Gabrielle (00:00)
And she goes, some lady got lost on that section of trail. And immediately I knew who the fuck she was talking about because.
Because you obsessively read about people who get lost and listen to podcasts about people who get lost and eaten. Yes. Yeah. OK. Yes. I was so frazzled. Like, normally I’m super polite, but I was so frazzled. I cut her off. was like, Kathy Fry.
Welcome to this fucking trail home to brutally honest takes on Texas trails hiking hilarity and all things adventure II I’m your MC John and I’m here to warn you that this podcast is not suitable for young children or anyone with a sensitivity to swears or strong opinions and Now over to your host She’s a bitch. She’s a lover. She’s a hiker. She’s a mother. That’s right. I’m talking about my wife Gabrielle
Yep, that’s me.
Gabrielle (01:11)
Today is a trip report episode, an episode in which I review my most recent trips, complete with trials, tribulations, mistakes made, lessons learned, and adventures had. These episodes are meant to be a source of inspiration and education for anyone looking to take a similar trip. Enjoy.
Gabrielle (01:28)
Deborah, we have a heck of an adventure to talk about this time. You recently abandoned me for a week to explore the great wilds of Big Bend. And I definitely had a great time playing a lot of video games while you were gone. So thanks for doing that.
You’re welcome. think the important thing to focus on here is that I came back. That probably is something that I should maybe take note of and appreciate a little bit. So let’s talk about anything else. Specifically, let’s let’s talk a little bit about what this trip was, where you went, why you went and maybe maybe kind of give a little preview of what
we’re in for today. Yeah, so I’ve been to a lot of places in Texas, camping, backpacking, exploring, but the one place I hadn’t had the balls to get to by myself yet was Big Bend Ranch State Park. Now you and I have been there, what is it, twice now, I think. At least, yeah. Yeah, and it’s fantastic and I always love going with you, with friends, but it always felt too intimidating to go to by myself.
until I kind of started running out of places to go explore and I decided, you know what? I just need to pull my big girl panties on and get the fuck out to Big Bend Ranch State Park by myself. Yeah, I will. For anyone listening that has not been to Big Bend Ranch State Park, the way that I would compare it to other parks and I’ve been to a fair number, both in Texas and a few in other states as well, I would say.
It is perhaps the most remote experience that I’ve had. And I think if you if you’re to look at your options for state parks in Texas, I feel like you could make a strong argument to say that Big Bend Ranch. Many of the trails that you can encounter out there or the roads that you can encounter. These are going to be some of the. The most wild, most.
unreliably mapped, most adventur-y feeling places that you will ever go. You could go hours without another living soul existing within miles of you, much less you see in one. Yeah, I mean, I didn’t encounter any other hikers on the trails and come to think of it, I don’t think when you and I have been out there hiking that we ever passed other hikers.
We’ve seen vehicles at trailheads. And I think that is the most that I can say, like, aside from, you know, when you’re driving past campsites, you might see some people. Otherwise, yeah, it’s. And we kind of go out of our way. We don’t necessarily do like the most obvious trails every time, but we did a number of trails in sort of the central main area of the park. And yeah, I don’t think we did encounter anyone else on those trails.
Yeah, I definitely think among the Texas state parks, it’s absolutely the most wild, the most remote, the most challenging in many aspects. I think maybe the only other place that could come close to rivaling it is Black Gap, but that’s a wilderness management area. So if we’re being really anal, that is not a state park. Right. Yeah, there are definitely lots of other places that are probably comparably wild. It’s just, know, if you if you’re narrowing the list to state parks, it’s a
competition I think I’ve got to give to the Big Bend Ranch. Well, okay, so you went out there you went out there solo to this place that we have just elaborated on how remote and wild it is. So just, you know, let’s let’s talk a little bit about the planning maybe of this trip and some of the preparation that you did because I know that you spent a lot of time planning and preparing for this as you do for all of your trips.
my gosh, I spent so much time, effort and agonizing over this trip plan because I wanted to get it right. I knew that there’s a lot of risks out being in such a remote place all by myself. So I wanted to make sure I had a fun but also a smart and safe plan. And so I don’t even know how many hours I spent staring at paper maps, at Gaia, zooming in on all this topographical information.
thinking about the hikes that you and I had done out there to come up with what I deemed was fun, but also reasonably safe experience for me. So my kind of a hike out there was I had planned to do a backpacking loop. There are a lot of fantastic campsites out there, but the bad thing is you really have to have a high clearance four wheel drive vehicle and we just don’t have that.
And honestly, think even if we had it, I don’t know that I’d go out on those roads by myself. But I guess that’s a conversation for when we get our Jeep. Right. But anyhow, so I was kind of limited as far as where I could actually go. And so if I really wanted to get out there and experience the park, I knew I was going to have to backpack since I couldn’t drive to all these campsites. Yes, speaking of a Jeep, you make sure you like subscribe and, you know, when the option comes to support financially.
