Random photos from the past few weeks...

Here are some random photos that didn't make the blog over the last few weeks but I thought were worth sharing. The Elk below (there were actually 2) were quite startling to see crossing the highway. They were almost as large as horses and reminded me of moose in their movements. We pulled over to watch them in fascination.

Elk on side of road (Rt 385) on our way back to the park from Fort Stockton

These Turkey Vultures were perched throughout the trees just a short walk from the visitor center two days ago. We came upon them one afternoon during our lunch break and were confused about why so many had congregated in one place until we saw the small dead animal carcass in a ravine below.

Turkey Vultures perched in trees near Visitor Center

Male Greater Earless Lizard spotted on Grapevine Hills Trail (doing push-ups)

Temperature at 8 PM at the River (Rio Grande) 112!

The last scramble to the top of Emory Peak (Andre took this photo from the top)

Emory Peak Trail (10 1/2 miles round trip from the Basin)

Another Old Mining Town in West Texas

Winery we visited in Fort Stockton in beautiful old historic saloon

View from atop of the cliffs (eroded dikes) overlooking Ward Spring

Father's Day, Texas Style!

Finally, On the River!

After over 8 weeks in Big Bend, we finally had the opportunity to get on the river! We hooked up with a local outfitter that operates river tours in the park (Big Bend River Tours) and were able to tag along on a scheduled canoe excursion yesterday that began at Santa Elena Canyon, one of the most beautiful canyons in the area.

On this full day Rio Grande canoe trip, called the "boomerang", you paddle up river through the Santa Elena Canyon for approximately 4 miles then stop for lunch on a flat landing area across from Fern Canyon. After lunch there is guided hike/scramble through Fern Canyon, time for a swim in the river before getting back in the canoes for the return trip back down river through the canyon.

Looking up the canyon walls from the river

The morning paddle was beautiful. Although the day would eventually get into the low 100's, it stayed relatively cool well into the morning. The skies were bright blue against the canyon backdrop and it was amazing to be quietly canoeing up river in the shadow of the tall canyon walls. There were 6 canoes on the trip. A family of four from Houston, including two 17 year old girls who made the trip very entertaining with their antics both in and out of the canoes, another young couple who drove up from the Laredo area and two local river guides who worked hard to ensure we all had an enjoyable and memorable experience in the canyon.

Shortly into the day, the teenagers, who were first time canoe-ers were having some difficulty managing/steering their canoe, so one of the guides nicely offered to tie their boat up to his so they could all travel/paddle together. By afternoon, they were towing him along at times, splashing him with their paddles and having a grand time.

 

 

   

Pulling in for lunch at the half-way point

 

Canoes resting while we cooled off in the river then enjoyed lunch

 



After a great self-serve lunch laid out by the hosts who carried the assortment of sandwich meats, cheese & crackers, fresh fruits, cookies and condiments in a well-packed cooler in one of their canoes, we crossed the river for the promised excursion into nearby Fern Canyon, a unique side canyon that hides numerous pools of water, waterfalls, caves and odd rock formations in its depths. It was billed to us as a "hike", but was actually more of a climb/scramble adventure involving a good amount of climbing, ducking and squeezing through rock formations, including a dripping waterfall.

 

There was even a portion where we had to rappel up and down a 15-foot rock face using a rope, which was really cool and a first for me. I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed the climbing by rope and was not bothered by the height or the "trust" factor necessary to ascend using this method (which admittedly, was only on a small rock face). The excursion also included climbing into and scrambling through a low-ceilinged cave to come out on the other side. This part brought to mind a number of scenes from the Lord of The Rings and numerous comments about Gollum, giant spiders and Frodo Baggins were made as the group ducked and scrambled through.

 

Unfortunately there are no photos of this adventurous part of the day. We had to get to Fern Canyon by wading across the river and we didn't want to risk getting the phone wet as we trounced through the many "wet" parts of the excursion.  Here are the photos of the rest of the day that turned out to be an entirely spectacular, albeit hot as the day wore on, experience. 



 

Looking down river as we headed back out from our lunch spot

 

 

Two of the canoes grabbing some shade and looking for bats in the canyon walls

 

 

 

Returning to our starting point after 6+ hours on the river. Hot but satisfied...

Staying Connected (Andre)

So, we have been away from home (Rhode Island and the Northeast) for some time! It has actually been 4 months since we drove out of Rhode Island and our former lives in a small snow storm. It was a frenetic time as we were quickly finishing up our jobs, packing, and storing and preparing for this big and ongoing adventure. We knew there were great unknowns ahead of us but we also knew that we would never really leave (nor could we leave or want to leave) our pasts behind us.

