All posts by phieldnotes

Walking around in the desert and mountains since the 60s. Now in my 60s.
Admin, Backpacking, Big Bend, Camping, Hiking

TR-BBNP Backpack Northeast Rim (and more)-October 2022

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One night Seminole Canyon State Park; in Big Bend National Park two nights Cottonwood Campground, one night backpack to NE4, two nights Paint Gap 4

Gear, Lessons learned

  • Seminole Canyon State Park: Camping 10/15/22
  • Big Bend National Park
    • Camping: Cottonwood Campground BBNP 10/16/22–10/17/22
    • Backpack East Rim 4: 10/18/22
    • Camping: Paint Gap 4 10/19/22–10/21/22 | Flickr album

One characteristic of aging is that you can get great pleasure from revisiting experiences of your youth. Separated by decades, you forget the details of such experiences but recall that you enjoyed them immensely. In my case this holds true not only for books but also for my outdoor experiences. Going back decades later over trails previously trodden can be as full of joy and discovery as it had been the first time.

With this in mind I wanted to do an overnight to the South Rim, including the East Rim (which I don’t believe I’d been on before). I took advantage of online camping reservation systems and I booked a trip for October 15–21, starting with Seminole Canyon State Park and ending with three days at Paint Gap 4, probably my favorite primitive site in Big Bend National Park. In between was an overnight to ER4 (East Rim #4), a backcountry site on the Rim in the Chisos Mountains. My last backpack in the Chisos had been, I think, 1999. My last trip to the South Rim had been a day hike with friends in January of 2009, and I don’t know that I’d ever been to the east rim side as it’s seasonally closed for the Peregrine Falcon. (My first South Rim hike had been as a nine-year-old with my family in 1968.)

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Admin, Backpacking, Camping, Guadalupe Mountains, Trip Reports

TR-Guadalupe Mountains National Park camping and (canceled) backpacking-April 2025

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Camping and backpacking at Dog Canyon campground; heavy snow made the backpacking impossible

Gear, Lessons learned

Trip Report

Planning

This trip was supposed to go something like this: camp at Dog Canyon campground in Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO) then a long day hike followed by a rest and packing day, then an overnight backpack to Blue Ridge backcountry site, one of only 3 I haven’t backpacked to yet. Another goal was to hike the Marcus trail and the far northwestern section of the Bush Mountain trail, neither which I’d ever done. I had five days at Dog Canyon CG reserved and a backcountry permit for Blue Ridge on Saturday night, April 5. 

Map of trails in Guadalupe Mountains National Park-northern section. Bush Mountain trail between Blue Ridge junction and the Marcus backcountry site, and the Marcus trail between Bush Mountain junction to and Blue Ridge junction are two trail sections I hadn’t done.
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Backpacking, Hiking, Places, Trip Reports

TR-Grand Canyon Backpacking January 2011

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(There is a separate Trip Report for the car camping on that trip here.)

Gear, Lessons learned

Route

South Kaibab-Bright Angel Campground-Bright Angel Trail

  • 1/10/2011 (10:41 a.m.1) South Kaibab Trailhead->Bright Angel CG (4:15 p.m.)
  • 1/11/2021 Bright Angel CG (9:39 a.m.) to Grand Canyon Village (5:27 p.m.) via Bright Angel Trail

Locations/Elevations Mileages

South Kaibab Trail

Location2ElevationDistance
South Kaibab Trailhead7260′start
Cedar Ridge 6120′1.5 miles
Skeleton Point5220′3.0 miles
Tipoff4000′4.4 miles
Bright Angel Campground2480′7.0 miles

Bright Angel Trail

Location3ElevationDistance
Bright Angel Campground2480′start
River Resthouse2480′1.8 miles
Havasupai* Gardens3800′5.0 miles
Three-Mile Resthouse4748′6.5 miles
Mile-and-a-Half Resthouse5729′8.0 miles
Bright Angel Trailhead6860′9.5 miles
*Formerly Indian Gardens

Planning

While at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center at the end of 2007, I’d overheard a couple discussing with a NPS ranger backcountry permits for the Bright Angel site, at the bottom of the canyon near Phantom Ranch. I made a mental note to consider this in the near future. It’s a popular overnight and back hike; some folks pay $$ for the indoors at Phantom Ranch or a cabin but I was only interested in the backcountry sites. (My parents had hiked down and stayed at a cabin in 1978.) Aside from New Year’s Eve, there were almost always walkup available permits for Bright Angel this time of year. I made a mental note to come back soon for an overnight hike to the bottom and back. I returned for this trip in January of 2011.

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Admin, Trip Reports

TR- BBNP, BBRSP (partially canceled)-January 2025

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This was planned for a couple of days a Paint Gap 3, then on to Big Bend Ranch State Park/Fresno Vista, for three more days.

