Dec 17th - Dec 23rd Chisos to Lajitas

[RichardM]

Without boring you with more details of the incompetency of AAA, it will be sufficient to say that AAA did not arrive until 11:30 pm, 5 hours after they said they would arrive.  This was because they said they could not determine our location, which is of course absurd, as my friend gave them our GPS coordinates.  Pretty simple if you ask me.  Anyways, after a long tow, we spent the night in the back of the car in the lot of Del Rio Wrecker service, with the fate of our Big Bend trip in the balance.

Ouch. Maybe they were using the wrong dataset.  Probably best to go with "X miles from ..." in addition to coordinates. Way to roll with the punches!

The plan today is to head down Blue Creek Trail to our water stash at the Homer Wilson box, then head south to Mule Ears via the Dodson and Smoky Creek trails.  The clouds finally give way, and those heavenly rays that had eluded us in the early morning begin to pour down as we traverse the Rim towards Blue Creek.

This is my favorite.

[dkerr24]

Great trip report, and sounds like a good lesson for the rest of us in perseverance!  I agree about that sunrise photo from the rim... spectacular!

Darin

[peregrine]

I found my map!  Here is the route I took from the Homer Wilson Ranch to Smoky Creek.  The green line is the route we finally made to get down, though it was a bit of a sketchy descent.  The red shows our first, failed attempt.  The blue is the route I'd take in the future.



peregrine

[bhodges85]

Great trip and great report Peregrine.  I agree with the others, the shot of Sunrise from the Rim is excellent.  I witnessed a similar sunrise in October, but didn't get anywhere near the shot that you did.  Well done!

[Homer67]

I agree with ME about progressing to greater hikes over several visits to the park.  My wife and I have done a progression of trips, the first to see if my girl would even like camping, then longer hikes on each successive trip.  Now that we have done the OML (or at least a variation of it), checking out remote parts of the park seems in order. I always did want to check out what I could find in the Javelina Formation north of Grapevine Hills, and there is one thing I want to check out south of Dagger Flats, and...

[peregrine]

Haha Homer I know exactly what you mean.  I feel like a saw a decent amount of the park, but every time I look back at the map I just go "Whoa!  There is SO much more to this park."  I'll be back.

Also as we were hiking, I really enjoyed looking north to the Christmas Mountains.  I particularly liked Hen Egg.  I know they aren't currently part of the park, but I'd love to spend some time there.  I also heard that they are trying to add these mountains to the park.  Anybody know anything about this?

peregrine

[Al]

peregrine, do the math.  Even if you dedicate yourself to the task, chances are you will never be able to hike the entire park, assuming you want to see it all.  You can hike right by something pretty special that is only a few hundred yards away and never know it.  Rock on!

Al

[tjavery]

Awesome trip and report. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[mule ears]

Haha Homer I know exactly what you mean.  I feel like a saw a decent amount of the park, but every time I look back at the map I just go "Whoa!  There is SO much more to this park."  I'll be back.

Also as we were hiking, I really enjoyed looking north to the Christmas Mountains.  I particularly liked Hen Egg.  I know they aren't currently part of the park, but I'd love to spend some time there.  I also heard that they are trying to add these mountains to the park.  Anybody know anything about this?

peregrine

Of course you will be back, you're hooked now.

There have been long threads about the Christmas mountains here on the board, just do a search and you will find them.  ShaneA is the resident expert on what the status is on them legally.  There are also several reports in the Backpacking trip report index from folks who have climbed them.

p.s. My farm in North Carolina is named Peregrine.