Certainly it took a while to get nostalgic for home, but as the weeks have turned to months, we have enjoyed spontaneous and intentional opportunities to reconnect.

Some of the common spontaneous opportunities are seeing a vehicle with a license plate from the east coast, NY, NJ, MA, CT, PA, and the like. We have seen only one RI license plate – it was on an old VW camper van in the Panther Junction visitor center a couple of months back. We walked excitedly to the van to say hello, but were greeted by a woman who spoke German and very little English. The best we could get was that she has a friend who lives in FL and allows here to store her van there and was not sure how she ended up with a RI plate!

A very common occurrence in the visitor center is when a Texan will say, in the middle of a conversation after listening to our accent (though we surely don’t have one) that “you’re not from around here!” But on some fun occasions, a visitor after listening to our non-accent, will excitedly ask where we’re from and then say that they too are from fill in the blank – NY, NJ, MA, CT, VT, PA, VA, etc. We have had a few great conversations with these folks reminiscing about the northeast and east coast. Not a surprise, we have yet to have a RI visitor, that we are aware of, in the park! (I say not a surprise since when we have travelled, people often comment that we are the first RI’er they have met!)

A funny incident happened a couple of weeks ago when we getting ready to close…. (I must stop this entry for an important announcement – while writing this entry in the visitor center, I just had the same experience described above and had a great conversation with a young couple from the Philly area!)

Back to the entry and the funny incident: we were getting ready to close the visitor center and a young couple were sitting in the visitor center enjoying the air conditioning. They said they overheard us talking to another visitor saying that we were from RI and they shared they were from Delaware. We shared that our kids went to the University of Delaware and they excitedly said they did too. At that point the young man looked at Laura’s name tag (yes we wear name tags), saw our last name, and broke out in a big smile. “No way!” he exclaimed. “Are you Dylan’s parents???” It turns out that the couple knew both Dylan and Nick from UDEL, played ultimate Frisbee with them, and the couple went with Dylan to New Orleans during their freshman year as part of a mission trip to help rebuild housing after Katrina! Top that for a small world, even out here in West Texas!

There are also intentional ways we connect with back home to both stay connected and grounded in our east coast and northeast ways – we aren’t Texans yet!

 Certainly calls, emails, and other communications with our friends and family are important parts of our days and weeks. We appreciate them greatly and look forward to each one! This blog has kept us connected as we share our experiences and thoughts and hear back from you about our adventures! We are greatly anticipating that Dylan and Nick will be visiting us in the park in a couple of weeks! To keep us connected with the RI scene, my friend Sue has been mailing us the Providence Phoenix and other such local papers. We have been enjoying the Bruins in the Stanley Cup as while we don’t have TV here, we can watch the games online! And, when we really need a back home fix, we watch Providence newscasts, read the Providence Journal, or listen to NY news radio stations online.

It’s a funny life we are living and we are figuring it out as we go along!

We hope we don’t bore you with these bear stories …… (Andre)

Laura posted a great blog entry yesterday that showed our ongoing efforts to keep the bears, particularly the sow with 2 cubs (as we refer to her), away from the visitor center and the visitors! The video was great to see if you missed it, I encourage you to check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRqjf0OWl4 (The cubs as so small, cute, and at least one of them is clumsy and mischievous. If you look closely at the video, you will see that when the mother comes to retrieve the wayward cub, it actually falls out of the Yucca tree, rather than climbing down as most respectable bears might!)

Well, a few more bear stores and we may need to leave this topic for a while!

Two days ago Laura and I did the last long hike up here in the Chisos Mountains that we had yet to do, climbing Emory Peak, the tallest peak in the park, 7832 feet. We were not more than a mile or so into the hike when we came upon a couple who warned us that there was a bear in the trail ahead and it would not move off the trail. The bear was about 30-40 yards up the trail. We looked and quickly realized that the bear was a one year old or so bear, likely a male, that was in the same area a week before and also would not move when it encountered people.

Being good national park volunteers, even though this was a day off, we stepped in and took care of this bear too! If you saw the video Laura posted, this means, yelling in its direction, throwing rocks in its direction, and basically intimidating it to move off and into the woods and up into the mountains where it should be. It hung around a bit to show it was tough, but eventually did move up the slopes into the woods. We continued our hike and had a great day.

