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Or In Search of Shade The Victims: Everyone asked me, "Why go to Big Bend now?" It was the middle of May.Texas was in a heat wave and drought. (Later, I was asking myself the samequestion.) Actually I had been asked by some UT graduate students to leada trip to Big Bend right after finals. I need even less of an excuse thanthat to go to Big Bend so I set up the trip. As it turned out, five of us,3 students, a caver friend and myself could get away for our May 18 throughthe 22 trip.Saturday morning I picked up Jennifer then met the others at SW7 on theUniversity of Texas campus. We were off by 9:40 am. My van was on it'slast legs. After 189 thousand miles the engine was about shot, It had noair conditioning and the tape player ate every tape it was offered. Wedecided to use the van as a mule for our gear and take Hu Dan's airconditioned Honda Accord for our travels around the park. We went out 290West, through Johnson City and Hye, where young LBJ used to go pick up thefamily's mail. The post office/ general store has changed very littlesince then and up until a few years ago, it was staffed by the same twobrothers who waited on the young LBJ. We stopped to look at a herd ofBuffalo and then went through the lovely little town of Fredricksburg. Fredericksburg was celebrating it's bicentennial and bright red, white andblue banners were every where. We picked up the pace at I-10 after Harperand turned South at Sonora. We'll return via I-10 but for the way out Iwanted to take the folks who hadn't been here before past Lake Amistad andover the Pecos River Bridge, the tallest suspension bridge in Texas. Thereis a nice little overlook at the bridge where we had snacks and I found apile of onions that had fallen off someones produce truck. We had onionsgalore for the trip. It was a short drive to Langtry and Judge Roy Bean'sLaw West of the Pecos Courthouse/ Bar. This is a favorite stop of mine. There is a lovely little cactus garden and a Texas Highway DepartmentInformation Center there. The air conditioning is cold, the restrooms areclean, and there are _lots_ of pamphlets for the collecting. The placeclosed at 5:30, shortly after we arrived so I didn't get to take as manyphotographs here as I wanted. After gasing the cars in Marathon, it wasSouth to the park. The entrance booth and Panther Junction ranger stationhad been long closed when we got there. We went directly on to the Basincampground and got the last campsite available. Hu Dan brought a batch ofprecooked noodles, vegetables and eggs for dinner that night. They tastedgreat! We ate, then took a very short hike away from the campground'slights to look at the stars. They were amazing. There always seem to bemore stars at Big Bend than anywhere else I go. It was easy to go tosleep tonight. Why does a day of driving make one so tired?Sunday morning I made breakfast tacos. Scrambled eggs, onions andcheese in a warm tortilla garnished with hot sauce and French onion dip isa hard camp breakfast to beat. After our overstuffed breakfast tacos, wewere off to the Panther Junction ranger station, museum and book store. Iwas in a bit too much of a hurry. Seems I left my Big Bend informationfiles on the trunk of the car as we left camp. Some nice folks in anothervan caught us at the ranger station and returned some of the papers I hadlost. I left the ladies at the station while I back tracked our drive. Itwas worth it. I found two of my books near our camp. The rest of myinformation was gone and not to be found. Oh well. On the way back I madea quick stop at the Basin turn off to look at a dead Trans-Pecos Rat Snake. Even dead, this was a lovely 3' long serpent. When I got back to theranger station everyone was more than ready to hit the trail. We drove 6miles down a dusty little dirt road to get to the 2.2 mile Grapevine HillsTrail. Even in all the heat and with so little rain, there were stillflowers that caught our eye. We stopped and looked at the orchid-likeflowers on the Desert Willow, some big yellow blooms on the EnglemannPrickly Pear and some bright purple flowered Devil's Head Cacti. Our firsthike was a good one but it was HOT! It was pushing noon and aproaching 100degrees. We made it out to a window of stacked boulders and later saw thatimage on post cards all over the park. Along the way we paused to