Travel & Places
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
10 Places
I came up with the idea to do this post after stumbling across Alastair Humphreys’ post a week or so ago. I’d never heard of Alastair before that night and the only reason I had was because I’d just voted for Jennifer Pharr Davis as the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year for 2012. I clicked through to see who else was nominated and followed through to Alastair’s blog and wa-la, here was this magical blog post. Actually, there’s a lot more magic and adventure with Humprheys that I will talk about later (I’m still writing/ruminating my Living Adventurously post). Anyway, I’ve been to some cool places in my life…
-
The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania | Pine Creek Gorge
A couple of weeks ago Chris and I had one overlapping day as he went to PA to work and I was heading back to Texas. Part of our day together was at Penn’s Cave and the first half of the day was spent at Leonard Harrison State Park and hiking down the Turkey Path to the bottom of Pine Creek Gorge. It was a beautiful hike down as is evident in the photos below. I highly recommend hitting this park up if you are in the area. The trail itself is switchbacked well and maintained nicely. Though I am out of mountain hiking shape and was still huffing and…
-
Penn’s Cave | In Photos
We’d just left Leonard Harris State Park and had lunch when we saw the sign for Penn’s Cave. The sign was a vintage appearing sign, white background with green and red lettering, something you’d of seen in the 50s or 60s while traveling. No address. We had to pull out the GPS and search for it to figure out it was 2.5 hours south of where we were at. We’d already driven 1.5 hours north of Williamsport that morning. Deciding a cave was worth it and that we were being tourists we went for it. We took back roads for the most part, winding and weaving through the mountains, past…
-
Four Mile Run | Sneak Peak
Since Chris and I hadn’t seen each other for two weeks we were able to get a day off together this last weekend in Pennsylvania. I was being sent home and he was going to be there for a few more weeks. We took off to sight-see around Pennsylvania and ended up at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. We snaked our way down the trail to see several water falls and then finally to Pine Creek itself. The photo above is just a teaser to the rest I am going to process later this week. I had a bit of fun with this one, it was my first HDR image.…
-
Same View, Same Week, Different Days & Times
Morning of 10/17/2011 Afternoon of 10/17/2011 Afternoon of 10/21/2011 +The overcast definitely makes for more brilliant colors, I think. +I walked on top of the ridge directly across from here. Enjoyed a nice slide down the east side of one the mountains in the rain. Had some incredibly sore legs the following morning. +I will miss views like this the most. +I will not miss the cold weather or this seemingly consistent rain. +Heading back to TX today. +Will probably wish for rain when I return and want cooler weather, too. +HAH!