Consider, consider that. Anyways. So yeah, what I wanted to do, I wanted to get on some trails that you and I had been on on our last trip to Big Bend. We had gone to the Mexicano Falls and we had gone to the West Rim Overlook and both of those hikes were phenomenal. But I realized I could make a loop with them and explore some trails I hadn’t been on. I could go.
up the canyon to the base of Mehecano Falls, which I had thought would be really cool to do. And so it felt a little less scary to go on trail, some trails that you and I had already been on, looping them together with some unknowns. And the trail to Mehecano Falls, I was really nervous about because you and I had some issues with route finding, not on the way to the falls, but going back. so I knew I didn’t want to go
back on that trail. Yeah, that was definitely a pretty challenging area. The terrain is rough. The direction that you have to go in is a bit counterintuitive. It sort of feels like the wrong direction, as I recall. And, you know, it’s a very rocky area and you’re navigating by cairns. So just think about that. You’re looking for stacks of rocks on a rocky hillside. It’s a
It’s not exactly the easiest navigational situation to be in. I was confident we were going in more or less the right direction, but I was also pretty confident that we were not on the trail when we were out there together. And it took some hunting. It really did, which kind of really threw me for a loop since you are such a great navigator.
never occurred to me that we would get off trail and then have difficulty actually finding the trail when I was with you. So that was a real eye-opener for me. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think ultimately like we would have made it back one way or the other. I was very happy to have some backups. You know, as much as I have occasionally in the past downplayed the necessity of them. It is nice to have Gaia GPS available. And I had it running.
You did, you did, and having that track to backtrack on certainly did speed things up. And of course, it’s always nice to have the ViviStick handy as well, just in case. I don’t think we’ve ever come even remotely close to feeling like we might need to use it, but it is very comforting to have in the back pocket. For sure. So after staring at these maps for hours, I realized I could create a loop where I went.
down the Mexicano Falls trail and I didn’t have to go up because I would loop it with a different trail and I thought I was absolutely brilliant for being able to cover the ground I wanted to cover in a way that I felt was safe. Yeah, and you did, you spent, I think there were literally weeks where like our coffee table and countertops had notebooks and maps covering them and.
was always kind of fun to see, you know, what was the latest, the latest agonizing detail, that you were going back and forth on, but let’s, let’s set that aside. Let’s set the planning phase aside here. I think it’s, I think it’s time to get to the part because the reason I asked you about the planning phase is I wanted to set up what happens next. Yeah. So you’ve spent all this time and effort and you drive eight and a half.
nine hours. I don’t remember which side you went in on, but a very long time, you know, from from where we’re at to get out to Big Bend Ranch again. Again, what are the most remote places you can go in Texas? And you get there. And as a responsible backpacker, you go to talk to the Rangers. Well, yeah. And actually, I needed to talk to the Rangers because I was going to need what’s called a special use permit to do my plan.
But part of how I had planned my route was using a map that one of the state park rangers at the Sausage Ranger station gave to us in January of 2024 when we were out there. Right. I based all of my information off of this map because fucking Ranger gave it to me. Like, why would I even think twice about it? Right. Oh, yeah. You know, I hope you can trust Park Rangers. So.
When I checked in at Barton Warnock, I very proudly popped out this map that I had been using, sprawled it over the counter, grabbed my trip plans, pulled them out and was like, hey, I think I need a special use permit and I’m also checking in for a bunch of other campsites. And she goes, okay, what is it that you want to do for this backpacking trip? And so on my map, I start tracing my finger in this loop that I want to do.
And she kind is looking at it and she goes, those trails don’t connect. And very clearly on my map, they fucking connect. Right. And where they don’t connect is coming up from the Fresno Canyon up to the West Rim Overlook is what this ranger was telling me. But I’m like, look at my damn map. It connects. And she pushes my map to the side.
to show the Big Bend exploration map that she has displayed on her counter, which I’m familiar with this map. We have a copy of it, but it’s so big you can’t see very much topographical information. The trails aren’t labeled. Like you have no fucking idea. You’re like, there’s a trail right there, but I have no idea what it’s called because it’s such a large scale that they kind of just mark the trails. You can’t plan a trip or navigate off of
Right, yeah, I think you could you could use it to sort of get a general idea of like, there’s some interesting stuff in this region. I’d like to, you know, maybe zoom in on a smaller, more focused map and plan some hikes there. And so I think it’s great for those purposes. But yeah, if you’re actually trying to navigate while you’re on the trail, you don’t want that map. It’s it’s not helpful. So the map that I was using that the Ranger at Sauceta had given me was at a scale of
1 to 24 000. Did I say that right? Yes. Yeah, that’s a pretty standard navigational map size. So she scoots my map away and she shows me on her big one and sure enough on her fucking big map they don’t connect. Right. And I push my map back over. I’m like no they connect look. And so that’s when she kind of and I’m getting so flustered. I’m like what the fuck are you talking about here lady? I didn’t say that but that’s what I’m thinking. And
She starts to actually look at my map and she goes I’ve never seen this map before where did you get it? And I’m like about to lose my shit here because I’m like, my god This is your fucking map. Like how do you not know what this map is, right? And you got it from a ranger I got it from a ranger in the interior of the park and so to clarify Barton Warnock is on the exterior of the part and so they’re not like
in the heart of the park where things are a lot more wild, a lot more remote, a lot more rugged, but I don’t know, I assume that sometimes they go into the interior, but it’s a very different world at Barton Warnock and the trails that you can access from Barton Warnock Ranger Station from the trails that you can access at the Sauceta Ranger Station, which is, you know, you have to drive 18 miles of unpaved road to even get to the Sauceta Ranger Station.
