I’m kind of amazed that I grew up in Texas and never visited Enchanted Rock. My parents took us camping a couple times a year but I know we mostly drove within two hours of home. This would have been nearly five hours away, so probably not a feasible trip back then. I had mentioned this park as a place to go on our Texas Roadtrip in September 2010 but for some reason it didn’t make it to our list of places to visit. Well, we finally did make it.

The park itself is in the boondocks between Llano and Fredericksburg, west of Austin. The road the entrance is on has cattle guards on it with signs warning about free range cattle on the roads. I’d posted to Facebook that we were going out there and my friend Sara replied that she was driving down there for the day with her family. I was excited about this because Sara is a friend that I’ve gotten to know through the internet these last few years though we actually know each other from high school. Because I’ve been here-there-everywhere I haven’t had the opportunity to hang out with her in person all that often, it is nice to see her when the opportunity presents itself. In high school we didn’t really know each other that well back then even though we were in the same art class for three years, but it took the internet to realize that we had more in common than we thought. You know, high school and all its weirdness.

We arrived at the park around noon and were stunned to see a line to get into the park. It was New Years weekend after all, but still. This was craziness! Luckily the side coming from Llano was much, much shorter than the side coming from Fredericksburg. A few hours later, on top of Enchanted Rock, we saw the line from Fredericksburg was at least 3/4 of a mile long or more! I suppose that is something good to communicate, that there are that many people willing to wait in line to visit a state park and this isn’t even a touristy commercial park like Disney or Sea World or heck, the mall! But, we were around Austin and well, they don’t have Keep Austin Weird bumperstickers for nothing. It is the eclectic awesome spot of Texas—despite that so-called school that happens to be there. Austinites/Hill Country folks enjoy nature a lot.

We made it in and I gave Sara a call. She was still going to be a few hours so Chris and I set up camp and decided to go explore the area. Little Rock, the ‘smaller’ rock to the west of Enchanted Rock was right behind our campsite so we left straight up from there, building our own pathway as we found it. It was a pretty awesome thing to do!

It was beautiful out and clear, which for the last few weeks it had been cold and overcast. This is what I had been looking for all winter!

From near the top of Little Rock looking over to the east at Enchanted Rock. We had to dip down into a short gap (I like to say gap because it is very A.T.) between the two rocks.

I think this might be the only color photo I took the entire time, an orange sulphur butterfly, a female I believe. I used our Butterflies Through Binoculars Florida edition to figure it out. Colias eurytheme.

We played around on Enchanted Rock or awhile before I texted Sara to figure out where she was. She was still about fifteen minutes from the entrance by this time so we decided to hike half of the loop trail that went around the rocks. By the time we arrived back at camp I phoned Sara and they were on Enchanted Rock enjoying the late afternoon and I invited them to drop by our campsite before they left for home again. About an hour later they showed up and I was glad to sit and chat with them for awhile. Her two sons are super sweet and a bit shy but they really enjoyed playing on and pushing their dad on our hammocks.

Sara and her family didn’t stay long as they still had their nearly five hour drive back to DFW and it was already pushing dark by this time. (I hate winter—dark at 5:30 is not very fun!) We said goodbye and I went off to shower and hopped into bed at a much too early time but spent it reading a book by flashlight. I really need to get a portable battery operated lamp for winter. Chris headed off to take star photography shots. He’s still working on those so I can’t show you them.

And you will just have to wait for the next half of this trip report!

One of the photos I processed from our weekend at Enchanted Rock last weekend. We were trying to find a supposed cave but instead we found a slot of rocks to walk/crawl through. I spent most of the weekend shooting in black and white with a red filter on my camera. The landscape seemed to beckon for that type of treatment, but Chris managed to get some color shots that were stunning!

I’m going to slowly be working on the rest of the photos. I’m trying to get a baby blanket finished and it is trying my patience and frankly I just don’t want to do it. Instead I want to quilt but I don’t have a sewing machine. I think what I want is a quick reward, but I know what I need is to spent a weekend watching chick-flicks and pushing myself to early arthritis to get it done. I need to get the blanket done so I can focus on some other projects, but first things first.

