Big Bend Adventures
26 miles of hiking, 4 days of adventure, 3 cold nights, 1 car stuck in the mud, and countless pictures later.
This past summer I visited Big Bend National Park, but sadly I didn't have a blog to keep up with my amazing adventures.Luckily, I did however keep a little journal of my experiences(that I lost for a while, hence the delay in a post lol oops) and have decided to share my journey.
I hopped into Heather's car at 8am on Tuesday
and we took off towards the national park.
The ride there in itself was magnificent and
beautiful with rolling hills and wide open skies.I had never seen hills or mountains carved and paved
through to make room for a road like that,
let alone seen all the different layers in the rock
sides showing how magical of a place we live on.
Although it was a beautiful drive it was also
exhaustingly long, but at last, 8 hours later, we finally
arrived to our home for the next 3 days in Terlingua...a really cool furnished bus. We then decided to check out Terlingua Ghost Town and explored the tiny town we were staying in, as well as greet and pet the donkey, many dogs, and cats owned by the host who rented us out the bus.
The rest of our night was spent cooking veggie hotdogs or patties and roasting marshmallows under the sunset.
The next day, we woke up around 7am and set straight out for Big Bend. We were greeted by immense amounts of fog coating the mountains in an eerie
but insanely magical manner. I remember thinking the
but insanely magical manner. I remember thinking the
 |
| LOOK AT THAT FOG! |
entire drive up the mountains just how small we as
humans really are in relation to these huge
landscapes. It blew my mind how amazing
and beautiful these gigantic natural
features could be and I haven't been
able to get that thought out of my mind, or out of my mouth
humans really are in relation to these huge
landscapes. It blew my mind how amazing
and beautiful these gigantic natural
features could be and I haven't been
able to get that thought out of my mind, or out of my mouth
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| Hot Springs |
After driving through this insane fog we headed towards
the hot springs along the Rio Grande River. After a long walk across this sketchy winding dirt road and passing many little trinkets set up to sell from Mexico we found ourselves at the hot springs (that were way to hot to wade in during the end of May in Texas), and we decided to continue along side of the Rio Grande
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| The Muddy Rio |
passed out pretty quickly and had 12 miles total under out belt.
Thursday came around and we headed out early in the morning to do some hiking in the canyons and mountain area. We started out walking along the river bed next to cliff sides and through tall bushels. We arrived to the canyons to explore and after trotting though a little grassy, sand area we came face to face with one of the largest land features, you could see where the water run off have carved into the mountain side and created all of these incredible crevices and hiding spots.
As we continued on our journey we could see across the river and across the border the cutest little Mexican town with color houses and small community, as well as passing a home along the river occupied by an old man and his goats grazing and doing their goat thing. By mid day and into dusk we decided we wanted to explore a different aspect of the park and headed up into the mountains full of huge trees. I felt like I was about to die on the hike up to the top because it was constant walking up hill and I was not prepared with the correct hiking shoes, but the view was so worth it and so beautiful especially since we got to the top right before sundown so the sunlight hit the mountains just right. In all the day we hiked about 11.8 miles and got to experience the beauty of so many massive landscapes the how beautiful the world truly is. Yet the biggest adventure wasn't the hiking that day but the journey back to our campsite. We decided to try and take a back way home because we deemed it would be faster. So we drive about 45 minutes down the road the opposite way we normally would have, and are getting decently close to our campsite when we approach a patch of really muddy wet road. Heather decided to try it out anyways and starts to drive through the mud...well we got stuck lol. So we hope out of the car and somehow miraculously manage to push the car out of the mud (mid you I'm barefoot up to my knees in mud), and thank god we got out because the sun was almost down and the desert is DARK at night and there is no service out there so we would have be stranded there. At this point we're already so far back that it takes us almost twice as long to get home the normal way and we ended up finally getting back to the campsite around 11 that night .
As we continued on our journey we could see across the river and across the border the cutest little Mexican town with color houses and small community, as well as passing a home along the river occupied by an old man and his goats grazing and doing their goat thing. By mid day and into dusk we decided we wanted to explore a different aspect of the park and headed up into the mountains full of huge trees. I felt like I was about to die on the hike up to the top because it was constant walking up hill and I was not prepared with the correct hiking shoes, but the view was so worth it and so beautiful especially since we got to the top right before sundown so the sunlight hit the mountains just right. In all the day we hiked about 11.8 miles and got to experience the beauty of so many massive landscapes the how beautiful the world truly is. Yet the biggest adventure wasn't the hiking that day but the journey back to our campsite. We decided to try and take a back way home because we deemed it would be faster. So we drive about 45 minutes down the road the opposite way we normally would have, and are getting decently close to our campsite when we approach a patch of really muddy wet road. Heather decided to try it out anyways and starts to drive through the mud...well we got stuck lol. So we hope out of the car and somehow miraculously manage to push the car out of the mud (mid you I'm barefoot up to my knees in mud), and thank god we got out because the sun was almost down and the desert is DARK at night and there is no service out there so we would have be stranded there. At this point we're already so far back that it takes us almost twice as long to get home the normal way and we ended up finally getting back to the campsite around 11 that night .
After the crazy night, it was sadly our last day of adventure. We woke up fairly early and headed out for Balanced Rock as our last sight. The hike up to it was fairly easy but man was I sore from the days before. We got up to it pretty quickly and sat down under the rock to enjoy the cool mountain breeze and relax for a moment. While up there we ran into an old man and exchanged some words and laughs (he was so cute and so funny) and winded up walking back down with him a bit but he gave up the go ahead to move on without him but that is we saw "and old lady sitting down there, tell her that I won't be making it back down" and we did run into her and told her just that. We stuck around and chatted with her for a while as she told us about where all they've been, about her kids and grand-kids, and about their hometown and where all they've lived. We talked to her until her husband came down and said with a laugh "I found these two up there, can we keep em?" It was so heartwarming and a great moment of connection to strangers so we stuck around a bit longer to chat with them until it was time for us to go. I will always remember them and their stories and their kindness and humor.
We headed out later that day and stopped in Marathon on our way to Austin. I was exhausted...and not to mention dirty after hiking 4 days and not showering. I was ready to come home but I would go back in a heartbeat, it was such a magical and breathtaking experience