Anyhow, I, she, grabs the map and she goes, this is an old map. And, you know, she’s looking for a date and she found a date. can’t remember what it was. It was like 2010 or 2006. I don’t know. It was old. She’s like, it’s out of date. And I’m like, no, a ranger at Sauceta gave it to me in 2024.
And so she walks to the back where I can’t see her and I hear her ask somebody, have you ever seen this map before? And I hear an indistinct male voice say something and she comes out and she’s like, this isn’t up to date. It’s not accurate anymore. And I’m like freaking out here. And she goes, some lady got lost on that section of trail. And immediately I knew who the fuck she was talking about because.
Because you obsessively read about people who get lost and listen to podcasts about people who get lost and eaten. Yes. Yeah. OK. Yes. I was so frazzled. Like, normally I’m super polite, but I was so frazzled. I cut her off. was like, Kathy Fry. And she’s like, yeah, because I have read extensively the story of Kathy Fry, this lady.
Was not prepared. She intended to hike I think in the national park and ended up at the state park for reasons I don’t remember but anyhow she gets lost out on this section of trail that I wanted to go to for five days she survives the ordeal her story is like fantastic amazing, but I She didn’t bring enough water. They had a map worse than the Big Bend exploration map like they had a cartoon map basically that
had no detail. Right, like one of those park maps where it’s really to show you where the campsites are and to like list the amenities. It’s not even a hiking map. Yes, and so if you read her story, it’s entirely user error. think that what happened to them happened to them and I’m super glad that she survived and her story is amazing and inspiring. But… I it inspires you to not take
A really bad map out there. It helps you believe that if you get lost in the desert, you can maybe survive five days in the desert. I’m a little cynical. But anyhow, I couldn’t believe that they would close or they would stop maintaining. She said they stopped maintaining the section of trail after this lady got lost. And I just I was like, it was completely her fault. And she’s like, I agree with you. But, you know, they stopped maintaining it and I just.
Couldn’t believe it.
Yeah, and I think you maybe spoke a little spoke a little out of turn. I did. Like I said, I’m normally very polite and I wasn’t swearing at the Ranger, but I was like, my gosh, fuck, fuck, fuck. What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do? You know, like, so absolutely not swearing at her. But I was definitely dropping some bombs in the vicinity of this Ranger. And I feel bad for that because I wasn’t mad at her. And I don’t think I communicated that.
But you know, I was upset with the situation and she obviously knew that. Right, right. Okay. Well, so you’ve you’re kind of stuck and
I think you said you talked to the the trail ranger, like their trails expert. Yeah. So I was like, OK, I need a minute to like figure out what the hell I’m going to do here. So I grab all of my maps and my folder with all of my trail plans. Like I have every document under the sun with me. am so prepared for this hike, but I grab all my stuff and go over to a table and like kind of dazily stare at the map. And she sends out
I don’t remember his official title, but he was their trail ranger who like is in charge of maintaining their trails. And he’s like, yeah, it’s not maintained. does connect, but it hasn’t been maintained. You know, kind of talking me through it. And I was like, okay, well, what do mean by not maintained? Because my husband and I had a hard time on the Mehecano trail, like coming back. Like I really don’t want to have to go out and back on that trail. And he goes,
We’ve done some maintenance on there. think that you’re going to see it’s it’s different. was like, OK. And and he even like printed out a Google Earth picture of if I wanted to do my original plan and do this loop, he’s like these. is what you’d be looking for. I think you’d be fine. It literally was like a mile of trail that I hadn’t done that I was unsure about that hasn’t been maintained. So was wildly frustrating.
especially from what he was telling me and what I could see on this picture. I think I can do it.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think maybe if you hadn’t been alone, if we had both been out there, maybe we would have talked about it a little more, but I don’t know. Those unmaintained trails at Invigbin Ranch are very unmaintained in places. Right. You know, in our experience, sometimes the regular trails, you have a hard time route finding. And so my experience has been that it is difficult to navigate in Big Bend.
And so if you haven’t maintained a trail and 15 years, I have no idea what that looks like. Yeah. But yes, I think if you’d been with me, absolutely, we would would have done it and we’re going to go and do it together because now we fucking have to. Well, the good news is I feel super confident I can go in a straight line for a mile. But wow. Thanks for the little jab there.
Hey, you’re the one who keeps talking about my navigational skills. That’s that’s surprisingly hard feat to accomplish, right? Like we’ve done adventure races where I’ve landed us, you know, directly within feet of an area using just a map and a compass. I do feel pretty confident that you’ve also fucked up multiple times. Well, we’ll talk about that on another podcast episode discussion for another day. No, no further acknowledgement of that at this time. OK.
