Our stay in Big Bend National Park had some high highs and some pretty low lows. We arrived fairly early our first day and got a campsite at the Chisos Basin campground, the coolest place Fahrenheit to stay in the park, according to both the ranger at Panther Junction and our Couchsurfing hosts in Alpine, TX the previous night. As it turns out, there is really only one week in June when that corner of Texas gets unbearably hot, and this was that week. Luckily the campsites are equipped with man-made shade. We started planning our back country trip for the next day, made our first camp dinner since the Smokeys, and watched the sunset through the “window” of the Basin. We spotted a big lanky black bear near camp, just as a big thunderstorm was setting in. The lighting was spectacular, and mostly way out in the distance to begin with, but before long it was raining in sheets. There’s hardly ever any reason to complain about rain in a dry place, but the Trans-Pecos area is noted for being one of the darkest in the country — local ordinances mandate all outdoor lights to be yellow-tinted and downward-facing, making for fantastic star gazing. Unfortunately, the weather and the waxing moon meant we had to take our chances and wake up around 4 AM, which only paid off one night out of three. 

The next morning we headed out on the South Rim tail for a back country campsite about six miles away. All of the literature had insisted that there was no wild water, so we hiked in with the recommended gallon apiece and left our water filter behind to save a few ounces, which is almost laughable in hindsight. There was plenty of water to be had in Boot Spring, we found the next day. I would certainly rather be over prepared, but carrying so much water was not necessary. 

The South Rim loop is made up of a couple of trails, starting on either the Pinnacles trail or the Laguna Meadows tail. We chose Laguna Meadows, the less steep option. The trail climbs up from the Basin floor to the namesake meadow with awesome views of Casa Grande along the way, and then finally up to the Rim. The cliffs are studded with prickly pear, century plant agave, and yucca, much of which was in bloom. Both century plant and yucca send up a single giant stalk that blooms 20 or so feet in the air. 

The view from the rim is worth the climb. At over 7,000 feet the rim overlooks the Mexican border, sheer cliffs dropping thousands of feet back to the desert floor, and the Rio Grande in the distance.

We made it to the rim in just a few hours.
I had assumed it would be too hot to push all the way to our campsite in one shot, and figured we would wait out the heat in a shady spot along the trail and finish the hike in the early evening. The sky was overcast all day, though, so the heat was never unbearable, but we were beat by the time we reached our site. We made camp and took a horrible hot nap in the tent. Only sheer exhaustion can explain that hour of uncomfortable, sweaty sleep. 

As the afternoon cooled, we explored the area around camp. We sat on the rim and watched Peregrine falcons swooping around a cliff side aerie – they sound like tiny fighter jets they fly so fast. Half a dozen mule deer wandered through our camp at dusk, but we never saw anything with pointier teeth. 

I think it’s fair to say the hike out started us downhill. The biggest problem was my feet. In a classic rookie blunder, I hiked in my brand new Teva sandals. This was my brilliant plan for a summer of hiking, concocted in February: hiking sandals are lighter than than boots and my feet will get tan! I won’t have to pack many pairs of socks! I bought the shoes in February and first wore them to walk the dog, etc. around the middle of April, and then put them back in the closet – didn’t want to wear them out before we even left! 

It turns out that I should have been wearing them every minute of every day from the day they arrived from Amazon. After six miles on the trail in Big Bend, I had three-inch blisters on the arches of both feet. By the time we made it back to the car I was in tears. We had tentatively planned to climb Emory Peak before descending the Pinnacles, an extra three near-vertical miles round-trip. I don’t know what I’d have done if we hadn’t decided to skip it. 

Adding salt to the wound, we decided to camp that night at the Rio Grande Village campground, thinking for some reason there was a restaurant there. We planned to soak our sore muscles in the hot springs, and we hurried across the park to make sure we could get a campsite. When we arrived, the campground was deserted apart from a roadrunner and a flock of vultures. We took the shadiest site we could find and went to get food, and quickly learned that the restaurant was back at Chisos, about 20 miles away. Here was a camp store, laundry, and coin-operated showers.

The car thermometer climbed to 110°F — the air was almost as hot as the hot springs. I bandaged my foot and drank a Topo Chico from the camp store. The bright spots in that hot and dusty afternoon were the free Wi-Fi at the camp store and the four minute showers we scraped enough quarters together to take. 

That night goes down as some of the worst sleep of my life. We lay a blanket on the ground and our weary selves on the blanket, no sleeping bags or anything. Bats fluttered around our heads gobbling mosquitoes. It was so hot, but for the first time the sky was clear. The moon set and the stars finally came out around 4:30, giving Victor about an hour before sunrise to take long exposures of the Milky Way, which stretched across the whole sky. 

As the sun came up, we folded up the blanket and rolled out of the park with the jack rabbits. We were tired and dehydrated, but that night sky made the whole day worth it.