My brother Jon and I headed out for Caprock Canyons SP around 5:30 AM on Friday and arrived around 11 AM. Our original plan had been to do a little backpacking, but a few days before we left we decided to just car camp since it was going to be so hot. (this was a wise decision) We ended up with a spot in the Little Red tent camping area. These sites are walk in, have a shade shelter, fire ring, and separate grills. The sites are pretty close together, though we didn't have anyone on either side of us, so it was nice.
This is the view from our campsite, #57...not Big Bend, but I was able to deal with it....
After we setup camp, we fixed a quick lunch of Mountain House & ramen noodles. We had no set plans for the afternoon, so we decided to just climb down in the river bed and walk the river until we got tired of it.
Hiking the river bed...
We hiked the river until it crossed the road, climbed up out, then took a little access road the rangers use to get their 4 wheelers onto the southern section of the upper canyon trail, to where it joins the main trail - approximately here:
Then turned around and walked back to camp the same way we had come.
It was REALLY hot, so when we got back to camp we just sat in the shade and relaxed until the sun started to go down. We made a quick dinner (chicken tacos and spanish rice) and just sat around trying to avoid the biting flies and enjoyed the breeze.
I still need some practice as these star trail photos, I believe the purple in the top edge is light entering the view finder.
Saturday started beautiful and clear. We decided on hiking the upper canyon loop, starting at the South Prong primitive camping area and looping all the way around to the North Prong primitive camping area, then walking the road back to the truck. We got a bit of a late start, for reasons I won't go into, but we hit the trail right around Noon. This day was HOT, really hot. Great hiking though, really awesome trails, with some incredible views, and overall a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be. The first part of the trail is wide and very easy going. The section where you climb up out of the canyon is marked "extremely steep and rugged" on the park map and it's no joke. It reminded me of climbing Casa Grande, as part of it was just a rock scramble, and there was no real trail.
Some photos from the first section...
This is around the point where the trail starts climbing up and it completely changes character...
Looking back in the direction we'd come from:
The views just get better and better as you climb higher:
I think a lot of people probably turn back at this point, as the trail has you traverse this little rock ledge. It's not difficult, but it looks a little scary...
Looking back up canyon:
A section of the "trail" - it actually got far worse than this as we neared the top of the ridge.
Once you get to the top of the ridge, the hiking gets easy again as you cross over to the North side. Then you go DOWN...it's quite steep, but not as bad as the other side going up.
Here's the view just as we started down the North side of the ridge:
A spot marked on the map that we'd been hoping to see was Fern Cave, which you can see through the trees in the middle/bottom of the photo:
There's a short spur trail that leads you down to the cave itself. It's a great place to take a break, it's shady, cool, and there's a nice little stream of water flowing down from the cave.
From this point on the trail climbs in and out of the North Prong of the Little Red River for quite some ways before heading South to the North Prong parking area. This part of the hike was pretty brutal, as there was no shade, and it was likely around 100. Our water had gotten so hot it was barely drinkable. Yet we actually made pretty good time and hiked the whole North half of the trail only stopping once for a short break in the little bit of shade the river bank offered. The hardest part was probably walking the road between the North Prong and the South Prong parking areas, walking on pavement just kills my feet and back.
A few more photos from the last section of trail...
Map of the trail...
We started where it's marked "South Prong Primitive Area". Distance was about 7.8 miles.
One last star trail photo...
All in all a fun trip, after the hike we just relaxed in camp, ate dinner, etc. The night was very windy, but the wind felt very good and we slept well. Uneventful drive home Sunday....new truck getting around 22mpg cruising at 65mph...