So, I mean, that’s it, right? Like you have to sort of revamp your plans. Yeah, but I spent, you know, weeks and months preparing all of a sudden in 30 minutes, I have to decide what to do. So I kind of just decided I would do mehicano as an out and back and I would have to save the West Rim overlook for another day. And so.
I got my permit, got all checked in with the ranger, and as I was leaving, I thought I was being kind of a funny, smart ass and also kind of like, yo, this is a Texas state park. We’re supposed to be better than the national parks, right? Because that’s national. Texas is fiercely. I don’t know what you want to call it. Proud, independent, freedom loving, whatever. And so I said,
You know, y’all should talk to the national park. People keep dying on their trails and they don’t close them. Yeah. And she didn’t even crack a smile. Yeah, she thought you were real funny. I thought I was real funny.
Gabrielle (20:01)
Okay, well I think we’ve talked enough about planning and getting there and everything going wrong. Well, not everything, you know, just your plans. Yeah, no big deal. I do real well adapting to unexpected situations. Right, yeah, you’re totally unfazed when your entire plan hangs on a linchpin that turns out to be false. Never throws you off your game.
Nah, I’m real go with the flow. My friends say I am chill as chill can be. Yeah, that’s how they describe you. okay. Well, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about, changing plans and what, what you ended up actually doing. Let’s talk about the trails. Yeah. So I was really unsettled after all of this change. but my
plan was my original plan and the one that I got to carry out was that I was going to drive to a campsite called Rancho Viejo and that was just I don’t remember I think it was about five miles into the interior of the park and again when I say interior of the park that is a dirt road that’s graded I don’t know why do think they grade it so that it stays drivable I don’t know
It’s horrible. It rattles your teeth. Like it really wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t graded. But anyhow, I was driving like 10 miles an hour at the most. This posted speed limit I think is 25 miles an hour or maybe it’s 20. But I was so scared I was going to pop a tire and have to change a tire and then not be able to drive out of Big Ben maybe because the spares, I don’t know, whatever.
And kind of the unique thing about the campsites at Big Bend is that most of them are individual. And so what that means is there’ll be roads that branch off the main park road and you drive to your campsite and that is just your campsite. It’s not a group campsite. There’s nobody else within miles. And I think that’s something that’s really, really unique to Big Bend because that’s normally a feature you have to backpack for. But these are drive up.
sites intended for you to get to in your car. Yeah, I think that’s that’s one of the things that’s been the most fun about visiting Big Bend is you go out to this site and each site is like a solid mile from the nearest site at at least. There’s almost none of these sites that you can even see another campsite from. Even if you climb up on a hill, like there’s still nothing but desert and mountains.
Anywhere that you can that you can look so it is very cool. It’s very cool that they keep them isolated like that It’s one of the big appeals. Yeah, I love that So Rancho Viejo is one of the campsites that you can get to in just a regular ass car It was only about half a mile off of the main park road. So I got to it really easily But I’m coming off of having to change my plans and trying to go with the punches
And I’m not doing very well with that. So I get there and I’m like freaked out to be so alone. Right. And I like, you know, of course, I’m thinking about, well, what if somebody comes up on my car and I don’t know, robs me, rapes me, kills me, whatever. Like, I am totally alone and totally helpless except for my bear spray and my neck knife. But it’s a little unsettling to be out there all by yourself when you’re not.
feeling like you’re on your A game. Well, and I believe Rancher Viejo also has a windmill nearby that is super squeaky. Yes, I think I read in the description that I had a windmill. It didn’t occur to me that it was a fucking functioning windmill that’s pumping water into this big water tank. It was disgusting. But it was very squeaky. And so as I’m out there eating my dinner and trying to get my life back together and
figure out my plans. All I can hear is this creepy squeak squeak squeak and it’s very intermittent because it starts to spin when the wind blows and so there will be pauses. There’s no rhyme or rhythm to it. So I was very glad to be sleeping in my car and not in a tent because I think that would have made me bash it crazy. Yeah, yeah. Nothing like sitting out alone in the middle of the desert in the dark with a windmill squeaking intermittently in the night.
to just set your teeth on edge. Even if it doesn’t creep you out, it’s going to annoy the piss out of you. And I think it managed to do both. did. And just like of note, if you ever go out to Big Bend Ranch State Park, that is not the only campsite with a windmill. So just read the campsite descriptions before you book your site. Yeah, yeah, I think you probably want to plan to be car camping or maybe bring some noise canceling headphones.
