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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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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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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

Locations/Elevations Mileages

    • Bright Angel Trailhead (6860 ft / 2093 m) to:
    • Mile-and-a-Half Resthouse (5729 ft / 1748 m) Three-Mile Resthouse (4748 ft / 144 9m) Havasupai Gardens (3800 ft / 1160m) River Resthouse (2480 ft / 756 m) Bright Angel Campground (2480 ft / 756 m) 1.5 mi (2.4 km)
    • 3.0 mi (4.8 km)
    • 4.5 mi (7.2 km)
    • 7.7 mi (12.4 km)
    • 9.5 mi (15.3 km)

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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