Big Bend National Park Trip Report ---------------------------------- Big Bend National Park is situated on the Texas-Mexico border along the Rio Grande River in West Texas. I went on a camping trip there over November 24-28, 1993. Also with me were Daniel Chow and Fernando Torre from Motorola. I had rented a 4 person tent, a Kelty Thunderhead, from REI for $27 the previous Sunday. We started loading stuff from Fernando's and Daniel's cars at about 2:30, and left Oak Hill around 3:00. The weather was rather cold and misting a little bit. Along the way, we enjoyed listening to some of Fernando's Spanish compact disks. We stopped in Sonora for supper at a steakhouse, and stopped at the Econo-Lodge in Fort Stockton. After a rather humorous incident in which we were given keys to a room which was already occupied, we settled in for the night. The wakeup call came at about 5:15. We dressed hurriedly, and loaded our baggage into the trunk of my car, ate at the breakfast buffet at the motel, piled into my car and headed south, passing through the small town of Marathon on the way. We arrived at the Persimmon Gap Ranger Station, and went in to inquire about the possibility of reserving a backcountry campsite. The ranger told us they could issue us a permit for any of the backcountry zones, but that they preferred to issue permits for the designated sites in the Chisos Basin from the park headquarters. We continued south to the park headquarters. It was cold, misting lightly, and crowded in the parking lot of park headquarters. Fernando bought a park permit, and we went into the auditorium where they were issuing backcountry permits, and waited in line. There were three rangers busy issuing backcountry permits. When it was our turn, we were told that we couldn't get a permit in the Chisos for Thursday night, but there were a few spots left very close to the trailhead for Friday and Saturday nights. We picked a spot in the Grapevine Hills backcountry zone for Thursday night, and two spots in the Chisos for Friday and Saturday nights. We filled up our water bottles, and drove down the dirt road to the Grapevine Hills Zone. We decided to park in the lot for the Grapevine Hills Nature Trail, and walk across the road, heading north cross country to find a spot out in the bush out of sight of the road. We crossed a couple arroyos and found a nice level spot beneath a short rock face that was well sheltered from the wind by several mesquite. We went back to the car, ate lunch, loaded up our packs, carried them back to our site, and put up the tent. Then we went back out to the road, and hiked up the nature trail to a rock formation called the rock window, a boulder supported by two large rocks, through which there was a nice view out to the west across the desert. We continued north cross country, climbing a ridge. Daniel found some interesting striped rock formations, and we stopped to take some pictures. A short distance farther north, we descended back to the nature trail and went back to the car, then back out to our campsite. That evening, Fernando prepared 'Mexican Rice', in which he cooked some rice in olive oil, and added some chili pepper and condiments from a Knorr soup. The next morning, we got up and enjoyed the sunrise. In the backcountry, it's easy to understand why our primitive ancestors worshipped the sun. It's very pleasant when the sun finally comes out and warms the cold earth. We ate some breakfast, had some hot tea or cocoa, and did some short exploring of the area around our campsite. There were several varieties of cactus, some purple, and some green. We watched as a large flock of some kind of desert bird ran westward across the desert through the mesquite. We took the tent down, packed up our tent, walked back to the car, and drove up into the Chisos Basin. The parking areas closest to the trailhead (near the lodge) appeared to be filled up, so we drove down to the campground and parked near the amphitheatre. We filled up our water bottles and jugs, repacked our packs, and hiked up to the trailhead. Our backcountry campsite was called Juniper Flats and was less than a mile from the trailhead. It was a nice level spot in the trees, right across the trail from a nice overlook of the Chisos Basin, from which we looked over the lodge. We put up the tent, and Daniel prepared supper; a very satisfying soup with Ramen Noodles and dried meat. As it became increasingly dark, I noticed with consternation that I had left my regular glasses down in the car, and so had only my sunglasses. As the parking lot was so close, we took an after-dinner walk down to the car so I could fetch my glasses. The moon was out, and we scarcely had to use the flashlight. The next morning we woke up and it was rather cold, about 20 F. We watched as the sun illumined first the hillsides across the basin, then the treetops in the bottom of the basin, eventually the treetops surrounding our campsite, and finally reaching patches of ground around our camp. We made some hot tea and cocoa, and had an enjoyable breakfast. Eventually, we took down the tent, packed it up, and moved to our campsite for the next evening, again less than a mile farther up the trail, called Boulder Meadows. We pitched the tent, packed up our daypacks, and hiked southward up to the lip of the basin. We encountered some foreign visitors from Germany. We came to the trail junction with the Emory Peak Trail, and went up the 1 mile trail to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park. There were several people on the summit. Fernando translated the names of some of the surrounding features into English for me. We could see the gash in Sierra Ponce which forms Santa Elena Canyon, Boot Rock, Mesa de Anguilla, Sierras del Caballo Muerto, the Donkey's Ears, and numerous other features from the summit. We took several photographs for a group from the Dallas Sierra Club. Then we started down the summit and descended back into the basin and our campsite at Boulder Meadows. I made a lentil soup for supper, after which we had hot tea and cocoa. It was not as cold as the previous evening. After cleaning out the cookpot and other utensils, we walked down to the overlook adjacent to the campsite we had stayed at the previous evening, and enjoyed the views of the basin and lodge to the light of the full moon. We stayed there for several minutes before returning to our campsite and turning in. The next morning we got up earlier, packed up the tent, ate breakfast, and started down the trail to the parking lot. We loaded our equipment in the trunk, and drove out of the basin and down to the park headquarters, where we changed and cleaned up a bit. Then we drove north across the desert, stopping at Alfdredo's Mexican Food in Fort Stockton for lunch, and back to Austin.