or earbuds if you’re going to be trying to sleep near one of those windmills because And we i’ve been past a few of those during the day and they are pretty pretty loud And big bend is a really windy place like there’s almost always wind out at the state park All right. Well enough about the windmill So Let’s let’s move on you’re super creeped out, but you sleep. I did sleep
Yep, nobody came and killed me. I survived the night. I got up really early and started to drive because even though I was partially in the interior of the park, I think it was set to take me more than an hour to get to my trailhead. So I got up in the dark, basically. I didn’t even get dressed. I…
I just got into the front seat of the car and started driving because I knew I was gonna stop at the ranger station and I figured I can Get dressed there where I can actually wash my hands and put in my contacts in a hygienic fashion And then keep going to my trailhead. Yeah, so just driving you PJs. Yes To be clear what what not getting dressed means. yes. I was not in my birthday suit I mean somebody could have come up on me in the middle of the night
I’m not gonna let him find me in my birthday suit. All right, if you’re get killed you’re gonna do a fully dressed Absolutely anyways you you do make it To where you’re going I You stopped by Sauceta ranger station on your way to Puerto Chilacote. Yes, that’s where I put on my hiking clothes got my contacts and Snagged a little bit of Wi-Fi real quick so I could text you all my freakout messages. Yes, I
I remember those. you head on to Puerto Chilacote and you get there. And what’s, what’s the hike for the first day? So I was going to do the Mexicano Falls trail. And then I was going to go a little bit past Mexicano and go down to the Mexicano Falls trailhead for the four by four.
road. I was gonna go see a bunch of overlooks that overlook the Chorro Vista area. I had even originally planned to go check out Madrid Falls. Like I was gonna be a legit real explorer with my original plans.
And I still intended to go do the overlooks. I knew I probably wasn’t going to make it to Madrid Falls, but I wanted to do the overlooks. But I get to the Puerto Chilicote trailhead where I parked. It was really cold. It was really windy. I’m not feeling this hike at all. I’m going along. It’s really easy to find the way. Like, honestly, until you come out of the Arroyo Mexicano,
That’s where the terrain starts to get a little bit more challenging and where I knew we had had some trouble before. But the trail was really easy and really as far as like physically easy and easy to follow up until there. But I just wasn’t having a great time. My heart wasn’t singing and you know how I feel about singing hearts. yeah, you gotta have them.
And also there’s so much, you know, it’s so much harder to get into that headspace when you’ve been thrown off by by things going awry previously, which is a problem that we’ve had in Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park on a couple of occasions. So. Yeah, so once I got out of the Arroyo Mexicano, I really started to pay attention to the terrain.
I knew somewhere along that section is where you and I had difficulty. So I kind of popped up out of there and started walking toward the falls. But then I turned around and memorized the features of where the trail starts to descend. if I got off trail, if I just got close to getting back there, I would see these features and be able to go for these distinctive features in the land.
And I felt very proud of myself because I was like, okay, I saw like, I memorized it. I knew what I was looking for. And so I did feel like a very accomplished outdoors woman. Okay, you should. And it really wasn’t that bad to follow. There were quite a few cairns. But I guess what makes it harder is that it is so rocky that there is no trail.
There’s nothing that you can follow where you’re like, okay, this is the trail. The only way that you’re navigating on this trail is the cairns, the stacks of rocks. And the terrain undulates so much. It’s not just a straight up, it’s not a straight down, it’s constant up and down, up and down, up and down, that you don’t have a clear…
line that you’re following. You’re basically walking from one Karen to the next, pausing and looking for the next one because the terrain changes so much on that point in the trail.
Yeah, it’s definitely slower going on on trails like that because you do have to take your time and you don’t want to get in a hurry or assume that you are going in the right direction until you’ve identified the next Karen. So always a always a challenge and always takes longer than you think it’s going to. Yeah. And
Of note, I really didn’t notice any major trail maintenance that had gone on like this trail guy had promised me. I kept looking for it and I just didn’t see it until I got to the actual overlook of the falls. Well, how was the overlook? you know, I loved it the first time we were on it when all of us were out there. That was really incredible. This time
It just, again, I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t enjoy it. was kind like, I’m here. Yep, I’ve seen this before. I guess let’s keep moving on.
Well, harsh, harsh. is a very cool spot for anyone who hasn’t been there before. It’s really, I think it’s worth visiting and worth seeing. Yeah, it’s phenomenal when you’re in a good headspace and or when you haven’t seen it before. You’re up on this ridge line looking down into this canyon, looking at where water used to flow, like where water cut through this canyon and created like a concave.
convex that goes into the wall. Be concave. Concave. This concave hole in this canyon and it must get a little bit wet or maybe it’s still wet down there. I don’t know because there’s ferns growing around in it. Yeah. And so you’re just looking at something that you know is an incredible natural feature. Like it is really, really cool. And I think
had I been in the right headspace, I would have sat there and maybe journaled and enjoyed and stuff, but that was not happening this time. All right. Well, let’s keep it truckin’ then. So you head on past Mexicano Falls and where to next? I was going to go to all these overlooks. There’s like three overlooks past the Mexicano Falls, the actual overlook itself.
So I knew I needed to head towards the Mehecano Falls trailhead that people can drive to when they have a Jeep, hint. But I was really nervous because this map that I had planned my route on, all of a sudden I didn’t feel like I could trust because the ranger had told me, these don’t actually connect. And that’s my detailed map that I had planned to navigate off of. And the exploration map that I had is like shit for this area.