Did a bit of a redesign around here too. Need to change some links on the blog list—my brother’s blog changed. The header is now a bit different. The photos are from left to right: a capuchin monkey from Inti Wara Yassi when we went to Bolivia in 2008, Chris and I at Pensacola Beach on the last day of our Florida Trail thru-hike last year, my dad, brother, me and Chris at the Crosstimbers Trail on Lake Texoma last spring, me in the mud and cut grass of the Big Thicket last spring, me heading up Hump Mountain in the Roan Highlands of Tennessee on the AT in 2010, and the final photo is a red eft I saw in PA in October.

Florence + the Machine is tearing up my mp3 player…not sure if it will ever get old.

When we left Dog Canyon the next morning the sky was relatively clear. The forecast did not predict any significant problems so we left the campsite with an intent to take it easy along the way to our initial destination, the Tejas campsite. We planned on stopping along the way to enjoy the scenery, take lots of breaks and really soak it all in.

On the Bush Mountain trail we headed in a westerly direction along the crease between two hill tops. We followed on the flat terrain for maybe a mile, perhaps less, before starting our wind up the hill. Initially we’d bundled up but as soon we we entered the sun out of the shade from the nearby mountain we started shedding layers, plus it became warm as soon as we started exerting effort on our climb up the hill.

On top of the first hill we knew we’d have it easy for awhile as we ridge walked and then descended again before going up once more. On the first ridge is where we looked to the north and thought, “Uh oh”. Ominous clouds were in the distance and we both said we hoped that it didn’t involve rain, but we saw a rainbow and, well, you know how rainbows are formed. We trucked along when all of a sudden the temperature dropped and I scurried to put some layers back on. Then Chris pointed out that he thought the precipitation that began coming down was snow flurries! It was then that I suddenly had an image of a freak snow storm and us trying to find our way on a mostly unmarked path, other than the well trod path we followed. No blazing, very few rock cairns….we were going to be stuck in a snow storm. Ok, so I got an overactive imagination at that point, but it does help to start thinking about what you might do in a situation like that.

We started descending down the hill and of course it was cloudy, snowing lightly and getting colder. Now would have been the time to go up hill. Over to the south we could see the Marcus trail where we could be going up another hill in a little while.

Down at the trail junctions we stopped to take a snack break, get some sugar into the system before heading up the hill. Heading down the Marcus trail we were again walking on flat trail between two sets of mountains and we found evidence of previous homesteads or campsites when we walked by an old trash pile with rusted cans and bottles that were quite possibly 100 years old. Right before that we had scared up a decent herd of mule deer, one fawn heading off in the wrong direction at one point but we knew they would all gather back together somewhere out of sight.

Then it was time to start climbing again, and it wasn’t terrible and of course I took my breaks. We were on top of the next ridge before we knew it and as I was eyeing a downed agave, Chris decided to take a photo of a live agave near it. I took advantage of the moment to rest and eat a snack. The sun was fully out now and it was warming up a bit by this time, enough to shed a layer or two. The ridge was peaceful and quiet and in the distance we thought we spotted a golden eagle but weren’t sure. Chris thought the flight pattern was definitive of an eagle but the bird never flew close enough for a positive identification.

From the top we wound around the edge of the ridge, slowly descending and flattening out.

Along the flat part we stopped to check out this flower, initially thinking it might be an orchid but then deciding it wasn’t upon closer inspection. No matter, we had plenty of time to stop and take photos so we both dug our cameras out and took some shots.

Chris left me to take these macros, slowly walking down the trail to see what he could find. When I finally started heading his direction I walked slowly, taking my time and enjoying the quietness of walking alone. I rarely walk by myself in the woods and the feeling is very different.

When we intersected the Blue Mountain Trail we knew we were about a third of a mile from the Tejas Trail junction. We were descending into a small valley where the topo made made it appear we would walk along a creek. Sure enough, after the Tejas trail junction we did find the creek and walked for about a mile after to the entrance of the Tejas campsite. It was only 1pm; we’d talked about moving on to the Pine Top campsite which would allow us to have less miles in the morning and to be completely downhill for our exit of the park. With a ten hour drive back to Houston, less hiking was probably ideal. We sat for thirty minutes or so at the Tejas campsite entrance to snack and rest before summoning up the energy for the final ‘up’ to the Pine Top campsite. The topo signaled it wouldn’t be very difficult, a few switchbacks and then mostly straight up on the ridge with a small up at the end to the campsite.

