- Guadalupe Mountains National Park 12/2/24-12/5/24
- Guadalupe Peak horse trail 12/2/24
- Frijole-Smith Springs loop 12/3/24
- Tejas Trail -> Trail jct. 12/4/24
Category Archives: Camping
TR-Backpack-Colorado-Weminuche-September 2024
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.
Continue reading TR-Backpack-Colorado-Weminuche-September 2024
TR-GUMO Pine Springs/Guad. Peak; Dog Canyon/Marcus backpack-February 2022
Took a trip out to Guadalupe Mountains National Park last week. I’d reserved Sunday and Monday nights at Pine Spring, Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday nights at Dog Canyon. I intended on climbing Guadalupe Peak again Monday, then I was planning on a backcountry stay on Wednesday night, possibly at Blue Ridge (as discussed here; https://bigbendchat.com/tentative-plan-for-one-night-backpack-dog-canyon-b-t18146.html).
I’d been getting in pretty good shape over the past six months, doing cardio, hiking, and most recently hiking with a pack to start conditioning myself for backpacking. But I had an unexpected trip to take my 89-year old mother to California to meet her new great-granddaughter from New Zealand who was visiting family in Berkeley…but I digress. Bottom line is I was out for a week, then home for only a couple of days before leaving on my trip.
I left Austin around 4 pm arriving Ozona around 8 pm. I began this habit of breaking up the drive to GUMO a few years ago; gives me plenty of time to pack, take care of chores, and hardly feels like any time at all for the first day. And then it’s nice to get to my campsite early enough to where I don’t have to rush to beat sundown (especially in Winter). I got to GUMO just before 1:00–oops, Noon Mountain time; went to the visitor center to make sure I didn’t have to check in or anything (got that Senior Pass heh heh, and had already booked the camping) and wanted to confirm I could get my Wednesday night backcountry permit here on Tuesday morning as I left (I could).
TR-Grand Canyon camping January 2011
(There is a separate Trip Report for my backpack to the bottom that trip here.)
Work in progress…
I headed out to Grand Canyon National Park in January of 2011 to camp and do an overnight backpack to the bottom of the canyon. Why January? Well, less crowded. I had overheard a Ranger telling another visitor seeking a backcountry permit on that 2007 trip that aside from New Years’ Eve and New Years’ Day, it was very unlikely they’d have a problem securing a first-come first-serve permit for Bright Angel campground (at the bottom). Hmm, I thought at the time, I’ll come back. And I did.
Continue reading TR-Grand Canyon camping January 2011
TR-Guadalupe Mountains Dog Canyon & Gypsum Dunes November 14-16, 2019
Wednesday the 13th I left Austin after work and some final packing around 6:00 P.M. and got to Ozona around 10:00. Next morning I kind of let Google navigate me, wanting to stay well away from US 285; ended up going East and North of it, to near Odessa, then coming into the Guadalupe Mountains/Lincoln National Forest via Carlsbad. Only in one small section, around Eunice, did I experience much oil field traffic.
Arrived Dog Canyon 1:00 P.M. MST on Thursday. I was a little discombobulated since I have never arrived there so early in the day: Because of the distance, I generally arrive shortly before sundown but since I’d left from Ozona I had a significantly shorter drive.
TR-Backpack-GUMO Shumard 11/16/2017
CalTopo map
I spent most of a week in mid-November (2017) at Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO). Camped 4 days/nights; at Pine Spring CG and in the middle an out/back overnight to the Shumard Canyon backcountry site. I don’t have a *lot* of info to add; i’ve done the El Cap/Overlook trail several times over the decades so didn’t take many photos. I had never done the Shumard Canyon stretch before so this was all new to me. It turned out to be quite challenging due to the trail conditions, and I took very few pics (even though i’d intended to do some night photography). That happens. Continue reading TR-Backpack-GUMO Shumard 11/16/2017
Tents
Here are some of the tents I’ve used:
First tent I ever owned started out as a loaner from a friend of Dad’s.
Big Bend Ranch State Park
Big Bend Ranch State Park is a huge state park just west of Big Bend National Park.
Big Bend Camping November 2014
I left austin a bit late Friday (November 7), right at 9. This put my ETA at big bend at 17:30 and that’s exactly when i got into Panther Junction. Got a bag of ice in Marathon. Turns out they’d had 4 inches of rain the day before. Several roads were closed, so there were backcountry sites available but none throughout the period. The lady at the counter was very helpful; she gave me Chilicotal first night, then Paint Gap Hills #2 the next 4 nights with the understanding i could come in an change at a later time. She said the wet conditions had driven a lot of campers to the closer in sites, but things should be drying out soon.
(Here’s a link to my Flickr album of this trip)
Chilitcotal was very nice. Near Rice Tank, new, on a ridge with fantastic views in all directions. (There used to be two campsites at Rice Tank; now only one. See why below.) Saw almost nobody; A motorcyclist coming in around sunset, and I think maybe a couple of folks going to/from the Pine Canyon sites, but didn’t come my way down Glenn Springs Rd.
Next night, Saturday, I broke camp and headed to Paint Gap Hills #2; a dissappointment. Someone had been camping there during the deluge and left huge 4-5 inch ruts in almost all of the available area. Although somewhat dry now, I was hard pressed to find a decent spot for my tent.
Tuesday morning (11/11) I happened upon a ranger at HQ. Said he’d been here 25 years. Said he’d picked the site for Chilicotal. I asked about the re-jiggering of the campsites; he said there were basically 3 reasons. 1) some were at traiheads, 2) double sites really didn’t work and 3) all the best sites were often Indian camp sites too and therefore archeological sites. Also overheard him talking about grasses here; said buffalo grass “invasive and we’re losing the battle.” Also said they’ve learned through trial and error how to reseed; said some sites you can see where they stack dead brush up to keep the soil cooler for seeds to germinate.
Using a tarp for car camping
It’s taken me a few years to figure this out. I’ve had a cheap old tarp in the past which I’ve almost never used; then, before my John Muir Trail hike I picked up a ultra-light Sil-Tarp (below) which was marginally effective but I still never really got the hang of pinning it down in the wind.
And then here, below, is the cheap one I got in Hanksville, because it rained almost every day in the Escalante National Monument. But these cheap tarps are also unwieldy in the wind and tend to collect rather than shield rain.
I purchased a Kelty tarp a couple of years ago; have had difficulty in anchoring it for a couple of years, but this last time in Utah I finally got it staked down well (the pic at the top of this post). In a big wind, I still had to anchor one peg with a stool and a large water bag on top of it to make sure it didn’t pull out.
Tarps can be crucial for enjoying your car camping experience; less so for backpacking I think, because when you’re backpacking, you’re going to be on the move the next day anyway. But car camping, you’re probably going to stay put for a few days; the tarp can keep you protected from intermittent showers with little discomfort; you can cook underneath them, hang out, snooze, whatever. Beats the heck out of spending sixteen hours in a tent because of rain.