Park hopping

Though I had a crappy night's sleep I decided I didn't want to wander around smelling like a dog so I took a quick 'bath' at the camp restroom and then parked up by the visitor's center. It didn't open until 9 so I had some time to wander around a nature loop that goes around the center to some old ruins from a Butterfield stage post. The Butterfield stage was a per-cursor to the pony express that delivered mail and people across the country via various 'stages'. The buildings are mostly just shells so it wasn't super interesting but still fun to read and learn about.



After returning from the loop the visitor's center was open so I went in and perused their exhibits and then asked about trails. The lady working there was very helpful and even gave me information about Carlsbad Caverns which was my next stop. She recommended 2 hikes to me: Smith's Springs and McKittrick Canyon.



The trail to Smith's Springs starts at the Frijole Ranch. This is an old homestead that is maintained by the Park Service and has several buildings and a spring on-site. The house is actually quite large for the time and there were several exhibits inside that were interesting. In the back of the home they have a small orchard, planted by the boy scouts, with heirloom fruit varieties. The irrigation channel still in use today was built in the 1800's and is a simple stone lined causeway.



The trail to the springs goes in a loop and had a guide with a few stops in it. The first part of the hike is open desert and then goes into a wash that is lined with trees. One of the prettiest is the Texas Madrone which has a beautiful bark and pretty flowers in the spring. As you head up the wash you encounter Smith's Springs which bubbles quietly under a shaded outcropping of rock (making it hard to take good pictures). I figured out when I got to the springs that I had actually gone backwards on the trail (oops). The trail back is covered at first then gets back into the high desert and wraps around to Manzanita springs which looks like a small pond in the middle of the desert. There were fish in the water and a number of birds flying by including a golden eagle. As I was wandering around the pond I startled a deer who ran off into the trees, upsetting the eagle who talk off to parts unknown. Back at the ranch house one of the volunteers wanted to talk to me about the Prius. It's quite the conversation starter!



By this point it was 11:15'ish and getting hot so I debated heading on to the next trail (which was 7 miles round trip) but figured, what the hey, you're only here once :) The road to the canyon visitor center is mostly unpaved and there is absolutely no shade in the parking lot. At this point I was starting to freak out about the meat Wade gave me because I had just put a bag of ice in there as a stop-gap measure and every time I got into the car it was super hot. I decided to gamble it and figured it was silly to plan a trip around food that might spoil. The water at the visitor's center was ice cold so I lapped it up and filled up my camelbak and headed out. The first part of the trail is open desert and you cross a couple of dry stream beds. I passed the older couple I had talked to the night before over one of these stream beds. Surprisingly there are a few places where you cross spring-fed 'rivers' that carry water year-round though it's only a couple of inches deep and the signs everywhere remind you not to get into it in case you disturb the fragile ecosystem. The trail winds its way in and out of trees and dry stream beds until you get to Pratt Cabin.



Until recently you could get water and use a restroom there but they still have power lines running to the property and some electric fans and heater inside the cabin itself. When I got there nobody else was around but while I was trying to find a way into the cabin I heard someone inside and when I walked around the cabin I found a park ranger had opened it and I got to go inside. The cabin is unremarkable to me except for its location. It's a nice size and very rustic and would probably be a fun place to stay.

The next landmark on the trail is the 'grotto' which looked pretty neat and sort of unique in the pictures so I hoofed it that way. I think that somehow my Garmin got screwed up while I was in the house because I had magically gone a mile further than I thought I had when I'd looked at it earlier. The trail to the grotto was mostly shaded and you could tell the vegetation and micro-climate had changed. The canyon is surrounded by cliffs that reminded me of Peru and India. Perhaps that is because they are all limestone based? I don't really see cliffs like that here in Utah so I'm not sure. There were a lot more pines and higher altitude plants there that had survived from the last ice age by going higher up on the mountain. The grotto was really quite small but visually interesting. There was a collection of stalagtites and stalagmites jutting out of the side of the mountain.



There were a large number of stone picnic tables and benches so I rested my weary legs and had a bite to eat there. I could imagine that during the busy times (Spring/Fall) that this area would be packed with people and much harder to navigate. On the advice of the ranger at the cabin I peaked into the creek close by to see if there were any fish in there and in fact there were. Don't ask me how they got up there because the ranger didn't know either :)



The hike back went by pretty quickly as I was just ready to sit in the car for a bit. In the end my gps said I had gone 7.25 miles which made for a total of 10 for the day so far and I still had the Carlsbad Caverns to do!