You cannot tell anything. Right. Like it’s impossible. And then Gaia, when I was pulling up, Gaia was showing me that I was on like four by four roads. It like, OK, I don’t know. I don’t know what to trust. Like, I don’t actually know. I think I know where I am on the map, but I don’t feel confident that I know where I am on this map. And so my anxiety is just kind of rising and rising as I’m heading away from the falls.
I make it to the Mexicano Falls trailhead and I did keep going from there, but I was just getting more and more anxious about being able to way find.
All right. So, so what did you do? I kept pushing on for a little while. at one point I was kind of going downhill and I could see like all of the scenery just opening up and I could kind of see the trail stretching downward and okay, I’m probably headed. You know, where I can’t basically where there’s a cliff and
I said, okay, that’s pretty easy to find that. Like can see the trail from here. But all of a sudden I just got so anxious and I kind of stopped walking and I was like, this is really pretty, but I can see it from up here. I’m not gonna make it to the Madrid Falls. Like there’s just no way that from these overlooks I’m then gonna carry on and do the Madrid Falls, which is what I had really wanted to do on my original hike.
and I kind of thought, are you having fun? I’m like, no, I’m not having fun. This is awful. I’m ready to go back. And so just like that, I was like, okay, I’m turning around and I’m going back.
Yeah, so I kind of wanted to ask because I think that’s sort of an important thing to make note of that. I think a lot of times people can really easily push themselves to like to do something because they committed to doing it. You know, you’re not out there hiking because there’s some commitment, you know, unless you’re I don’t know who’s a paid professional hiker, you know, that’s out there, but. For for, you know, the rest of us.
You’re out there because you want to have fun because you want to experience nature. And I think if you’re not enjoying it or if you’re feeling anxious, feeling unsafe in any way, feeling uncertain. There’s nothing wrong with just turning around, right? You’ve got you’re not proving anything to anyone by continuing on. And if anything like that’s that’s how people end up stranded in the desert for five days is they don’t stop.
when they’re uncertain and turn back and go back to where they feel certain. Sometimes that’s all the way back to the trailhead. You know, you have to be ready to bail out, especially on these back country trails where the navigation is already sort of, you know, an uncertain experience. And if you’re not in the mental place.
to enjoy that stress because that is, you know, that’s one of the reasons I like navigating is because it is to some extent a stressful experience. It pushes me to use every faculty to reason and think and be observant and be alert. It’s, you know, it can be exhausting to navigate all day. But it’s a challenge that I enjoy unless I’m, you know, in a really terrible mood.
And then maybe I’m like, you know, actually don’t feel like navigating all day. Let’s just use the app or, maybe let’s not do a crazy challenging hike. Or maybe tell somebody that they have their own map or maybe tell somebody that they have their own fucking map and they can navigate for themselves. Yeah, sure. Well, we’ll tell that story another time. We certainly will. But yeah, and that’s not like.
an excuse to bitch out or to take it easy because there’s a difference between, you know, being tired or, you know, it’s been a long hike or you’re a little bit worried or whatever and you just kind of push through that. But this was different than anything else that I typically feel. And when I thought about am I having fun? The answer was absolutely no.
There’s no point me doing this. And for me, it’s really hard to tell the difference between anxiety and intuition. And in a place like Big Ben Ranch State Park, If I feel unsafe, I’m going to turn around because that’s just I’m a conservative hiker like that. Yeah, well, you know, it’s the people who don’t take unnecessary risks that always come back. So anyways. You make it back to the car.
You take, I think, a fat nap, I assume, in the car and head on? Or what’s next here? Well, actually, I had a little snafu, I think, right where you and I did on the Mehekana Falls. This is a tough section. It really is. So, you know, once I got back to the overlook, I’m like, OK, now I have to be on my A game. I have to be paying attention.
And like, kind of snapped back into a more alert, more dialed in mindset. And so I was super focused on finding these cairns and paying attention. And I was doing okay. And then all of a sudden I get to a cairn and I don’t see any other cairns. And it’s very kind of the terrain’s going up and down and up and down. So I can’t really see very far to look for a cairn.
And I’m looking everywhere and I don’t see it. And so I was like, okay, well, I’m not going to take any chances. Let me just pull Gaia out here real quick. And I pull out Gaia and the little arrow that shows you where you are was still showing that I was back by the trailhead. It was nowhere near to being accurate. And I knew it wasn’t accurate. So okay, no big deal. I just need to close the app and it’ll
It’ll find me on this map. So I do that. Nope. It’s still not showing where I am. And then I turn off the whole damn phone and turn it back on, convinced that this is going to fix it. Nope. is still not showing me where I actually am on the map. And this is when I start to be like, why would it do this at this point? Like, my God, of all the places. Right. I haven’t pulled Gaia out once on this hike. And the one time I do. Here it is. And.
So my first thought is, okay, don’t tell John. Don’t tell John unless there’s actually a problem because I wanted to like, bivvy you and be like, my gosh, I just stopped working and I don’t, I can’t see the next Karen. Like, no, don’t do that. There’s a real problem. boy. And so then, like you mentioned, it’s a very disorienting area because I wanted to go left, which is kind of like uphill.
