Category Archives: Places

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, 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

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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Backpacking, Camping, Guadalupe Mountains, Hiking, Places, Trip Reports

TR-GUMO Pine Springs/Guad. Peak; Dog Canyon/Marcus backpack-February 2022

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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).

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Arizona, Camping, Places, Trip Reports

TR-Grand Canyon camping January 2011

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(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.

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