look ata yellowish milipede and many lizards scattered as we hiked by. We thenhad a quick stand up lunch on the hot, bleak and barren parking lot of theBoquillas Canyon Trail. (Was it pity that caused us to buy floritecrystals from the sweaty vendors?) After lunch we took off on the 1.4 milecanyon trail under the unrelenting rays of the sun. Hiking from shadyplace to shady place was our method of crossing the desert here andeverywhere we hiked. It was a real treat when the bamboo made a littletunnel for us to travel through. Seon-hi found herself a fair sized patchof shade in the canyon and stayed there while the rest of us continued upthe canyon until the water met the cliff face. Sondra then waded acrossthe Rio Grande to continue up the canyon a bit and peaked around thecorner....only to see.... the next corner. The heat never quit that dayand to get the ladies into Mexico I had to bribe them with a boat AND apick-up truck ride to Boquillas. We got a young man to paddle us acrossthe river for $2 each. Then I got a truck to take us up the hill to the"city" for $3 each. We spent a couple of hours there hanging out at Jose'Falcons Resturant drinking beer and eating mini-tacos. The dusty littleresturant was empty when we arrived but it wasn't long before we were underthe watchful eye of Moma and her brood of kids. The eldest was the waiter/cook. The middle aged ones sold little woven bracelets. (Hu Dan succumbedand bought one.) And the youngest simply held out her hand. We traveledup and down the short street visiting little shops and bars, buyingt-shirts, colorful clothes, and more beer. Our truck was waiting for uswhen we were ready to return. No burro rides this time. In this heat theBUMPY truck ride was quicker and that was important. We were all ready for showers by then. (For some reason the hot springsjust had no appeal.) After cleaning up in the Rio Grande Village showerswe were ready to return to our camp. I fired up the BBQ pit for Seon-hiand she cooked some stur-fry and rice for dinner. I crashed out on mylounge chair right after stuffing myself. Sondra walked the Basin Windowtrail and got back late but doubly happy. (She had a great hike and wesaved her some dinner.) After a quick snack Monday morning, we were off to the West side of thepark. We had every intention of hiking the Burro Mesa Pouroff but therewas some construction going on around the turnoff and we just missed it. No matter. Plan two was to hike the 1.7 mile Santa Elena Canyon trail. Usually one has to wade across Terlingua Creek to hike this trial builtinto the wall of the canyon. This time there was a small 8' wooden bridgeacross the creek. The short hike was lovely and fun but it was still HOT. We hung out under a rock overhang at the end of the trail before returning. We then drove to Castolon and got a cool drink. There was some newcovered parking that I hadn't seen before. It was only palm leaves over aframe but it was more welcome shade. We also drove through CottonwoodCampground. The tall cottonwood trees there were in stark contrast to therest of the park we had seen. I wanted to catch a burger at the Starlightbut it didn't open until 5 so we ate at a little cafe at the intersectionof 118 and 170. After this nice little rest stop we made our way down tothe Barton Warnock Environmental Station to pick up some info on the newBig Bend Ranch State Park and then on to Lajitas. We all did a littlewindow shopping while Jennifer and I tried out some of the new frozendrinks in a bag. They tasted pretty good in this furnace. It was here, inone of the boating trip offices where we heard that Far Flung Adventuresmay close down for the summer due to the lack of water. (Back in Austin,this was the dryest May since the 1920s.) We waved at the Study Buttestore and rock shop as we flew by going back to our camp. We wanted towalk the 5.2 miles out to the window to watch the sunset. We made it withtime to spare. Sondra even hiked a bit up the Oak Springs trail andbrought back a lovely color filled rock to show us what was up there. Ireally must do that hike sometime. While we sat at the window watching thesun go down we met a couple of guys who had paddled Santa Elena Canyon theday before. They told stories of dragging their canoes and of feeding themby hand through the boulders of the Rock Slide area. Boy, we all reallyneed some rain. We