (if I remember correctly), and once it was gone we ran back to the tracks to find our pennies. unfortunately, the train kicked up the pennies and scattered them all over. we were able to find only one penny, which paul was able to determine was jeff's penny. paul and I were left penniless, and we returned to the road, now headed south on 385 with jeff driving again, me in the passenger seat and paul in the back once again. we stopped for lunch at a windy picnic table, and jeff and paul relieved themselves over a fence while standing on a ladder (actually, jeff did that, paul actually went over the fence and found himself a horrible spot that he warned us against).
another hour or so later, we reached the entrance to the park. jeff and paul ogled over the gate attendant who took our money, gave us a map, and warned us about bears in the mountains. we briefly stopped by at panther junction (park headquarters) and learned that one of our favorite trails, the lost mine peak (where we previously had taken pictures of us falling off a cliff), had been closed down temporarily due to mountain lions that had been spotted in the area. actually they found a single mountain lion on a trail nearby that is about two thousand feet below our beloved lost mine trail. apparently mountain lions can fly from one trail to another two thousand feet above.
however, we weren't about to let one setback destroy an entire vacation. we drove up along the windy, windy, road that leads into the basin. once there, we picked out a campsite (campsite #1) and began to unload our gear. the tent went up, and the food went into the bearproof boxes (the rangers had installed bearproof food holders at every campsite). we still had a few hours of daylight left, so we decided to hike down to the window, the narrow gap made in the rocks by a creek that pours out through it. four years ago, we were able to ride horses down to the window, but a year or so later the company that had the horses left big bend, and so this time we had to walk it. we took some pictures and came across many people along the trail, and wound our way between and through lots of rocks. finally we came out to the window and looked out its gap. normally there is a creek that pours out through the window, but as I mentioned earlier, west texas had not received much rain at all in the months preceding our trip (we found out later that the park had received .58 of an inch of rain since january. thus there was no creek, and we were able to put ourselves right up to the edge of the pouroff. it was incredibly windy--a constant gust of wind beat on us and refreshed us for the return trip. however, refreshing as the wind was, the return trip was more tiring than the initial hike, and by the time we made it up to the lodge above our campsite, the three of us were exhausted. we went into the lodge's nice restaurant all hot, sweaty, and tired (and unshaven). some people complained and asked waiters to ask us to leave, but fortunately for us, the waiters instead got us some tea and water.
before returning to our campsite, we watched some tv in the lobby, and laughed at the wcw wrestling. we went back to the campsite and decided to attend that night's ranger presentation in the amphitheater. that turned out to be a bust. we drove all of 50 feet from our campsite (we were still too tired to walk anymore) to the amphitheater, and it was a really long and boring presentation. we went back to our tent annoyed at the length of the show, and a bit angered that we had missed the sunset--sunsets are particularly spectacular in the basin--just look out at the window, and you have one of the most amazing sunsets you'll ever see. however, I was not able to take a good picture of it--it was too dark and I waited for the next night to take a picture (and that picture did not come out very well).
the next day we decided to hike up to the top of emory peak (7825 ft), big bend's highest peak, and the second highest in texas. to get there, we had to hike up the pinnacles trail, a grueling set of switchbacks (trails that zigzag back and forth up a mountain). on the way we came across a baby possum. at first glance, we thought it was dead, but upon closer observation, we noticed it was still breathing. after taking some pictures of it, we ventured on, despite my concern over contacting a ranger (jeff and paul insisted that the rangers would not care about the baby possum because "things die in nature"). we passed an oriental man watching birds, and a family of hikers. when we reached the trailhead for emory peak, we had only one more mile to go to the top. however, it was a really tough mile. it started off much like the pinnacles trail, full of switchbacks and steep walking, but then came a brief period of flat ground, a section of rocky terrain that was tough on ankles, and finally a climb up a rock wall. we reached the top nearly 3 hours after we set out that morning, and briefly regretted that we hadn't brought food for lunch up there. the view was amazing. from the top you can see the entire basin, the road that winds into it, the window, casa grande (a prominent feature of the basin), the lost mine peak, and way off in the horizon, the rio grande and santa elena canyon. we rested a bit longer and headed back down. the way down was brutal on ankles and calves. though we made much faster time coming down, we were in more pain. we rested at our campsite for a little while and decided to go to the hot springs to revive our legs.
the drive out to hot springs took about 45 minutes, and we passed some construction workers along the way (including a girl that jeff 'ooh-ed' and 'ahh-ed' over). we reached the hot springs trail, one of the shortest in the park, and soon jokingly (or mockingly) dubbed it 'the most treacherous trail in the park' (really for no reason at all). the hot springs weren't quite so refreshing as we had planned on, but we relieved ourselves into the rio grande to make up for it and headed back. we then drove out to boquillas canyon, a portion of the rio grande that is only accessible by boat (so far as I could tell). then we visited the rio grande village, another campground in the park. finally we returned to our campsite in the basin, and attended another show in the amphitheater. this one was much more entertaining--actually it was better simply because it got the audience involved, getting us to think of the various parks and forests around the u.s.
the next morning we had originally hoped to hike the lost mine trail, but it was still closed. so instead we drove out to santa elena canyon, after packing up our gear into the truck. four years ago we went to the canyon, but we could not hike the trail, because a creek 5 or 6 feet across blocked our way. later a bridge was put in, but that bridge was unnecessary this time around, as there was no creek (for once the lack of rain this year turned out to be helpful). we hiked the trail through the canyon (or rather into, because the canyon continues on much further, but after a point it is accessible only by boat), and went as far as we could go on foot. we threw sticks across the rio grande and occasionally succeeded in hitting the rock wall on the mexico side. that is, paul and I did, jeff never could get it all the way across.
we drove out to the park's west entrance/exit by way of the old maverick road (a dirt road that is slightly maintained). actually it was a relatively smooth ride, though it was the closest thing we found to the off-roading of our last trip. we exited the park before noon, and drove up highway 118 north to alpine. jeff warned us that this road was somewhat hilly and had made him sick in the past, but there was little to fear. we reached alpine close to noon, and ate a picnic lunch in a city park. we were lucky to have some entertainment during our meal: from our picnic table we could see a community pool where some local kids were taking leaps off the diving boards, and making fools of themselves in all their mediocrity. only one of them showed any merit, but after he managed a one and a half flip, he followed it up with a belly flop.
Will Jeff, Paul, and Will make it to Fort Davis? Will Jeff find love on the way? Will the kid recover from his belly flop? All this (well some of it anyway) and more on the next page.
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