And so I kind of started to walk a little bit to the left, like thinking if I just move 10, 20, 30 feet that I would see a cairn and then be able to go. And I probably get 50 feet from that cairn going to the left. And I’m like, there’s no cairns. I need to go back to the last cairn that I knew of. I can’t just start, like, I really just wanted to start plowing ahead because I know roughly what direction you need to go in. And if
push came to shove, you probably could just plow your way through it. would be hard because of the terrain and all the vegetation and stuff. There’d be a lot of bushwhacking, probably a few cactus spines in you, but you could do it. It would be super slow to… And like, it’s hard because you just, can’t see your goal towards what you’re going. So it wasn’t like I could look at those terrain features that I had so smartly memorized and head towards them. No, they’re fucking out of sight. I’m not going to see them for hours if I start bushwhacking.
So I went back to the place where I had last cairn I had seen. I started looking more. I turned on a bivvy track so that way I would have a map going in case I really got turned around. And I started looking down to the right, which takes you down towards the canyon. And lo and behold, there’s a cairn down towards the right, which just it
When you’re out there, feels very wrong and very counterintuitive that you would go that way. It doesn’t feel right at all. Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re there’s just something about the terrain that makes you want to veer to the left, but it is you actually are aiming to go a bit downhill there. And so you do find the Karen and you end up being able to.
Find the rest of them? Yes, yes from there on out. I found all the rest of the cairns. I’m not podcasting with your ghost? You’re not. Thank fuck. And so once I got back down into Arroyo Mexicano, that’s where the navigation gets easy and I was like, okay, cool. I can coast now basically. And so yes, when I got to the car, I took a big old nap and it was so freeing because I didn’t even turn on the alarm. It’s like it doesn’t matter.
whatever time I get up is when I get up and then I’m going to go to my campsite from there. And so that was really nice. I had passed out for a while. Yeah. Well, I’m sure you needed it after the day that you’d had and the night that you’d had before. Pretty stressful. OK, well, very nice. And from there, I think you head to to South Leva and set up a campsite and. It’s it’s another night in the desert.
It is. The different thing about South Leva is it is a campsite with multiple sites and so there were people around, not a lot of them, but I guess I shouldn’t have felt safer with lots of people or some people around, but I did for whatever stupid reason because, you know, people are the ones who are most likely to harm you. And I did some stargazing in my hammock while I froze my ass off and then I went to bed.
Gabrielle (40:42)
Okay, another night in the dark in the desert. This time in a tent, I think. No, I was actually still in the car. still doing the car camping. Okay, so the tent stayed put away. It did. It was supposed to get a whole bunch of use this trip and it did not. Yeah, another time. So yeah, I slept in, you know, as much as you can when the sun comes up at, I don’t know, whatever time. I was up by seven. But…
So then I still wasn’t sure what I was gonna do for that day because originally I had wanted to go back to the Puerto Chilicote trailhead and go hike the West Rim Overlook and find the fucking section of trail that they didn’t maintain and prove to myself that I could do it. And somehow this felt safer to me doing it as an out and back day trip rather than incorporating it into a backpacking loop. So that was my logic there. I did think.
Like, whoa, should I even do this? And they’re like, no, I think I can do it. I really do. And going downhill, it’s going to be really easy. So I scope it out going downhill. And then once I know it, I can get back up it, even though navigating uphill is a little bit more challenging. But anyhow, I woke up after having a bad day, you know, the day before, and I was like, I don’t want to do that. I’m not feeling it. And I thought, what would make me happy? And I said, I want to do something new.
I wanna do something different. Which you know, changing your hiking plans is never a good idea because like, whoa, what if I forget to tell you every little detail and then you send search and rescue to the wrong place because I didn’t tell you what trail I was gonna be on. So that’s always really scary.
Yeah, that is something that we do as well, right? As you have a written hiking plan that you leave with me and then visible in your car so that people who might be looking for you can have some idea where you are and when you left to get there. So yeah, this was definitely a bit of a riskier decision to change your plans. But you did. I think you did text me. I did. I told you where I was going to be. I just don’t like changing my fucking plans. I like making a plan and sticking to
plan, execute the plan, that is the definition of success. But not this trip. So I decided I’d do this trail called horse trap trail, which my friend Kimberly and I had tried to attempt in our first trip out to the state park. We tried to mountain bike it. And so it wasn’t going to be completely new, but we had failed, we had turned around. And so I knew I hadn’t seen most of this trail.
So I get out on the trail and I’m hiking along and it’s surprisingly beautiful. Like there’s some really great vistas of the mountains. You feel completely alone. But it was great. It was enjoyable. I kept I was like, OK, at some point I’m going to start recognizing the trail because I’ve been on a section of this trail with my friend. Right. And I keep looking and I keep looking.