hiked back from the window in the dark. Sondra, Hu Dan and Seon-hiwalked ahead and right past a herd of javelinas. By the time Jennifer andI came along, we were surounded by them. This was the first time I hadnoticed how bad those ugly little pigs smelled. We watched them for awhile and then went on our way while they went on theirs. Back at camp Hu Dan's ice cold watermellon was a great hit. I made upsome chicken fajitas and after a little more star gazing we all crashed. Sleeping was great in the Basin. Every night I had fallen asleep in mylounge chair and had to get up in the middle of the night to crawl into thevan because I was cold. Very, very Nice. Tuesday morning we split up our little group. Sondra took off to walkthe 14 mile long South Rim Trail. Hu Dan and Seon-hi snacked and preparedfor our day's outing while Jennifer and I went up to the Basin Lodge andhad breakfast. I've made it a tradition the last few years to have asausage, biscuts and gravy breakfast here at least once during my trip. Itwas as good as I remembered it. Jennifer had a filling stack of pancakes. We took a moment after breakfast to check out cabins for my brother, Bob. He and Kathleen made reservations two years ago for a cabin here thisChristmas (and they have invited me along). They are cozy little threeroom affairs with three double beds in them. Sounds like an interestingholiday. Jennifer and I bought more ice (something we did often) andreturned to our camp. We loaded up Hu Dan's Honda. We were so verygrateful for that air conditioned car. First we retraced our path of theday before. Again we were late getting out and again it was a blazinglyhot day. We gave it our best effort to hike up West Rancherias Canyon butwe hadn't gone very far before we were defeated by the sun and retreatedback to the car. The dead rattlesnake at the trail head should have been awarning. The sun was even too hot for this beast. It was a nice driveback. We stopped at the Tee Pees rest area for a luncheon under theseconcrete tents on FM 170. Sandwiches, watermellon and some of Sondra'sHabanero Cheese made a fine meal. We made another short stop at Terlingua to photograph the larger thanlife Wolf Brand Chili can, La Kiva, the ruins and the cemetery. When wepulled into camp about 5 that evening, Sondra was just cooling down in thecamp water spigot from her walk. She was all smiles. We gathered up ourshower stuff and took the 23 mile drive to the Rio Grande Village showers. (And still no takers for the hot springs.) Back at camp I fired up the BBQ pit, which took a while. Seon-hi thencooked some wonderful spicy meat on the grill. Some of us ate the meatover the last of the rice and others wrapped it up in the last of thetortillas. Either way it was pretty wonderful. After we had all digested a bit we made another attempt at finding thejavelinas for the people who missed them the night before. We walked a bitdown the Basin Window Trail. It was another lovely night and the starswere big and bright but there were no javelinas to be seen. Stories weretold. We heard some crunching in the woods and a fox barked a warning atus but our quarry must have been dining elsewhere tonight. We were allpretty worn out. After the short walk back we were very content to sitaround the camp the rest of our last night. It was a delightful quietending to another great trip. Wednesday's drive home was uneventful. We had several gasoline stops, anice burger stop and gave our regards to Paisano Pete, the roadrunnerstatue in Fort Stockton. I was back home after dropping Jennifer off at7:40 Thursday evening. Work at 7 am the next morning came very early but I had a great trip today- dream about. I want to express my thanks to my friends who joined me on thisadventure. Your conversation and willingness to help out with every aspectof the trip made it enjoyable for all. You were great! Note: The milage from Big Bend's Basin Campground to my West Austin
homeis just about 500 miles.
Links to related WWW sites:If you would like additional information on Big Bend National Park, check the GORP-Big Bend NP page.The 'Heart of Texas', Big Bend page.An interesting writeup on the Marfa Lights.Anther writeup on the Marfa Lights by Charlie Miller.A Magazine on the Big Bend area of Texas: The Big Bend Quarterly.Map of Big Bend |
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