Santa Elena Canyons (GOT)

Today is our last day at Big Bend. We decided to drive all the way over to the other side, the western side of the park to the Santa Elena Canyon. It is about an hour drive. We passed our old friends the Chisos Mountains, we actually circled right around them and arrived at the Canyon. All I can say is WOW!!!. The canyon walls are 1500 feet tall. It is awe inspiring.

The trail crossed a dry stream bed and then climbs part way up the wall.  It is a bunch of switch backs so it is not too bad.  The Rio Grande is right there and it is very green.  You can't see very far down in to the water, it is not very clear.  It is very cool in the canyon and peaceful.  I think this was my best day in Big Bend. 

If you ever watch the show Game of Thrones, the Wall in the North is made of ice and I think I read that it was supposed to be 1500 feet tall. I had no idea how tall that actually is until I saw Santa Elena.

I am just going to show pictures of the day.

Chisos Mountains

In the center of Big Bend is a mountain range called the Chisos Mountains. Rough, rugged mountains just popping up out of the desert.

We drive to a place called Chisos Basin, right dab in the middle of the mountains. Nothing much there – a small store, a lodge where you can rent rooms and the visitor center. There are two hikes we want to do – one is the .4 mile Windows View trail (love the mileage on this one) and the Chisos Basin Loop Trail. As I said, the Chisos Basin is surrounded by the mountains, sort of like a volcanic crater. The Windows View trail takes you to an overlook where you can see a big opening in the wall of mountains. Evidently when it rains, all the water rushes down to this portal and then pours out of the basin. They even call it a pour off, imagine that.

Well, you can see the pour off in the background:

After we finished the Window View Trail, we set off on the Chisos Basin Loop Trail. I think it was 1.6 miles. It wandered through some woods, not the northern type woods, but sort of a desert type woods. I found this tree with really strange bark. I have no idea what type of tree it is.

After we returned back to the Rvs, we hung around for a bit and then headed out to the Rio Grande Nature Trail Walk. We wanted to time it right around sunset and we timed it perfectly. First you go through an area with a boardwalk over a pond. You are surrounded by tall grasses and it is a bird haven. Then you start climbing a hill until you get to the top where you have a great view. There is Boquillas Mexico on one side

More Mexico

You can see the boardwalk over the pond and then the RV park. Notice how close to the Rio Grande we are:

Grapevines

Grapevines

After walking the dog with Lou and complaining about my freezing night, I go back to my coach. Within a few minutes, there is a knock on the door and it is Davey with his ever present tool kit. He disconnected my CO2 alarm. I will buy a portable one next time I get to a big town. Until then, I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to a non-alarm evening – a warm, full night sleep.

Todays plan is to hike the Grapevine Hills Trail. It is listed as an Easy 2.2 mile trail. The description is: Follows a sandy wash through a boulder field. A short but steep climb near the end takes you to a large balanced rock. No shade.

In National Parks, dogs are not allowed on trails. They are only allowed in places that cars can drive which means Miko has to stay home.

We drive to the Panther Junction Visitor Center to get sort of an overview of the park and also to check out the gift shop. I really like park gift shops – I don't usually buy anything, but I like seeing all the site-specific things that they sell. T-shirts, post cards, books on birds or books on identifying animal scat. I just get a kick out of them.

To get to Grapevine Hills Trail, you have to drive down a gravel road for six miles. I think it would have been a lot more comfortable if we had been in a 4X4 type vehicle. I was really surprised that I had cell service out there. I mean, there was nothing out there but brush. I got a quick call to Tony which was so nice. I've been gone for two weeks now, which is the longest we have been apart ever. It was just so wonderful to hear his voice.

Grapevine Hills Trail was so much fun. You are walking along a sand trail between these huge piles of boulders and hills. The hills were created when molten lava expanded and just sort of pushed the ground up. Lots of cacti and strange forbidden looking plants along the way.