Then today at lunch, we often eat out behind the visitor center at a shaded picnic table, I looked up and saw a dark spot moving along in the brush. Looking a bit closer, we realized it was the mother and her 2 cubs back again for another visit to the basin area. We did not want them getting into the parking lot, so despite it being our lunch break, we again got on bear patrol duty. Some shouts, some thrown rocks, and we were able, at least so far for the day, divert the bear family back off into the woods.

We will see what tomorrow brings!

The Bear Charades Continue....

Well, just when we thought things were starting to quiet down with the bear activity up here at the basin, we had another circus-like day with the young mother bear and her two small cubs who keep running up trees, falling out of trees, etc. This time we not only got photos, but a video as well, as the activity took place right in front of the visitor center where the bears decided to dine on a Yucca tree late in the day.

The fun started when we got into the visitor center early Monday morning and were told that the sow with the two cubs had been hanging around the visitor center parking lot, rooting through trees and plants earlier in the morning (presumably in search of food). Apparently the cubs were also running around up on the roof of the lodge just across the parking lot before one of the Law Enforcement Rangers was called to chase them off.

Well they returned late in the afternoon and were once again climbing and clawing at the Yucca tree in the landscaped area in the center of the parking lot between the visitor center and the Chisos lodge, while an assortment of hotel guests, hikers and park visitors looked on and snapped photos. We quickly went out, along with a park ranger and the same law enforcement ranger who had chased the bears off earlier, to once again chase the bears out of the parking lot and into their natural habitat, the hills and woods surrounding the area. The goal, of course, is to get them away from people and back into the surrounding hills without injury to either the bears or any of the visitors who tend to forget that these animals are actually wild as they get closer and closer to snap photos.

The usual protocol is that one person is assigned to keep all of the people away from the bears, one person blocks off the entrances to the road to avoid the bears getting hit, and the others make alot of noise to try to run the bears off. If necessary, the ranger can use a shotgun that shoots bean bag bullets to "encourage" them to move off.

Well after a few minutes of yelling loudly at the bears, the mother finally ran off with the cubs, or so she thought. When she looked back, only one cub had followed. The other had, of course, ran up the tree instead!  After a minute or two the mother and the one cub came back to retrieve the errant cub, who had to be convinced to come along and eventually they all ran off together. I was inside the visitor center while all this was going on and managed to capture a good part of the action on my cell phone. I posted the video to YouTube and have attached a link.  When you watch it, note that as the three are all finally running off together, the young cub again hesitates at a different tree along the way as if he might run up that one as well!

Here are the photos and the video. You may be surprised at how small the mother bear and the cubs are. Although she is small, the sow is actually a full grown bear and the cubs are a few months old; they would have come out of the den in early March. The rangers here have noted that the cubs (and the sow as well) are not growing well due to the drought that has effected the food sources available to them in the park.  That is likely the reason they are searching for food closer to inhabited areas.

Sow walking around landscaped area where cubs are playing

Ranger chasing off bears, but only one cub follows

Momma realizes that one cub was left behind

Momma and cub start back to retrieve the missing cub

Click on the link to watch the rest of the story play out on film!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRqjf0OWl4

Window View Trail

One of the popular natural formations here in the Chisos Basin area of Big Bend National Park is the "Window". It is actually a pour-off (in essence, the top of a waterfall that pours off from the higher mountainous area on to the desert floor approximately 1500+ feet below). When it rains, most of the precipitation that falls in the mountains and is not collected or absorbed eventually makes it's way down to the window pour-off, feeding the dry desert below. It is called the window because when you view it from the basin area it is like looking through a window into the desert far beyond.

I've been posting many photos from our longer hikes, but here are a few from the short (1/3 mile) Window View Trail hike that begins right next to the visitor center and is really quite beautiful. This short trail is actually flat, paved and fully accessible and gives you a great view of the window from a distance. There is also a longer hike, just over 5 miles, that brings you right down to the actual window itself, but this shorter hike is one we often recommend to visitors who want to see the window but have small children, strollers, folks in their party with limited mobility, or either only have a limited time to see the sights or just plain don't like hiking (we do get our fair share of self-declared "non-hikers").

This interpretive trail gives you a lot of reward for very little effort and it has a nice bench at the half-way point for those who would like to just sit and gaze at the window view or listen to the birds.  Andre & I often walk this trail during our lunch break or when one of us wants to get out of the visitor center and get some fresh air.