Gear

Trip Report

Not much to report here; I’d booked two nights at Paint Gap 3 (formerly Paint Gap 4, note the name change) to be followed by three more over at Fresno Vista in Big Bend Ranch State Park. I’ve stayed at both of these spots many times.

So things on this trip didn’t end up as planned, in many ways. But that’s o.k.–what’s the saying, “a bad night in the backcountry is better than a good day at work”? Yeah, I know that’s not it but whatever.

Things started roughly, out of Austin. As I was checking the air in my tires before departing I discovered a sheet metal screw in the tire. I went down the street to a local shop and got it repaired quickly. Fortunately it wasn’t too close to the sidewall.

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Admin, Big Bend, Trip Reports

TR-Big Bend NP December, 1977

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A trip to Big Bend National Park with a high school friend back in my teenage days

Gear, Lessons learned

Trip Report

Planning

In late 1977–probably during semester break in December–my high school friend and baseball teammate Kelly and I took a camping trip to Big Bend National Park. I write this almost fifty years after the trip; I have no notes, just some foggy recollections, a handful of Polaroid prints, and possibly a roll of 35mm film somewhere around here that hasn’t yet been digitized.
We’d done some winter camping on some property owned by some friends’ of Kelly’s family. I wouldn’t say we became expert campers, but we learned some things; how to manage all the Coleman fueled items (stove, lanterns), how to pitch my ancient, huge Sears canvas tent, how to stay reasonably warm.
It would be my second trip to BBNP, and I was itching to return.

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Admin, Big Bend, Trip Reports

TR-Big Bend NP-April 1985

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First solo trip west; Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Lubbock

  • 4/18/85-4/21/85 Big Bend NP
  • 4/18 Depart Austin 12: 25 a.m.
  • 4/18 Arrive BBNP ca. noon.
    • 4/18 Lost Mine Peak trail
    • 4/19-Chimneys trail
    • 4/20-Emory Peak summit
    • 4/21-Window trail, Hot Springs
  • 4/21-4/24 Guadalupe Mountains NP (separate post)

A note about some of the photos here–I scanned many of these slides thirty years ago when I had to squeeze them onto floppy disks, so their resolution is poor.

Gear, Lessons learned

Trip Report

Planning

Some of this is duplicated in the following post (Guadalupe Mountains)

I was twenty-six years old, still in the middle of my offshore oilfield career. I had read the old “Trails of the Guadalupes” guide, published by the Carlsbad Caverns Natural History Association, backwards and forwards while working on out in the Gulf of Mexico and had decided I needed to go see Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO) and climb the highest mountain in Texas. But I also wanted to go back to the place I first fell in love with the desert mountains, Big Bend National Park. My last trip there had been when I was still a teenager with my friend Kelly, in 1977. I had also been reading, repeatedly, the Hikers Guide to Trails of Big Bend National Park. I was working offshore at this time, but had a week off and that may explain my odd departure times.

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Trip Reports

TR-Guadalupe Mountains April, 1985

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McKittrick Canyon, Guadalupe Peak, Sitting Bull Falls, Carlsbad Caverns

  • 4/18/85-4/21/85 Big Bend NP (separate post)
  • 4/21-4/24 Guadalupe Mountains NP
    • 4/22-McKittrick Canyon
    • 4/23 -Guadalupe Peak, Sitting Bull Falls NM
    • 4/24-Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Gear, Lessons learned

Trip Report

It’s been quite a while since my first climb up Texas’ highest point, Guadalupe Peak (8,751′ now, was listed at 8,749′ then). I have basically no notes from that trip; just fuzzy memories and some fuzzier photos from an old point & shoot Nikon I used to borrow from my dad. I have just enough to piece together the itinerary.

Planning

I was twenty-six years old, still in the middle of my offshore oilfield career. I had read the old “Trails of the Guadalupes” guide, published by the Carlsbad Caverns Natural History Association, backwards and forwards while working on out in the Gulf of Mexico and had decided I needed to go see Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO) and climb the highest mountain in Texas.

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Admin, Backpacking, Camping, Colorado, Trip Reports

TR-Backpack-Colorado-Weminuche-September 2024

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Backpacking in Weminuche Wilderness, then AirBnB in Cortez, CO

Gear, Lessons learned

Trip Report

Planning

I decided I wanted to revisit a couple of backpacking trips I’d made years ago, partly because a lot of my earlier trip had been obscured by clouds and fog, and partly just to get out to a not too crowded part of the San Juans again. I would visit an area where I’d camped and backpacked going back almost forty years, the San Juan mountains and the Weminuche Wilderness. I first visited the San Juans on a long trip in 1986, car camping at Vallecito campground on the western side of the wilderness area, based on a suggestion from my parents. I returned for a couple of backpacking trips in the 1990s, in the Williams Creek area which is about thirty miles north of Pagosa Springs on USFS roads.

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