Did you miss the first post? Read Part I here

Inside the cave, which really isn’t much of a cave, I couldn’t help but think it would make a great shelter. Which is probably what local tribes and other visitors, including animals, have done over the years.

As you can see, someone named Nichols visited from Bastrop sometime in 1883. This reminded me of seeing William Clark’s signature at Pompey’s Pillar in Montana in 2008.

This area is subject to flash flooding; several years ago they had some major flooding and had to sweep mud and debris out of the caves and do rehab on the trails before opening them back up.

Passiflora affinis. Originally I thought this looked like lutea but going off of the plant list for the preserve I have figured otherwise.

The crinkly aspect of this fern made for a good portrait of it. My best guess is that it is a southern shield fern, Thelypteris kunthii.

This set of leaves has enticed me to want to start a leaf portrait series. I did not look close enough as I was taking these to tell you what they were. I was mostly drawn to the lines and shadows.

I sat down for awhile waiting for Chris and these steps had me entranced for a few moments, thinking of postcards and posters of places in England and France, tiny little gardens with weathered stones. I almost let the moment go and did not photograph them. I’m glad I did.

A mixture of detritus and the water passing through the area. Sometimes I wonder how long leaves and debris sit before moving, decaying, or falling into another position. Does an animal walk by and brush up against it, will rain drops move it mere centimeters or a flood displace it entirely?

This little stump was beautifully textured and again sent me into a trance, reminding me of a stump that used to be in front of my grandmother’s house when she lived there. They don’t even look the same, but it was a stump and that is what memory it triggered.

I love capturing these little scenes, the ones we might walk by and not notice. Or if we notice we only think about it in passing. I’ve decided to pay more attention to them, call them small still lifes and perhaps compose some for use on Wildscape Photo.

I hope you enjoyed the little ‘trip’ to Westcave. If you are ever in Austin, do go see the three parks in this area. They are a real treat and when the weather is warm I want to swim in the Pedernales River!

Tucked away next to the Pedernales River just west of Austin, near the town of Bee Cave, is the Westcave Preserve. Westcave is a non-profit entity run in coordination with the Lower Colorado River Authority. Nearby there are two other beautiful parks, the Hamilton Pool Preserve and the Milton Reimers Ranch Park. One could spent an entire weekend exploring all three parks.

The photo above is an overlook at Westcave peering down at the Pedernales River.

The park is available to the public by tour only on weekends or with a school group during the week. But for $5 a person, we felt the tour price was well worth it! The tours last about two hours, and we did not feel rushed. We were able to chat with the park ranger about the various botanical and wildlife interests within the park and nearby areas. I think we kept him engaged, asking questions that only nerdy biologists would ask! There was only us and a family of four on our tour, but I imagine in warmer weather it would be busier. I was a little surprised it wasn’t busy since it was New Years weekend.

The tour starts at the visitors center and traverses the ashe juniper and live oak habitats on the same level as the environmental center, but as we descended we entered a riparian type ecosystem of ferns, sycamores and cypress. It was beautiful! The Ashe Juniper-Live Oak complex is utilized by the endangered gold cheek warbler and apparently a few birds have been known to nest at the preserve.

At the end of the trail we reached the ‘cave’, which is really a grotto, and then on the north side of the canyon is a deeper cave like structure, really a large room.

Because the group on the tour was small we were able to take our time to take the photos we wanted. Often on tours we are rushed and cannot experience a place very well, particularly if it is crowded.

Before the preserve was founded it was visited by many people, swimmers, picnickers and people who eventually, both purposefully and unknowingly, caused some damage to the typical structures you see in caves like stalactites and stalagmites.

In the next post I will show a few photos from inside the cave as well as some closer still-life shots of the surrounding area. It was wonderful to be able to stop and look at a tiny little scene and have the time to shoot it. I can’t wait to show you those!

And if anyone cares, I found the management plan for Westcave Preserve.

A few weekends ago, New Years Eve weekend to be exact, we stopped by Westcave Preserve on our way home. We’d been by there a year before but did not have time to go in. I will have more on Westcave itself in two later posts, but this one is specifically about the beautiful maidenhair fern.

The fern grows in all sorts of rocky outcroppings, and other nooks and crannies along the creek at Westcave. The creek flows maybe a quarter of a mile before emptying into the Pedernales River.

It really makes pathways it lines a magical place.

The Texas Vascular Plant Checklist lists one other species for Texas, Adiantum tricholepis or the hairy maidenhair fern. A Google search of that species is very intriguing and now I would love to see it. The USDA plant database has it listed as only existing in Medina county here in Texas…and only in Texas in the U.S.!

I almost think it is my favorite fern, and yet I saw a photo of a giant leather fern on Flickr the other day and I was reminded of how much I love them too. I think I just love ferns!

If you missed the first part of this series go here.