When we got up the first set of switchbacks and to the the top of the first hill Chris declared that he thought it was PUD, “pointless up and down”, because we shortly descended a bit to rise back up to another small hill. From there it was easy walking and I kept trying to determine which bigger mountain we were aiming for, which one the Pine Top campsite was located at.

In front of us the mountains grew larger and I finally determined that we were getting closer, thinking that the mountain in front had to be Guadalupe Peak. Finally, we saw the metal sign marking the trail junctions.

And there it was, Guadalupe Peak, where we’d been only days before.

Looking southeast towards the visitors center.

Chris scoped out a place for sunset photos and we walked the .2 miles up to the campsite. Several of the tent pads were not very level, we bypassed those for one further back and more sheltered from the wind up top. Quickly we set up the tent to dry out from the previous night’s rain; it had frozen to the tent and still had not melted. We shook the fly off, ice flying everywhere. Later we looked down at the ground and saw a pile of what appeared to be snow and wondered if that was what had come off of the tent or if we had somehow overlooked the little pile of snow/ice when we set the tent up.

We ate dinner early, partly because we were hungry and partly because we were cold and wanted something to do. I attempted to walk around further down the other end of the Bush Mountain Trail but was too cold to want to bother with much.

I did manage to take this before heading back to camp to get into the tent for the night. I snuggled in the sleeping bags, doubling Chris’ over on top of me until he got back from taking photos. Despite zipping our sleeping bags together for the night we were still shivering for awhile before sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night when one of us got too cold.

The next morning we quickly took the tent down and scurried over to the edge of the ridge where Chris attempted to take sunrise pictures.

We weren’t exactly in the best position, so we packed things up and headed downhill. Along the way we stopped a few times for Chris to take a few shots but then we stopped for longer to watch a small herd of Barbary sheep.

Neither of us had a zoom lens on us and instead we made do with our landscape lenses. I cropped this one so you could see the sheep. One of them, maybe the leader, was ahead of the pack and already topped the small crag and went over the other side.

Only a few miles more and we were at the Pine Springs campground once again. I was partly glad to be done but sad to not be out in the backcountry still. There are still other trails we didn’t see that I hope to eventually hike one day.

So much to see and not enough time!

We rose at the McKittrick Ridge campsite the following morning to clouds. It had been quite windy the previous night and a few times it sounded like rain outside, but despite all of that, the ground was relatively dry. We ate a hurried breakfast, taking the tent down first in case the bottom fell out of the sky, so that the tent wouldn’t be wet later. I asked Patrice and Justin if they were awake so they could get up if they wanted to get back down to the McKittrick Visitors Center before the rain came. We were expecting at least a 70% chance of rain for the day, as per what the rangers told us when we picked up our backcountry permits. Luckily our day was relatively smooth and then downhill to Dog Canyon.

A quick snapshot of the four of us before we jetted off to the west.

The wind was kicking pretty good when we left but we also saw hints of the sun reflecting off of the mountains to the west and for about thirty minutes it appeared that perhaps the day might not be so terrible. The topography for the day was supposed to be relatively smooth with a few minor ‘ups’ in there. We crossed another small knife edge and the wind whipped straight across and I was thankful there wasn’t rain involved with the wind at the moment. Atop a few of the small hills we climbed I thought it was very beautiful, pine covered and rustic, good places to stealth camp. I wished we hadn’t been racing the rain so we could have stopped to snap a few shots.

We were on top of the ridge shortly before descending a bit to walk along the edge of the ridge on the south side, blocked from most of the wind by the mountain on our north. Midway through this walk the sprinkles started and we put our pack covers on to keep our gear dry. Up went the zippers on our rain jackets and the hoods to cover our heads. It wasn’t terrible until the trail made a turn around the curve of the mountain to the north and we got hit full force with the wind and the rain.