That is Lou – that tiny little piece of pink backpack up there in them darn hills:

 

Very Cool Rock:

Then we got to the “steep” part of the climb. They weren't kidding about that. It was scrambling over huge boulders. I was so impressed that the three of us made it to the top. It seemed like something that should be done when you are twenty years younger. I felt very righteous about being up on top. It was so worth it making it up there. The view back over the way we had come was like something out of a postcard. We got to the top and there was a huge balanced rock that we all stood under. We were on top of the world.

Notice my cool forest ranger hat:

And then we had to come down. Going down is much more scary than going up. I spent part of the time on my butt, trying to crab walk back down. Thinking to myself, where are the guard rails? If I go off the edge here, it is a long, long way down. Guard rails would really ruin the whole experience, but at certain times, I did miss them.

We made it all down safely and got back to the car. We had met a few people on the trail but most of the way we had it all to ourselves. It was a glorious day and a perfect hike.

Coming back home, we all scurried over to the little store where we could get internet access. It is shameful how much we rely on our electronics. That said, I certainly don't want to give up mine. I downloaded a star gazing app to help me identify the stars. The stars here are so brilliant.

Big Bend Here We Come

Going to be a long travel day today. Google Maps say 4 hours which mean 5 hours in real time.

The caravan takes off – Davey driving in the lead as normal. We have a little game we play where we try to one-up each other about our respective motor coaches. Davey and Lou have a Monaco Diplomat which is quite a fancy diesel coach whereas mine is more of a Middle-Class gas coach. I love to find things to needle Davey about and I finally found one thing to boast about – mine is better on hills. Of course, the fact that Davey has his coach in economy mode, well, we just won't mention that.

The country is rather pretty – pretty flat but hills off in the distance. Occasionally we have to go over them but they are rather mild. We stop for gas in Sanderson, TX because we were thinking that it would get more and more expensive the closer we got to Big Bend. I paid $2.09 a gallon which considering how much I was paying last year was a bargain. All the towns here sort of have a dusty hardscrabble feel to them. No big box malls around here at all.

Me trying to keep up with the Joneses:

We headed south from Marathon and drove about thirty miles to the Big Bend National Park entrance. It was another sixty miles, traveling in the park to get to our campground which is on the Rio Grande. As we drove through those sixty miles, I was just amazed at the scenery – sparse, but rather majestic. At one point, we came across mountains. I don't know what I was expecting – I guess I always think of Texas as flat, flat, flat and it continually surprises me with all the hills here. But directly ahead were mountains. Real live mountains! With snow on them. Come on now – I'm in Texas – what is this snow stuff? These are the type of rough craggy mountains – the harsh looking ones.

The Joneses Trying To Keep Up With Me:

We pull into the campground – we were hoping to get into the full hookup side of the campground but they were full. We ended up in the National Park campground which has no water or electricity. This is going to be my first dry camping experience. I'm a little worried because I think I have a malfunctioning CO2 alarm. It seems as soon as the coach batteries get to the point of not being fully charged, the alarm starts going off. But, we will see how it goes.

Lou and Davey and I are starting to get a few rituals going. It seems that at the end of travel days such as today, we tend to congregate at one of our coaches and indulge in lots of cheese, crackers and wine. Lots of wine. I'm not sure I brought enough wine for the trip. Either I'm going to have to buy some more wine or quit traveling so much. We sat in my coach in the dark with just a small candle glowing because I was afraid to use any electricity and run down my house batteries. Finally they got tired of sitting in the dark and also being cold (I had turned the furnace down really low – again, didn't want to use electricity) so they left and went home.

I was tired so I was asleep by 9:00. At 10:30, the CO2 alarm went off – my batteries were just a little less than full so of course it goes off. I hit the reset button which shut the alarm off and went back to bed. Fifteen minutes later the alarm is going off again. I shut off the main battery switch which finally shut the alarm off but shutting off that switch means no lights (ok, no problem – I'm sleeping) and no heat. I put another blanket on the bed and got some socks on and decided to tough it out. By 5:00, it was 32 degrees in the coach. The campground rules say that there should be no generators run before 8:00 in the morning so I would have to wait to start that up to recharge the batteries and get heat.

All I can say is Miko and I survived.