Vanagon EuroVan
Previous messageNext messagePrevious in topicNext in topicPrevious by same authorNext by same authorPrevious page (March 2014, week 4)Back to main VANAGON pageJoin or leave VANAGON (or change settings)ReplyPost a new messageSearchProportional fontNon-proportional font
Date:         Sun, 23 Mar 2014 15:11:45 -0500
Reply-To:     mcneely4@COX.NET
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@COX.NET>
Subject:      Big Bend National Park (very long) and refrigerator question
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Wow, a great week in Big Bend National Park.

Bonnie and I left Oklahoma late in the afternoon a week ago yesterday in our 1991 Volkswagen Vanagon GL Campmobile with 2.1 liter waterboxer engine and manual transmission (so you know, Scott).

We drove in a continuous rain until we got past Wichita Falls, when the skies cleared a bit. We stopped for the night in the ghost town of Holliday, Texas, just pulling into a long ago abandoned service station driveway. The second blow of the cold front caught us there in the night, with fierce winds. We found it prudent to put the top down.

The next morning the winds were so brutal that when we gassed up in Seymour, Texas, Bonnie was almost blown off her feet, literally. We struggled on south on U.S. 277, assisted by the winds in excess of 45 mph, gusting at times to 55. Then we turned due west on U.S. 180 at Anson, Texas. During that leg of the drive, exactly perpendicular to the winds, we drove under 55 mph, at times only 45 mph, to avoid being forced into the oncoming traffic lane and not being able to recover to avoid a head on crash. Luckily the traffic was light on this road mainly used for local travel since the advent of Interstate 20 only 30 miles south. But, the winds and the occasional blowing dust made the drive unpleasant. At Snyder, Texas we turned south toward Big Spring, Texas and the interstate. Big Spring got its name from a very large spring that served the Comanche in their day and European settlers when they showed up. Today it is dry due to overgrazing, farming, and ground water pumping. The city tries to put on the Chamber of Commerce face by piping municipal water to it to let people see what it was formerly like, but the nigh nutrient water from a surface reservoir is algae choked and the "spring" looks nothing like its former crystal waters.

By the time we made Big Spring, the dust was really flying, with visibility sometimes under a half mile. That continued west through Odessa to our destination for the night, Monahans. Traffic on the interstate was terrible, too, with the oil boom in the Permian Basin, with giant trucks looming through the blowing dust. We stopped for a visit with my 95 year old aunt and a bed and shower in the Sand Hills town of Monahans. The wind howled and the dust blew all night. The next day, though the wind continued, the dust had abated. We found my aunt doing well, visiting with her until late afternoon on Monday.

So, we headed on down State Highway 18 from Monahans, Texas toward Fort Stockton, crossing the Pecos River at Grand Falls near the famed Horsehead Crossing of the Pecos, important in frontier times (up until the 1920s). The banks of the river are extremely steep and livestock could not cross most places. This was the crossing the Comanche used on their annual raids into Mexico to plunder and steal livestock. It got its name from the skulls of horses that had been driven hard across the deserts and perished here by the river. The crossing was later used by Charles Goodnight for cattle drives from Texas to New Mexico and Colorado, and by the Butterfield Overland Stage and the Pony Express.

The drive across the desert from Monahans to Fort Stockton (and on south to Big Bend) shows the results of years of overgrazing. The early settlers spoke of a sea of desert grassland. Today most of it is creosote bush desert with other shrubs and cacti with wide areas of bare sand and desert pavement. The stretch from the Glass Mountains to Marathon is higher (Marathon Basin), and has better grass. Antelope were numerous here. Fort Stockton today is just a small town that serves as a ranching and oil field center. In the nineteenth century it was one of the string of forts intended to control the Comanche and Apache in west Texas. A giant spring formerly occurred here, but overgrazing led to runoff replacing recharge, and water wells led to the spring going completely dry in the nineteen fifties. It occasionally flows in exceptionally wet years now, but for all practical considerations is gone, and with it the giant community swimming pool it supported. Fifty miles west at Balmorhea State Park is its twin, still surviving. Both Comanche Spring, the dead one, and the one at Balmorhea were (Balmorhea still) the home of very rare endangered fish, turtle, and invertebrate species. One can swim year round at Balmorhea due to the warm water spring.

We reached Marathon, Texas after crossing the Glass Mountains and getting our first view of Mexican Pinyon trees and finally escaping the oil wells stretching to the horizon. At Marathon we had intended to follow our usual practice of camping at Post Park (Pena Spring Park), a county park in the edge of the Santiago Mountains with a delightful brook and natural pool for swimming. Routinely, if we've arrived too late in the day to make it into BBNP before dark, we've camped there. But there was a new wrinkle. A sign that required prior written permission from the county commissioner's office at Alpine for camping. Of course, we were too late for that, and decided to abide by the rule, though there was no one for miles around, certainly no other campers. We did see lots of birds, including the beautiful, aptly named, Vermillion Flycatcher. So, we returned to Marathon and spent the night in an RV park, though one with a much more pleasant setting than most, and we were the only patrons in the area assigned to "automobile and tent camping." We left early the next morning for BBNP. Marathon is a very pleasant little high desert town, more about that below.