The trail junction for the Tejas Trail and McKittrick Ridge Trail came quicker than we anticipated and I was excited that we had only about four miles left to descend to Dog Canyon. Luckily the rain ceased for the most part at this point and the clouds seemed to calm. We spotted a mule deer buck at one point across a small gap on another hill and we stopped to admire it for a few seconds before moving on. Down below we spotted a building but thought it might not be in the right direction and that it was potentially too far to be the Dog Canyon visitors center. (turns out it was the visitors center)

The trail followed around to the mountain we saw the mule deer at and then a bit further we spotted three other deer. The terrain was this point was smoothly downhill and very nice. Even if we were to come back this was it wasn’t terribly steep, an ‘up’ yes, but nothing horrible. To the north was New Mexico and it seemed that the terrain mellowed out a bit for awhile.

Down and down around the switchbacks we went until we finally came to the bottom of the canyon where we followed an on and off creek. On and off because sometimes it was wet and other places it wasn’t. At one point I thought I heard a voice and sure enough just around the bend we encountered hikers heading up the canyon for a day hike.

In addition to day hikers we ended up seeing two backpackers heading up and all I could think was that I was glad it wasn’t me because I knew what the weather was supposed to be all day. We later found out those same hikers turned back after encountering sleet at the higher elevations later on that day.

At the visitors center we sat down at the picnic table out front to wait for the ranger on duty. She returned shortly and informed us we could just self pay for a campsite. The campground was relatively quiet so we had our pick of campsites. We were half hoping for a soda machine because there had been one at the Pine Springs campground but alas, no soda machine.

It wasn’t even 11 a.m. but we ate a first lunch (second lunch came later) and saw that more clouds were rolling in so we set off to find a campsite and pitch the tent. Good thing because during our nap several storms rolled through. I was very glad to be in a tent!

After our nap we did a little exploring and I went off down the nature trail to see what I could find.

I kept my eye on the sky the entire time because of scenes like this, clouds rolling in and I didn’t want to be caught in the rain. There’s mountains behind the clouds.

I just took the little trail in, taking in the different scenes.

Overall it was a relaxing day and I enjoyed it a lot. We tucked in early for the night; not much to do after dark when it is cold, might as well get in the tent. It does make for some long nights, though!

Next we’ll follow the Bush Mountain Trail to the Marcus Trail and then to the Tejas Trail.

When I told my dad we were going to Guadalupe Mountains National Park for Thanksgiving he recounted his tale of it being one of the hardest hikes he’d ever done. He regaled me with a story about my brother and him being ahead of the rest of the Boy Scout troop, and climbing and climbing to the McKittrick Ridge campsite they were all supposed to stay at that night, however night fell and they ended up laying out their sleeping bags somewhere in the middle of the trail. Eventually everyone got caught up together but then there was an issue of getting water and the only place was several miles downhill, so my dad and a few others carried everyone’s water bottles down to fill them up and then hauled them the several miles back up.

I just kept thinking, It can’t be that hard!

Um. It was.

Or at least for out-of-mountain-shape me. Patrice and Justin were still rocking their trail legs so they were patient with me as I eased up McKittrick Ridge.

First, we had to descend Guadalupe Peak, approximately four miles, then refill on water and shuttle a car over to the McKittrick Ridge trail head. Patrice and Justin were going to come back out the same way the following day so they could head to Carlsbad Caverns for the weekend.

When we pulled into the McKittrick Visitors Center I noticed a Backpacker Magazine vehicle parked in the lot and two people, a man and woman, with gear outside of it. Our interest was piqued. Chris headed over to the car as soon as we parked and we all followed suit. It was the Get Out More Tour, with Sheri and Randy Propster. Chris told them we were all AT thru-hikers to which they said they were as well, but they’d also completed the American Discovery Trail which is how they ended up being chosen for the position with Backpacker.

We chatted with them for quite awhile, very interested in their lifestyle of traveling the country nine months a year, testing gear, traveling trails that readers choose as some of the best routes and then reviewing them on their blog, and giving clinics at various outdoor retailers around the country. It’s a pretty good gig and they know it! Patrice and Justin informed them they were interested in doing something similar and it seemed that the possibility of something being available could happen in the future. I was definitely envious!

Sheri and Randy had just done part of the loop we were planning and did inform us that the trail up to McKittrick Ridge was a good trail but very relentless with many false tops.

Chris was anxious to get going since it would be our longest and hardest day and he was still hoping to get to the campsite before dark. The first several miles would traverse along McKittrick Creek through the canyon and would be relatively flat. Yay for flat! Then it would be a steep and relentless hike up to the ridge and campsite.