Trail begins and you can see the "window" in the distance

Through the window you can see the desert floor in the distance

Trail also provides a great view of Appetite Hill (above) and Casa Grande (below)

One of my favorite trees on the trail

Andre and I have hiked the full Window Trail twice now and that provides additional perspective on the pour off. When it is dry (as it is at most times) you can hike right into the formation to the very edge of the pour-off. It's a bit unnerving actually, because nothing is preventing you from going right over the edge and dropping 1000+ feet, but it is an amazing view! I will post pictures from that the next time we hike it.

Flash Floods on the Old Ore Road (Andre)

From Wikipedia:

“A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, tropical storm, or melt water from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields. Flash floods may occur after the collapse of a natural ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam, as occurred before the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Flash floods are distinguished from a regular flood by a timescale of less than six hours. The temporary availability of water is often utilized by foliage with rapid germination and short growth cycle, and by specially adapted animal life.”

One day a week, Laura and I have a ‘project day.’ This is a day for us to go out, explore the park, volunteer for other park programs, and the like. The project day is in addition to our 3 days to run the visitor center. In addition to hiking trails, the park has an extensive network of dirt roads, some are maintained for all vehicles, and some are ‘backcountry dirt roads’ which require high clearance and 4 wheel drive vehicles. Often on our project days we use a park vehicle that is both high clearance and 4 wheel drive to explore these interesting and remote parts of the park.

Well this week, despite a bit of rain the night before, we planned to drive the Old Ore Road. This is a back country dirt road that is 26 miles long and traverses the eastern part of the park. We had driven this road once before, but afterwards learned about a tenaja that we had missed and wanted to check out.   (A tenaja is a natural formation that occurs from eroding water in limestone rock surfaces – it is like a large, smooth-sided bowl that collects water, anywhere from 5 feet to 25 feet across or more.) So, we looked at the skies, partly cloudy with a bit of rain falling off in distance in the east, and headed out on the road.

The first 7 miles or so were uneventful, if you call 4 wheel driving in the high desert uneventful, until we crested a high point on the road that led down to a wash at the base of some high cliffs that had waterfalls flowing from the recent rain.

At this point, the road which had been in pretty good condition, got kind of bad as we went down the hill. And, at the bottom of the hill, we saw a rather large raging river cutting directly across and then following the road for a ways. So, we parked the truck and walked down the hill to scout out the situation and our options.

As you can see from the picture below, the dry wash that we needed to cross was no longer a dry wash, but a flash flood. (All of this water resulted from a couple of hours of rain that measured about .75 inches!)

We had three options – turn around, go forward, or wait. Turning around was not too exciting – we had been there already, it would put us further away from our final destination, and there was of course the chance that flash floods had developed behind us – it looked like rain had started to fall behind us. We, as you know, are new at this desert life (anybody catch the unintended reference to a Counting Crows album title?) and so the option of just driving into the raging water (even though it didn’t look that deep) was not appealing either. So, we decided to wait and see how long the flood would ‘flash.’

We put a rock on the edge of the water to try to measure and get a sense of how quickly the water was receding. The flood looked like it was about a foot and a half or more deep and was about a 100 yards long that we would need to cross. We also threw a few large rocks into the middle to get a sense of the current. Based on our observations, it seemed if we waited for a while, the water would be passable. Which after about 40 minutes it appeared to be.

Of course, as soon as we crossed and got to dry land and turned a corner and were confronted with a larger and quicker flood once again in front of us! I stopped the truck to get out and scout this crossing, when, and you can’t make this stuff up, I noticed we had a flat!

So, while we changed the flat, in the mud and rocks I might add, the water level for this new flood crossing went down enough for us to once again safely pass. Which we did. As we drove across we were happy to see that the road began to rise out of the low point, climb up the hills, and away from these floods.

But there is more! After a few more miles, we started to go down again and turned into a narrow box canyon. And guess what, the road veered not only into the narrow end of the canyon, but of course went nearly down to the canyon floor! And, right were the road began to turn out of the canyon and regain elevation was the fastest and most violent flash flood we had seen yet! It wasn’t very wide, maybe 40 feet, but it was raging and looked deep.

Once again we scouted the crossing, weighed our options, and decided to hang out a bit and wait. But, since we saw possible rain clouds to our north and east, we weren’t going to wait too long in case things got any worse. So, as soon as we estimated the water was passable, we inched the truck into the water and then moved through at a steady pace till we made it to the other side.

Well, since you are reading this, we clearly made it through and back to Panther Junction, not that there was any doubt! We had another 14 miles or so left of the road, and as is common in the desert, the rest of the road was completely dry. It appeared that no rain had fallen south of the box canyon that we had just navigated through. Overall, it was a bit of a harrowing experience, a learning experience, a challenging experience, and ultimately, another great new experience to add our adventures here in Big Bend.