It's a short drive from one park to the other and it passed by quickly. Right now the visitor's center is undergoing major reconstruction so everything is housed in temporary 'trailers'. I can only imagine how much the center is costing since they have things like copper rain chains that I know cost a couple of hundred dollars a piece. You can enter the cave through the natural entrance which is a steep paved trail that takes you 700 feet underneath the surface or you can take the elevators. Either of these are free with park admission (park pass to the rescue again) which was a nice deviation from Wind Cave where there isn't any entrance fee but you have to pay to see any of the caves. I picked up the self-guided tour stick that plays audio about the various areas in the cavern. Randy Travis was trying to hawk some cd he'd made in the caves at the beginning and then never came back. Being the adventurous type I chose to take the Natural trail and would recommend it to anyone whose knees can take the beating. After getting a quick rules talk from a ranger you head down to an amphitheater where you can watch the bats fly out at dusk if you are there in the evenings. The caves are a major summering destination for a large colony of mexican free-tail bats and they used to mine guano out of the caves. From the amphitheater the entrance is visible and several swallows have built nests on the ceiling of the cave opening so it's quite a sight.



Right away the trail is quite steep as you descend into near darkness. The first explorers of the cave used a guano bucket to get in and out. An Indian family came in right behind me and an old man and woman left the group and wandered ahead. At some point the old lady had too much gas and decided to stop and fart. Of course, in a cave, sounds like that are magnified and I had to hold back a snicker. I don't think I know of any culture that enjoys sharing bodily functions with other whether they are gassing out or going to the bathroom on the street :) There are a number of neat formations that you have to see for yourself. I brought the tripod with me and tried to take some long exposure shots but most of them came out blurry.



At the end of the natural trail is a large complex they've built into the cave. I have mixed feelings about this...it's nice to have bathrooms down there but they've got gift shops and restaurants down there as well. It seems a little weird to have so much development inside of a cave but I guess it makes it accessible to more people. If you want a rustic experience this is not the cave for you but having paved trails and lighting makes it a lot nicer. You can take tours that go into undeveloped parts of the cave but I am cheap so I just stuck with the freebies :)

The second 'cave' that you can explore on your own is called the 'big room'. It's quite literally a large room in the cave with a number of interesting features. There was a group that obviously lived out in the country somewhere that I kept intersecting with along the trail. At one point the dude with the cowboy hat let out a loud fart. Why do people fart in caves? It's not like you can blame that on anything else. Oh well, only Indians and Rednecks :) By this time I was starting to get a little weary of hiking and walking so I cruised through the room and then out of the cavern via the elevators. These things were pretty cool as they had windows in them so you could see the limestone walls as you went up. Back on the surface I scoured the gift shop for a pin or a shot glass but found nothing so I grabbed some postcards in case my pictures didn't turn out. I figure it's always a good idea to get some professional photos when visit a cave or anyplace that is dark as it's much more difficult to get good pictures.

By now I'd been in the caves for 2.5 hours and the car was roasting. It's cool enough in the cavern to want a jacket or something long sleeved but when you get back on the surface you take that off pronto. Since I wanted to go to White Sands the next day I programmed Alamogordo into the GPS and headed off. The drive from Carlsbad (no dry ice there either :( ) to Alamogordo is pretty as it gets into the mountains and then makes a 4000 foot descent into the city. I'm pretty sure I've travelled this road with Elaine in the past as I remember being freaked out about how steep and narrow it was.

In Alamogordo there was some VFW convention so I had to hunt around for a motel room. I ended up at a motel 6 for 36.99 a night! Score. Unfortunately I got there so late that all of the restaurants were closed. After harassing the girl working at the front desk (Becky) and not being able to find anywhere that was open she offered to cook me something at her house so I had mac and cheese and green beans for dinner. We watched the sequel to Underworld which wasn't very good but had some cool action scenes. I was totally passing out during the movie though so I headed back to the hotel and sacked out.

Guadalupe Mountain Pics
Carlsbad Caverns

Just too hot

When I talked to the ranger the previous day she strongly suggested I make sure to go and hike the Santa Elena canyon in the morning so I figured I ought to take her up on it and headed out that way. Part of the problem with Big Bend, other than the heat, is that it's so big and the speed limits are so slow that it takes forever to get anywhere. Plus, there is only one gas station in the park and they were charging 4.42 a gallon! I'm just glad I didn't have some huge SUV or a diesel truck I was trying to fill up. The drive to the trailhead was quite pretty and is the Ross Maxwell scenic route in the park. Along the way you can see some old homesteads and there are a number of exhibits to explain the geologic features in the park. I didn't realize that the area was volcanic in origin so that was pretty cool to learn about.