The first mile or two were slowly busy with day hikers traversing the creek.

I did a double take at the vegetation along the creek and had to run my hand up the side of it. It was sawgrass and I even looked it up on the USDA database to see it was listed for that county out there. Definitely stunned! The big tooth maples were past their prime but still held a bit of color.

For lunch we made it to the Pratt cabin where we sat at the picnic tables next to the creek and chatted with some older day hikers from Austin. Patrice and Justin showed up shortly after we sat down for lunch, we’d left them back at the cars since Chris knew he wanted to go slower and take photos, knowing they would catch up to us.

This is part of the cabin that was built by Wallace Pratt back in the early part of the 20th century. On Google Earth it appears that a road continues through the canyon to the north; someday I’d like to walk back on that road and see where it leads.

A little further down Chris stopped to take photos of trout in a small puddle of the creek.

About a mile past the Pratt Cabin is a grotto down a short trail and then a bit further another cabin. Patrice and Justin scoped out the cabin while I sprawled out on the top of a picnic table to rest.

The open area to the south of the grotto appeared to be a good stealth camping place…

Shortly after the grotto the climb up began. It was about four miles to the campsite and it was definitely 95% up! Switchbacks and more switchbacks…it was never ending! But it offered up some amazing views and as we climbed I didn’t feel too guilty for stopping to catch my breath because we could stop and peer out over the canyon below.

Eventually we wound up high enough and spotted four other hikers that Sheri and Randy had told were ahead of us. I was surprised to have caught them, thinking they were further ahead than we were. Patrice and Justin pulled ahead of us when Chris stopped to take a photo of a yucca. Eventually when we came to the top of the first false summit and then realized we had to go down to cross a knife edge and then go back up I was a bit disheartened. Chris kept saying we wouldn’t make it for sunset and since I didn’t wear a watch while hiking I had no clue what time it was, nor did I want to ask because knowing the time and distance only frustrates me when I am not going fast enough.

We were on the south side of the knife edge and we saw the four hikers climbing up the north side of the knife edge. Later we found out that Patrice and Justin were both waving to us from the top of the other side but we didn’t see them. Eventually on the other side we did catch up and pass the other four hikers who were hiking in jeans. I know, hike your own hike, but really, jeans? Ouch!

The four had separated into two groups of two and both asked us how far we thought camp was to which we estimated about a mile to a mile and a half. When we passed the second group it wasn’t but ten more minutes before we arrived at the McKittrick Ridge campsite, thankfully a shorter distance than anticipated.

And it was only 4 o’clock, an hour until sunset! I hadn’t walked as slow as I thought, not thru-hiking pace but not the turtle pace I felt I was going.

P&J said they’d only been there about ten minutes and were in the process of setting up camp. We got our tent ready and dinner too, and then spent a few hours chatting with them about the A.T. and thru hiking as well as post trail life.

And then it was all of 5:45pm or so and time for bed. Yep, hiker midnight!

We arrived at the Pine Springs Visitors Center at Guadalupe Mountains National Park somewhere around 11am MST. Patrice and Justin were going to be meeting us in a few hours and I was surprised that we’d arrived at the visitors center so quickly. That and we didn’t anticipate a time change though I should have figured that we were going far enough west to have one. The extra hour was definitely a bonus.

Inside the center we filled out our backcountry slips and took a look around the exhibits, watching the video in the small room behind the main desk. Killing time, we decided to get everything together so we could book it as soon as they arrived. A few texts were exchanged and they were going to arrive around 1:30 MST, which they did pretty much promptly. Chris was anxious to get to the top of Guadalupe Peak, the 8,749′ mountain that reigns as the highest point in Texas, for sunset. The ranger at the visitors center said that three hours would be a fast time for anyone to climb the mountain, but he didn’t know that there were two recent Appalachian Trail thru-hikers that could probably whip that out pretty fast (Deal and Steadee) and though our thru-hike was well over a year ago we figured we could do pretty well. (I think it was somewhere around 2.5 hours to the top for us…Patrice can verify, she had a Garmin Forerunner clocking our time and altitude).

