Outdoors
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There’s a reason I hug trees.
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…
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An Enchanted New Years | Enchanted Rock Pt. 1
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…
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Through the Rocks
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…
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Backpacking | Beginnings
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!
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Pine Top Campsite via the Bush Mountain, Marcus and Tejas Trails
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…
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Dog Canyon | Guadalupe Mountains National Park
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…
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McKittrick Canyon
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…
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Thanksgiving Morning From The Top of Texas
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…
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Quick Thanksgiving Re-cap
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…
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Saguaro Tree
I really think this tree is trying hard to be a saguaro cactus. Sometimes snag trees will have character, but this tree was very much alive and a character of its own. No evidence of a break in the crease so I’m not sure how this tree ended up like this! Want to see it? Hike the Old Loggers Path.