The trailhead is really poorly marked as you just get to this point where the road stops and there are some toilets. The same area is used as a put-in for river tours and a large troop of what I believe to be boyscouts who were rafting got there at the same time. At first I couldn't figure out if that was the trailhead or not so I drove back a bit to an overlook to see if it had more information about the trail. The map confirmed that the area I'd been to was the trailhead so I went back and followed the trail down to the river. After you come out of this shady forested area you get into floodplain which was dry but had flooded recently because there were still some small pools of water near the river. Everywhere else there was baked mud which was about 4 inches thick and looked like scales on the hide of an alligator. There was still no sign indicating this was a trail but I saw what looked like a trail in the embankment on the other side of the dry river bed so I followed that. Lucky me, that was the right way to go so I followed it up to the overlook. The canyon is quite pretty which stark headwalls on either side of the river and not much else. Once you get into the canyon on a boat you either come out on a boat or you have to climb. Because the area is quite wet compared to the surrounding desert the river bank was lush and had a variety of trees and plants. There were several footpaths that weren't marked at all and wound randomly through the trees so I followed some of these for a while. I kept trying to find a way to get down to the water but there really aren't many sand bars on the side of the river I was on so I gave up and headed back. The sun was trying to fight its way through the clouds so it gave everything this fluorescent glow. On the way back I stopped by the river again and picked up some of the excellent skipping rocks that get created when river rush madly over rocks. I had a good time tossing them into the river and got one to skip 24 times!


Mysteriously unmarked trail head



Once I got back in the car I headed back to a visitor's center I'd seen along the way to use the facilities. Since I was traveling in the 'low' season the visitor's center was closed but they had some neat old machines laying around so I grabbed some photos before heading out. The visitor's center doesn't open until November!

The drive back to camp was pretty long and I decided that I didn't want to camp there again as it wasn't a great place to have a 'base camp'. The road in is pretty steep and twisty so it takes a while to get there not to mention the great distances involved at 35 mph. I packed up the tent and went into the visitor's center to see if there were any souvenirs (none I wanted) and then stopped by the camp store to get some powerade and a Dr Pepper. By now I just wanted to go drop into the Rio Grande and then get on my way so I headed for the South Eastern section of the park where there is a campground that abuts the river. This drive was across true desert...nothing but cactus and flat land as far as the eye could see and the temperature was 112 according to the car. At least the roads were a little twisty and fun to drive because otherwise it would have been pretty boring. Turns out the visitor center at this section of the park was closed too so I dropped into the campstore for souvenirs (score) and to try and find out if there was anywhere I could get into the river. The guy at the store assured me I could get in and showed me where and then recommended a 3/4 mile nature loop trail so I headed off the the spot where I could get into the river. Well, I don't know what that guy was talking about because the spot he told me to go to was right by the river but unless you just wanted to jump in (I did not, it looked gross) there was no way to get in. I backtracked and tried a few trail that were cut into the bamboo growing by the river but couldn't find any way in that didn't lead into dense vegetation that I was unwilling to test. It wasn't worth getting bitten by a snake or whatever else was living in that jungle. I got back in the car and decided to try the area that was marked as a boat ramp. When I got there I decided I could probably just get my feet wet and be okay so I setup the camera and got a picture with my foot in the river. Man it was gross; the water is a weird green color and the mud at the bank stunk of manure and had the consistency of quicksand so it sucked my foot in.



After that pleasant experience I washed my foot off as best I could and drove to the nature trail. I figured it wasn't very far so I put on a shirt and my flip flops and grabbed my camera and the trail guide they had. Right off the bat I could tell that hardly anyone had visited the trail in a while. Mesquite trees branches had grown into the middle of the trail so I had to pick through those to get to a boardwalk over a beaver pond. The pond itself was okay to look at but was the same green color as the river and looked otherwise unhealthy. On the other side of the pond was another mesquite infested walkway and then you get into open desert. I followed the trail and read through the guide but I guess I missed one of the numbered signs and ended up at a sign that had directions for a spur trail and the normal trail. Well, I had no idea what the spur trail was so I took the normal trail which starts climbing up a hill and didn't seem like it was going to lead back to the trail head. I hiked up to the top where I found some additional numbered signs (much higher than where I had started as they were numbered 12/13 instead of 5 which was the next one I expected to find). The view from the top was pretty neat as you could see pretty far into the park and then across the border into Mexico. I didn't see anyone trying to sneak across but then again I wouldn't try it in 112 degree weather either. While I was up there I read back into the guide to see if I had missed #5 and sure enough I had and it gave directions to follow the spur trail so I headed back down to the trail and followed it. There were some interesting metastes (holes in the rock) that had been used by natives to grind corn and other objects. I would have thought they were just holes caused by water pooling on top. As I followed this spur trail it became harder to follow and started going through sand. Now remember that it's 112 and I don't have any water and the sun is beating down and I'm wearing flip flops and the sand is hot as hell. I think I spent about 2 minutes trying to follow the trail before deciding it wasn't worth it and that if I didn't get back I was probably going to internally boil like a lobster so I high-tailed it back to the car and cussed out the people who were in charge of marking and maintaining trails in Big Bend. I've never seen so many poorly marked trails at a park before. Maybe it was because this was the low season. In case you can't tell I was pretty bent out of shape by then so I decided to just leave the park and head up to Guadalupe Mountains National Park via the west exit of Big Bend which was supposed to go through Terlingua ghost town.