In the park, we got our back country permits from the Panther Junction Visitor's center, where we also spent a little time explaining the camper to folks who inquired. Most assumed it was air cooled, and all recalled having known someone who had a "bus" years ago.

Finally!! We drove the Glen Springs and the Juniper Canyon roads to our first night camp, a back country site named "Twisted Shoe." The drive in, though only fifteen miles, took a couple of hours, due to the rough nature of the road. Most of these back roads in BBNP are designated for four wheel drive, but a careful driver with good clearance can negotiate all except the Black Canyon Road and the western section of the River Road. We made it fine, as we always have.

The park has added a considerable number of the back country roadside camp sites in recent years compared to the small number they formerly had, and eliminated the former "zone camping" system to reduce camping impact. A back country site consists of just a cleared parking area ringed by rocks or timbers, and a National Park Service bear box in known bear travel areas. Twisted Shoe, near the Chisos Mountains, had a box. It was a really great location. We had a wonderful sunset over the Chisos Mountains, and could see a number of park features we had visited in prior year back packs, like Backbone Ridge, Elephant Tusk, South Rim, East Rim, Lost Mine Ridge, Talley Mountain, Chilocotal. This time, we were not back packing.

The next morning, because we were not able to get a permit for two nights for Twisted Show, we had to move our van a half mile to the Juniper Canyon Trail parking area for the day. Then we hiked the trail to Upper Juniper Spring, in the pine-oak forest of the High Chisos. Juniper Canyon is one route into the Chisos from this trail head. Another, the Dodson Trail, traverses the lower Chisos, an area known as the Sierra Quemada. Together with other trails, one can use these on an extended backpack (which we have done, nine days) to loop through the mountains. This time, we went only the four miles to the spring and back for a long (eight miles total) day hike.

Along the way we saw a small herd of Javelina (collared peccary), a variety of birds including a Rough Legged Hawk which we watched stoop on and capture a rock squirrel, then fly away with it. As we entered the wooded part of the canyon, we began to see Sophora trees (Texas Mountain Laurel), and they were blooming, some of them literally covered with pannicles of large pea type purple blossoms. The aroma was very strong and sweet. The plant, the source of the "Mexican Jumping Bean," has narcotic qualities, and legend has it that one can become intoxicated just breathing the aroma, but we remained sober.

The trail steepened considerably as we approached the higher reaches and the spring. Here, the canyon is quite narrow, and filled with Mexican Pinyon, Emory Oak, Chisos Oak, Apache Pine, and a few Douglas Fir trees. It is quite a contrast to the desert just a few hundred steps away. The temperature contrast is startling, and we put on jackets, as we were perspired from the hot walk. The spring is just a trickle from a rocky bluff, but in the ranching days, concrete troughs had been constructed to contain the water for cattle and sheep. Those are eroding away and no longer function, and the water saturates an area of perhaps fifty by fifty feet of soil where water loving plants grow under the oaks. There is a small pool, two feet across and six inches deep where the water flows from the rock. Of course, we took no water, leaving it for wildlife. There was a mountain lion track in the mud, and numerous tracks of deer and smaller animals. Acorn Woodpeckers, Gray Breasted Jays, Canyon Wrens (the wrens seen below in the desert, too), and mountain chickadees were active in the trees. We saw one Stellar's Jay.

We returned to the trail for the walk back feeling greatly refreshed by our visit to this oasis.

Along the way we ogled a great many desert wildflowers, including one hedgehog cactus that was three feet across and covered with brilliant red flowers. We discussed with the ranger we met whether it was a strawberry cactus or a claret cup, but came to no conclusion, as its color could have fit either, and we all forgot that the claret cup has straight spines while those on the strawberry cactus are curved. Many annual wildflowers were blooming as well.

Next we moved camp to Glen Springs 2, a couple of miles from the former "town" of that name, where a factory for processing the Candililla wax from the plant with the same name, a store, a post office, several families, and gardens irrigated from the springs were present until the early 1940s. Little remains now except some ruins and several graves. Pancho Villa raided this village in 1916. This camp, some ten miles away from Twisted Shoe, had no bear box, and by regulation we had to store everything in the van. A bear would be crazy to travel into that deep desert environment.

Driving out from Glen Springs 2 the next day, we saw an Aplomado Falcon, a small hawk, endangered but being restored in south and west Texas and Mexico.

We next visited Big Bend Hot Springs, frequented by folks who like to soak in hot water, along the Rio Grande. This was formerly a resort and spa, up through the early days of the park, and several of the buildings remain, surviving in the desert climate for seventy years though made of adobe and rock. The spring became very popular with college students, especially during spring break, but rowdiness and misbehavior led to the park banning both alcohol and nudity. The place is more peaceful than it was for a time, and we encountered numerous families there with their kids. We talked with several Canadians at this spot, all very interested in the Vanagon.