On New Years Eve I slept in and Chris got up early to take sunrise photos. Once up and breakfast was eaten, we headed off for the eastern side of the loop around the rocks. It was a gorgeously clear day again, perfect really.

Initially we were going to completely go all the way to the east on the loop but we came to the junction of the Turkey Pass trail and thought it looked good, a cut through up to another trail and we could catch the eastern loop up there. We passed this beautiful pond on our way through.

And just to the right of the pond was Turkey Peak.

The south face of Enchanted Rock. In the distance we saw other hikers descending from the rock, in a steep spot. The man in the group was cautiously inching his way down while the woman had resorted to scooting down. The day before we’d been in a similar situation and I’d debated scooting, finally opting not to. Once down on the ground I looked back up, incredulous that we’d come down that slope!

The Turkey Pass trail was quiet, passing one couple and then I think we met up with the steep slope couple towards the top of the trail. This area was definitely not where the main action was going on and would be a great place to explore and enjoy some peace and quiet in the park.

This oak and little rock pool area was beautiful. A small spring was flowing through here. If I’d of had a book and was not going to be hiking I might have spend a few hours perched under the tree.

I’m always surprised to see clear running streams/springs in Texas, which I’m not sure why I am surprised. Perhaps because in Florida I was not accustomed to seeing springs unless we were in far northern Florida.

We walked to the far northern boundary of the park on the loop, then cutting south through Moss Lake primitive camp and then to the Echo Canyon trail. Somehow we ended up off trail and found ourselves making our own trail—which wasn’t terribly bad because others were coming up the way we’d decided to go down.

It was fun going down this way, hopping over rocks.

Back at camp for lunch we opted for a leisurely afternoon of napping. We’d been planning on staying out for sunset to get some shots for that and we left camp with a couple hours of sun left to scout out a place to go. Unfortunately we left just about the time we both decided to get headaches. I’d popped some medicine but Chris hadn’t and his headache become consistently worse as we hiked on.

We did manage to find some beautiful views by taking a trail that was probably not a trail, because it dead ended and we ended up rock hopping and slab walking.

This beautiful slab was begging for its photo to be taken. Chris found a set of stairs leading up to the top where I ended up laying for awhile. Chris needed to lay too but he opted for down in the shade beneath the slab. An animal must have also found it to be a nice spot because scat was at the top too.

Our sunset expedition was called off when Chris’ headache worsened. Instead we hastened back for camp where he hit the tent and was miserable for a few hours before medicine kicked in. I made dinner for myself and sat outside reading by lamplight. I’d gone to bed too early the previous night and didn’t want to do so again. Eventually Chris emerged to eat his own dinner and he opened the bottle of Champagne he’d brought for New Years.

We knew 2012 had arrived by the loud raucous that occurred as the clock struck midnight. Yes, we’d gone to bed a few hours prior to that! I was a struck with sadness in my sleepy haze by the thought of another year coming in. It made me a little sad to know that this would be the first year in two years with no long distance adventures. I let the sadness go quickly because I was soon back asleep.

Enchanted Rock is a place that is beckoning to be visited again, perhaps on a more quiet weekend where we can enjoy it in peace.

Unfortunately I did not get to hug this one as you can see it is/was behind a fence. This is a photo of Chris and I on the Florida Trail last January, almost a full year ago, with The Senator.

The Senator is no more.

You see, this estimated 3,500 year old bald cypress tree, and 5th oldest tree in the world, burned down Monday morning. Burned down.. It’s almost difficult to fathom. I’m part of a swamp hiking group on Facebook and I happened to check my email Monday morning with a notification stating that the tree had been burned. I quickly went to search for news stories, hoping it was a pathetic rumor, but in fact it was horrifically true.

Somehow this tree had made it through Florida’s logging heyday. And if you look at that link, there’s a gigantic cypress being logged in the photos…devastating what we lost and didn’t realize! We took with it so many countless animals and plants—you can thank the logging of cypress and other hardwoods to the extirpation and probable extinction of the ivory billed woodpecker.

I hugged several large trees last summer. You don’t have to hug a tree, but you should appreciate what you have in nature, because it could be gone. If it isn’t a developer building on an empty lot, it is a potential arsonist ruining something beautiful.

I’m so glad we took the time to detour off the roadwalk we were doing last year on the Florida Trail and to stop in this park to look at The Senator and his neighbor, Lady Liberty. I only wish now that I’d sat there longer and enjoyed the tree a little more.

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.

Was going through an old hard drive looking for gallery worthy photos for the website and instead it sent me back into nostalgia.

From January 2007…

The sketchiest place we’ve ever pumped water from…but there was no other water!

These are at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park during our first ever backpacking adventure together.

Who knew it would evolve to getting better gear…

and walking to Maine….

and the length/part of the width of Florida?

Go put on an old external frame Kelty and see what happens…you just never know!

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.