Well, the ghost town is sort of a ghost town and a living town as people have built shops and houses among the ruins to serve as tourist attractions. There is a cemetery that is unremarkable except that it is on the national register of historic places.



I drove through a bunch of small towns in BFE West Texas before getting to Alpine. Back in Hutto Wade had given me a bunch of his frozen meat and I was trying to keep it frozen with dry ice and had run out. I figured the local supermarket would have it but no luck there or the Wal-Mart. I did get some sunburn lotion as I had gotten crispier than intended while I was walking around shirtless. The next large town wasn't that far west so I figured I'd try Marfa and see if they had anything. About 18 miles out of Alpine the engine abruptly shut off and the 'check engine' light came on and this annoying symbol popped up on the top of the display in the car that looked like a warning light but didn't explain what the problem was. I assumed the car had gotten too hot (it was 112 and I had the A/C on max after all) so I let it cool down for a minute and then started it up. It came on but the check engine light stayed on so I drove down the road a little more slowly and figured I'd just take it easy until I got to Marfa. Once again the engine died on me so I let the car coast a bit and tried to nurse the battery to see how far it would get me. Thankfully the road in was mostly downhill but eventually I got to a hill and ran out of juice so I stopped the car again and this time checked under the hood. Turns out I ran out of coolant! Unlike most cars there isn't any oil pressure or temperature gauge on the Prius so I assumed that it would pop up a warning message or something if they ran low or there was an issue with it but I guess not. I could've believe a car that was smart enough to manage the motor and battery would fail to have at least some means of alerting you to a potential problem. Furthermore the manual says NOT to use plain water so I was kind of screwed since I didn't happen to be carrying any spare coolant. I am at least partly to blame as I never checked though in my defense I've never had a problem like that with a car nor have I ever had a car that lacked a temperature gauge. Of course the coolant reservoir only takes maybe a quart or two of fluid so it doesn't take much to go through it. I didn't really want to walk the remaining 4 miles so I let the car cool for a while and then decided to try driving again but take it really slow and not use the a/c or radio to conserve battery power. I nervously watched the miles count down on the gps but managed to make my way into the first gas station which miraculously had the proper 'premium pre-mixed' coolant that the owner's manual wanted. Of course it's not Toyota's brand but oh well. In fact, the manual wants you to call Toyota for everything whether it's the check engine light coming on or you need a tow into somewhere. Ridiculous.

Outside of Marfa there was this random 'Prada' store that apparently is some community art project. The juxtaposition of this fancy store with the open farm land and windmills in it was quite striking.



Thankfully the rest of the journey to Guadaulpe Mountains was without incident on the car's part though I did get rained on. The clouds were just amazing after the rain and I wasn't really paying that much attention to the road as I drove through :)



The Guadalupe Mountains rise out of the middle of the desert creating a strange oasis and are actually part of an enormous fossilized reef which was several times bigger than any reef we have today. As I got there a high desert thunderstorm was rolling in and created a really neat display of lightning. I made it to the Visitor center while it was still light out but they were closed so I walked around reading the various placards and ran into an older couple. They had been to a lot of parks and had lived in Provo for 2 years in the late 70's and the woman was talking to me about an interested set of novels written by a former Park Ranger that gave some interesting insight into the various parks the novels were set in. In fact, they had learned about this park through one of the novels. I'm going to try and see if the library across the street has any of these and see what they are all about. The lady told me she had been to 38 national parks though I think she's counting national monuments too as they are all run by the park service. If we do that, then I've been to at least as many as she has :) I'm pretty proud to say I've been to so many of the parks at what I consider to be a young age. I think more young people in this country ought to take advantage of them while they don't have families as you get an entirely different kind of experience (much cheaper).

I camped out that night with the storm all around me. I tried to take some pictures but to be honest the S5 is crap in the dark. Every time I take a long exposure I get a lot of noise in the image even if I set the ISO way down. Oh well. I had a really rough time sleeping because the wind was whipping around and the walls of the tent kept popping me on the head or feet or body. I must have awoken 10 times during the night. Note to self, make sure that you fit comfortably inside of a tent before you decide to use it :)