We drove some distance up the Old Ore Road (formerly used to move silver, lead, and zinc partially processed ore from mines in Mexico to the railroad at Marathon), another very rough back road, to visit Ernst Tinaja. Tinaja is Spanish for earthen jar, and in BB is used for depressions in rock that hold water from runoff. These are important water sources for wildlife, and formerly for people. The Ernst Tinaja is some thirty feet across and many feet deep. At low water level (like now) the water is some six feet below the surrounding rock lip, and animals have drowned in it seeking water. People formerly swam in it, but this is now not permitted (and would not be safe, both because getting out would be difficult or impossible, and because of _Naegleria_, the cause of amoebic encephalitis. At Ernst Tinaja we met still more Canadians interested in the van. the canyon walls here are brighlyt colored alternating strata of shales and limestone.

Our next destination was Devil's Den, and a back country camp site called "Nine Point Draw" in the northern part of the park. This camp was truly in a stark desert setting, but was very pleasant for the delightful sunset and sunrise we enjoyed, and for the view of both Dog Canyon and Devil's Den, some three miles away across the desert. Dog Canyon has important meaning for us, as it was the destination we sought the first time our daughter did her own walking on a back pack at age five.

The walk to Devil's Den is cross country from the camp site, through creosote flats, with one tricky arroyo crossing, until one encounters the trail from the Dog Canyon draw at the lip of Devil's Den before the route steepens. Bonnie and I only walked up to the crest of the saddle through which the canyon is cut in the Dead Horse Mountains, and did not attempt to return through the canyon, which I pointed out to Bonnie was for the "Young, fit, and foolish," as one has to traverse numerous pour offs and boulders the size of houses, might have to wade tinajas (not this trip, too dry), and fight through dense brush. We met four of those young, fit, and foolish folks, from Purdue University, as we were walking the trail along the canyon lip. They hailed us from the depths, some sixty feet below. I made that traverse some 35 years ago. We had lunch at the top of the saddle, where we saw numerous lizards of several species on the rocks. Some of the giant yuccas were blooming here, with their flower stalks up to six feet tall.

As we walked across the flats toward Devil's Den in the early morning, we encountered numerous Black-tailed Jackrabbits. We would first see them when they would erupt from a sitting position, usually under a bush in shade, despite the morning chill. Ah, the morning chill. On previous early spring trips to BBNP, the mornings have been warm, and we often slept without shelter. This trip we were glad to be in the van, or we would have wanted a tent. It was below freezing some mornings. There were numerous very large patches of wildflowers in this part of the park, especially a lavender verbena.

From Devil's Den and Nine Point, we headed home. We stayed overnight in Marathon, this time in the Marathon Motel, as Bonnie wanted an indoor rest, a real bed and a shower before the long drive home. We ate dinner at an emporium called the Laughing Burro Bar and Grill. It was new since we were last in Marathon a few years ago. It turned out to be owned by two young physicians (husband and wife) from Indiana, who were a very interesting couple. He practices in Fort Stockton, fifty miles away, she back in Indiana. They live in Alpine, Fort Stockton, Marathon, Indiana, and Cumberland Gap, Kentucky (where they have another restaurant outside Cumberland Gap National Park). They just opened the place in Marathon a week ago. Before opening, they consulted the local people concerning menu. The consensus was that they needed to offer inexpensive food as an alternative to the high dollar Gage Hotel up the street.

The Gage was an old railroad hotel, originally built by a railroad executive who had to spend time in west Texas and found there was nowhere fit to stay. It had been closed for years and just cleaned up and reopened some twenty years ago when Bonnie and I stayed there for the first time. Bathroom down the hall. Inexpensive. A couple of years later we went back and thought we'd stay at the Gage. Wow!! Extremely expensive. It had been renovated, "updated," and promoted as a destination resort hotel. We haven't been back in it, but lots of expensive automobiles fill its parking lots.

The reason we became acquainted with the couple running the restaurant had to do with music. Loud music. We had gone in, the music was ear shattering, and we started to go back outside to sit under the trees. The hostess caught up with us, helped us to find the quietest location, and asked what sort of music we'd like to hear. She adjusted the amplifiers to fit our old ears, and we began talking. The singer was her husband, the other physician of the pair. Turns out they'd just bought a house in Alpine from an acquaintance of mine. He'd (the husband) once lived in Morehead, KY, where Bonnie and I once lived, and during the same time period. He was a student at the university there, where I taught.

They served good food. Especially the guacomole, salsa, and chile con queso. Oklahomans could sure take a lesson.

The next day we drove fourteen hours home.

I'll put the refrigerator question in another post.

mcneely


Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main VANAGON page

Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!


Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com


The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.

Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.