Postscript: When we got back to Panther Junction, we reported our flat. We were told to bring the flat tire to the auto shop to be repaired. But we were also told, not to hold our breath. The park currently does not have a mechanic on staff! One retired 2 weeks ago and the other is on a detail in another park for the summer! Anybody know how to fix a flat?

Into the Lion's Den

I mean it. Literally.

Yesterday we were supposed to go flying in the morning with the park pilot, but that got canceled due to poor weather (heavy cloud-cover, which is rare here in the park). Instead we decided to do a 4 mile round trip hike out to Dog Canyon. It's a flat hike through the desert most of way, ending in one of the many unique canyons that dot this desert park. The trail was little bit muddy as we'd had quite a bit of rain the day before but we enjoyed the hike out on the desert floor on a day that was not blazing hot in the direct sun.

It was at the canyon, though, when things really got interesting.  We had enjoyed hiking all the way through the canyon along the "wash" that during rain can be a river, but 12 hours after the last rain, was only muddy at points and dry at other points. We came out on the other side of the canyon and had started the return trip back through it when we noticed some interesting caves in the walls of the canyon and decided to explore further. Climbing up into the cave we very quickly realized that we were in some kind of animal den. Perhaps it was the skull and various piles of random bones that gave it away!

We took a closer look at the skull that was near the entrance of the cave and identified it as a Javelina skull by the teeth. We'd seen enough of these coarse-furred "pig-like" animals to recognize it by the skull alone. Further back in the cave were piles of misc other bones, perhaps from this animal or from other unfortunate "meals". As soon as we stepped fully into the cave we were hit by the smell.  At first I thought it was the smell of the dead animals - and perhaps that was some of it - but to me, the prevailing smell was Lion. It smelled exactly like the Lion's cage at the zoo.

We had stumbled upon a Mountain Lion den, presumably where he (or she) dragged their captured prey to enjoy at their leisure. Luckily, no one was home to eat US. As you can imagine, we declined to foray further into the cave that looked like it went back quite a ways. We quickly snapped some photos and backed out of the cave area. We returned to the canyon wash to complete the hike back through Dog Canyon and back on to the desert floor and to our vehicle. Talking to a ranger later in the afternoon he confirmed that there were known to be active Mountain Lion dens out where we were hiking.

Some days you just don't know what a walk out your door will bring......

Entering the canyon from the desert floor

Who could resist exploring this cave?

  

Bet this guy would have preferred to avoid it....

Random pile of bones further into the cave

Closer view of the Javelina skull with those great big teeth

South Rim Trail - Chisos Mountains

Although we have been diligently working through many of the great hiking trails here at Big Bend National Park, until last week we had not yet done any of the more substantial trails. Last week we finally got to one of the most exciting trails (and views) in the Chisos Mountains, when we did the South Rim Trail. The trail, a twelve mile round trip excursion that ascends steadily upward and around the "Rim" at the top of the Chisos, yields some of the most incredible views in the park, including a breathtaking, panoramic view of the vast desert landscape all the way into Mexico.

Hike begins on the beautiful Laguna Meadows trail

View from upper Laguna Trail

Laguna ends and the Rim Trail begins

A rewarding first view of the South Rim

The South Rim is located at the southwestern edge of the high Chisos Mountains. From the rim, which is 2500 feet above the desert floor, Santa Elena Canyon can be seen 20 miles to the west, and Emory Peak dominates the northern skyline.  On a clear day, peaks to the south in Mexico are visible and are more than 30 miles away.

Looking onto the Desert below from the rim

A great Woodpecker sighting (Red-naped Sapsucker) as we started back down

Heading down via Boot Canyon and then Pinnacles Trails



The upside down "boot" in Boot Canyon

Oops, we did leave our packs unattended to take that last photo...

Startled a deer as we joined up with the Pinnacles Trail heading down

When we got back to the basin at about 5:30 pm, we had hiked about 17 miles in total. Although the south rim hike is usually 12 miles, we still felt energetic when we got to the south rim so we hiked around the southeast and northeast rims as well.  That added about 2 miles and the additional mileage was gained as we hiked into many of the back country campsites along the way to check them out. As part of our visitor center job is to recommend and write permits for these sites, it seemed a good opportunity to check them out in person. It was quite a hot day in the basin and the last few miles down the Pinnacles trail were sweaty and hot in the late afternoon, but it was well worth it. We arrived back a bit tired, but exhilarated from a great 9 hours in the beautiful Chisos.