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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
(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.
Trip report written some thirty-four years after the fact, relying on photos, map notes, and memory.
GUMO permit Sept 1986
Starting from Pine Spring Campground, I got up to the crest at the trail junction near Pine Top where I met Ranger Craig. Turns out he was doing a backcountry stint, and we hiked together for the next two days. He was quite the naturalist and helped me identify a lot of flora and fauna.
We stayed one night at Tejas backcountry site, then over to McKittrick Ridge for the next night. Somewhere along the McKittrick Trail we came across an angry rattlesnake.
Rock rattler that surprised us along the McKittrick trail1983 Trails Illustrated map of GUMO with notes from three 1986 backpacking trips. Lower section. Note that the park HQ was still in the old shed at Frijole. There are a couple of errors in my hand-written notes there; please hold your calls. The plane site says “B-29” and not “B-24” and it’s in the wrong location.McKittrick CanyonAbove McKittrick Canyon
In the morning, Craig left for elsewhere, and I returned back toward the Tejas trail.
