Big Bend National Park, Texas, Day 3-4
April 10th-11th
We woke up ready for a good hike up the mountain. We packed up camp and packed our food for the following days (we didn’t find the propane canister for our stove, so we prepared our dinner in advance.) The biggest issue was water- we had to pack 1 ½ gallons each for the two days on the mountain. We hiked from Chisos Basin to Emory Peak, 7, 825 ft through some scrub forest. We saw mountain lion scat, but not the lion and lots of Mexican jays, a bright blue bird that makes a lot of noise. On top of Emory Peak, we encountered some pretty strong winds. We descended a bit and continued into Boot Canyon, named for the rock in shape of an upside down boot, where we camped in a primitive camp site. The site was still well-equipped with two bear boxes for our food. After a 5-hour hike with our packs, Fabien and I stretched out in the afternoon sun and enjoyed the natural, remote surroundings. The wind started picking up after dinner, and by the time we were in our tent ready for bed, it was really blowing. It took us about 15 minutes to realize that our rain fly was acting as suction and was sucking dirt into the tent. Both of us were covered in dirt; it was even in our sleeping bags. Fabien went out and put rocks around the tent to hold down the fly and we re-tucked ourselves in for the evening. I lay awake listening to the sounds of the night, muffled by the raging wind, but I’m pretty sure I head scratching on the bear box in the middle of the night. The question is: what was it? I never got up the courage to poke my head out of the tent to see.
After a rather fitful night of sleep, we awoke to a calm, but cold morning. We spotted two white-tailed deer while packing up our site. We left our backpacks in a bear box and did a 1 ½ hour hike on the South Rim of Chisos Mountains where we had spectacular views of the Rio Grande River and the Mexican side of the park. We saw about 10 more deer, one who was breakfasting on a cactus which was a spectacular site (and noise.) We picked up our packs and started the slow descent back to Chisos Basin. Apparently they had to close the High Chisos to overnight backpacking a couple of days later due to the fire risk, so we were lucky to have had the chance to spend the night up there.
From Chisos, we drove down to another popular portion of the park, the Rio Grande Village, where we took showers ($1.50 each) and picked up a few groceries. Our second night in the backcountry was a little different in scenery. We took the River Road with our car to an off-road campsite in the middle of the desert. We watched the sunset, played cards and enjoyed having the luxury of our Coleman stove and cold beer. I also learned that when you’re driving off-road, you should watch out for prickly shrubs, they do scratch the car.
Tags: In English 2005-2006, Texas
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