We were the only ones to start up that late and most folks were coming down by that time. I took my time, slowly and steadily, and not feeling so great from the slowly increasing altitude and from not eating a good lunch. Bad choice on my part! A mule deer was scared from its resting place just off the trail about a quarter of the way up and we encountered an obnoxious if informative kid saying that “we had a long way to go” still. Yeah, we know, dude. Then, since we were all A.T. thru-hikers we lamented about the ever persistent question on the trail when descending a mountain “How far to the top?”. The answer in our head would have been “Well, for you or for me?” After one has covered so many miles it is easy to become quickly efficient at hiking up and down a mountain. Of course we didn’t answer so snidely and are nice about it, “Well, it’ll be awhile, sorry!” This time though I definitely felt on the other end of the stick since I was out of mountain shape and my lungs were feeling the pressure.

The peak we thought was the summit turned out to not be the summit, of course. This is the ever annoying curse of “That must be it!” and it really isn’t. The false summit was instead the 1-mile from summit campground. Looked promising.

Up, and up, and up. Round, and round, and round. We spotted the horse hitching posts and then Chris noticed the monument on the top of the summit.

We’d made it! The rotten thing was I was so shaky and had started having leg cramps on the way up (a banana would have made me feel a lot better!) that I immediately started making dinner. That, compounded with the wind chill at the top didn’t allow me to share in the hub-bub of making it to the summit. I just wanted food and to get in the tent. We decided to find a good patch of rock to set the tent up on instead of descending the mile down to the campground and pitched the tent on the summit instead.

It was a great choice, the view was magnificent and the stars—-wow, the stars! We left the fly off the tent that night so every time we woke up to turn over, our view was to the beautiful stars above. Before we went to bed we were stunned by the amount of cars driving down the road to the east of the park. The lights were endless and we only guessed that it was holiday travel coming to the park or going to areas in southeastern New Mexico (Carlsbad is less than an hour away) and west Texas. Chris took some great shots of the lights and when he gets them downloaded and processed I’ll post them here.

The next morning was awesome! Sunrise was wonderful…perhaps almost as good as Sunrise on Katahdin, I mean, I think the 2,179 miles behind that summit made that one, but it was still pretty awesome.

Was not going for composition here. I literally reached out of the tent for my backpack, got my camera (we carried our good dSLRs up) and shot the photo out the door of the tent.

Looking west, the shadow from Guadalupe Peak on the flats below.

Deal and Steadee

View south to El Capitan and the salt flats

The salt flats again

Looking northwest towards the rest of the range

We camped directly on the other side of the canyon, there, our last night. You can see the trail, the Tejas trail, that goes down the mountain on the far right side of the photo.

About the monument erected by American Airlines in 1958 honoring the Butterfield Overland mail route that went through the region.

Deal and Steadee studying the map…

I took Ridley, the little sea turtle mascot my niece gave me when we did the Florida Trail, to the top.

Next up, we’ll descend and then hit up McKittrick Canyon for some strenuous, but beautiful, hiking!

• Husband flew home from Pennsylvania after a flight delay on Tuesday night. Delayed our intention of leaving for far west Texas until the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
• As in 2 a.m. wee hours of the morning.
• Arrived in Mountain Standard Time at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and was thus happy to receive an extra hour of hiking.
• Our friends Deal and Steadee who we know via the Appalachian Trail met us out there and we then climbed up the tallest mountain in Texas.
• Got my ass kicked by said mountain.
• Had salad for lunch…I wonder why mountain kicked my ass? Hrm, let’s see here….
• Saw a beautiful sunrise from the top of Texas!
• Got my ass kicked yet again going up endless switchbacks to the McKittrick Ridge campsite.
• Saw tons of mule deer.
• Got pelted by rain and wind.
• Hiked among snow flurries. Got worried a white out would happen and then pondered the thought of losing the trail.
• Pondered for no reason as the sun came out a few hours later.
• Walked along beautiful creek beds
• Saw Barbary Sheep on the way down from the mountain this morning.
• Am very tired.
• Will hopefully get a few good posts up soon!
• Hope your Thanksgiving was great!

Mentally I was prepared for a 10-12 mile hike. Because our maps were conflicting and not quite accurate we ended up on a 16 mile hike and I could feel it at the end. Hiking as much as we have hiked in the last year and a half it is easy to gauge how far we travel. Sometimes I think that since we are going on a day hike that I don’t need to prepare as if I’m thru-hiking. That’s a mistake! I learned when we hiked to the giant sycamore and wore cotton socks. This time I didn’t wear my hiking underwear…bad idea. Chafing! I wore the right socks but wasn’t in my normal boots so I ended up with some blisters, one that ended up blood filled, something I’d never had before.

It was an enjoyable hike, though. I’m always bummed when I go places that don’t seem to get much use. We were in some fairly far out regions of the forest and I wonder how often anyone comes through there. A few forest roads access that area so one can get in that way, though.

We ended up making a large loop out of the North Wilderness Trail and then connecting the west end of the Little Lake Creek Loop, back to the Pole Creek Trail that we’d taken on our last hike. Chris found a better map online and figured it to be about 16 miles. I had guessed 18.

A small patch of snow-on-the-prairie, Euphorbia bicolor, made me opt for a photo stop. Can you tell sedentary work life is catching up with me? Hrm. More running and yoga needed.

Not too far after this point we heard thunder and Chris thought we might be half way at this point. If we’d been on the right trail and our maps weren’t messed up. Good thing the main storm bypassed us, but we did get a five to ten minute sun shower a little while later.

We saw a lot of deer on the trail, plus a pack of three dogs that appeared to know where they were going, and then this little turtle. I think this little friend is a three toed box turtle.

Hi!

We were supposed to have been on this trail for most of the time, however the map was labeled wrong. Then we chose to go to the right and took the long route. Had we gone left we’d of done the 10-12 miles we’d estimated originally. Oh well! Adventure!

One of the few water sources we saw.

A luna moth dead on the trail.

And another small water source.

I need to be out doing 16 miles every weekend! Love the feeling after a good hike and being out in the woods. I’m disappointed that there is this huge forest right near a large metropolitan area and it is not used nearly like it should be. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know? But, Ocala National Forest is right by Orlando and Ocala and gets heavy use, Chris says mostly because of the springs, but lots of hiking goes on in that area. Texans are missing out!

A few weekends ago Chris and I ventured out to the McGuire Tract of the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge. It was a hot and humid day by the time we arrived so there wasn’t a lot out on the trail. We had to drive through some back roads to even reach this tract and I wondered how often it was even used. Luckily the ‘trail’, a wide grassy road of sorts, was mowed so we didn’t have to deal with itchy grasses. I’d love to explore more of this area and paddle around on the Trinity too…some day! Next time we’ll attempt it in a non-heat and buggy season.

I was really excited to see this tree, a water locust. I’d seen small seedling/shrub sized plants but this was my first actual tree. I’ve since seen a couple of others.

The creeks were rather low and we spooked an alligator that had been sunning in the water. It sped out of the water and into a hole under the bluff faster than I’ve ever seen an alligator move.

Found a clematis in flower….

and a seed pod forming.

Some poison ivy, good ol’ Toxrad! (That’s Toxicodendron radicans….) Some Camrad in there too, Campsis radicans, aka: trumpet creeper.

At the end of the trail, well at the base of one of the loops, we found a short bridge across a creek and a picnic table to rest for a bit.

A few blackberries were ready to eat.

I poked down this creek for a minute to see what might be around. Not much.

Pretty quiet hike but it was nice to stretch the legs a bit and get out. Maybe we’ll get out on the river sometime in the future.

On our way home from Beaumont we stopped by the Pitcher Plant Trail in the Turkey Creek Unit of the Big Thicket. We showed up just after sunrise, Chris was a bit miffed we didn’t get there a few minutes prior, but I think it worked out anyway. We’d been to this trail before last November but the pitcher plants weren’t blooming or looking too swift. Now they were blooming and looking great!

It’s only about an hour from Beaumont so I’m sure we’ll end up there again during our next two months in Beaumont.

I tried the white background thing again but it wasn’t that great, however I got a few shots that were blog worthy. Then I slapped the red filter on for some black and white photography, something I hadn’t done in quite awhile. I think I’ll be hitting that up more in the coming weeks.

I’ll be working on updating photos to the Wildscape website in the coming weeks and include a select few from the pitcher plant trail. My favorites are the last diptych.

Pitcher plants, this particular species is Sarracenia alata, are carnivorous and will digest unassuming bugs that fly into the plant. More information on this species and others.