And I have a fairly good memory for trails. Like I don’t remember them completely, but when I am on them, I will recognize parts of them and I’m not recognizing any of it. And I thought, okay, well, we must’ve started from the other end because it’s a fairly, it’s almost a loop, but not quite. You start at one trailhead, you end at another trailhead. Right. Yeah. It’s sort of like a, like a, it’s not really a horseshoe shape because it’s real squiggly, I think, but it’s more, you could call it a horseshoe.
terms of where the start and the end are. Yeah and so I’m like okay well we must have started at the other end. I’m not going to recognize any of it until I’m finishing the trail. I don’t remember how far we got on it. Well as I get to the very last section of trail I start to realize I didn’t recognize any of it. Yeah. And I remembered being in a sandy like a wash or some sort of creek bed or something with her.
and struggling to ride the bike because it was sandy and gravelly and there wasn’t hard footing underneath. And there was no such thing that I encountered on horse trap trail. And so as I got off the trail, I realized, my gosh, I don’t know where we were, but we were not on this trail. Yeah. And you know what had happened when we tried to mountain bike it? We we weren’t
Confident in our navigation skills. We knew like hey, this is actually really hard to find like we’re having a really hard time keeping the trail and so I remember that we dragged some branches and made an arrow or something to point us in the right direction and we did that a couple of times because we were so unsure of the trail and At one point I was like We’re never gonna get it’s about a five mile horseshoe if you want to call it that like we’re never
gonna make this in the time we told y’all we’d be back at like two or three o’clock and contact the Rangers if we weren’t back. I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t want the Rangers contacted to come find us unless we actually need it. So I’m like, no, we need to turn around and we both agreed. We needed to turn around and go back because we couldn’t follow this trail. Yeah. No wonder. Yeah, right. You were literally just in a creek bed. Yes, it was.
hilarious in hindsight to realize this, also like terrifying to realize we could have been the next Cathy Fries. Yeah. Yeah. You could well have been lost in the desert and we would have been saying you were on some trail that that you were not on. We were in the vicinity, so they probably would have found us eventually. I’ll bet people wander down that creek bed all the time, but I don’t see how.
Okay, I know we did it, but I really am confused about how we did it. But anyhow, whatever. Yeah. it’s a good thing that your navigational skills have improved since then. That was a few years back. So yeah, I think that was in what is it? 21. I think that that was seems right. Yeah. so yes, much more proficient at navigating, much more prepared. think all we had for a map was the little pamphlet that the Rangers give you. We didn’t have
We didn’t have an emergency device. Really, Kathy frying it up there. we really were frying it up. Yeah. Yeah, I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t make fun, but she did make it. So she did go read her story. And I think it’s Texas Monthly. It’s a crazy, crazy story. Yeah. Yeah. I I joke because it is terrifying and because I am in situations where that’s a possibility often enough that I feel like I have to joke about it.
Anyways, okay. I’m glad that no one was harmed in the making of this podcast So you hiked horse trap trail for the first time? Yes, indeed. I did Well, congratulations sounds lovely. I I feel like I kind of want to do it now, but yeah, definitely worthwhile All right. so you’ve you’ve got a few more trails that you were able to squeeze out of this trip here What what else do we have left to cover? Yeah, so I did
The Encino Loop is I think an eight or nine mile loop. I didn’t read the pamphlet until I was actually out on the trail and the pamphlet goes, yeah, usually this is done by mountain bikers because it’s not as pretty as some of the ones like horse trap trail. And I was like, fuck, why am on this trail? But I was already on it at that point and I was actually having a good day and feeling it like, well, it’ll be fine.
But kind of the fun thing about this trail was to get to the actual trailhead, I was going to need to go on a high clearance road and I talked to the ranger and she’s like, yeah, don’t don’t do that with your car. And which I appreciate, like that the Rangers know the road conditions and we’ll be honest with you. She’s like, you might you might get into trouble.
And so I was like, okay, well, what can I do? And so she gave me one option where I could drive way, way further and park at a campsite that wasn’t occupied where I could access the trail. Or she’s like, if there’s any bulldozed off spots from the main road, you’re allowed to park in these little bulldozed spots. She’s like, I think there’s one here. And she showed me on the maps. I’m like, okay, that’s what I’d really like to do. So I found this little bulldozed off spot and pulled over onto it. But parking here.
meant that I didn’t have direct access to the trail. I was going to have to bushwhack. I didn’t know how far because I couldn’t tell on the scale of the map because my navigational skills aren’t that proficient yet. But it wasn’t that far. Yeah. OK. And so I looked at the terrain features, I looked at where the car was, I looked at where the park road was, and I was like, OK, I just need, you know, to go straight towards these power lines. And when I come back,
right where the trail bends, I jet out towards these, there were two mountains that kind of sloped down toward each other. I’m like, okay, that’s what I’m looking for when I come back. And so I’m like, okay, I think I can bushwhack. This is my first time bushwhacking, I don’t usually bushwhack, I stay on the trails and in many state parks, bushwhacking is frowned upon. It’s not at this particular park.
Yeah, and just to be clear, if you’re listening, you don’t know what bushwhacking is. Google is a thing. No, I’m kidding. You actually could use a dictionary, too. But anyways, no, it just means going off trail like through through rough terrain. Normally, it’s something that you would only do if you’re using a map and compass to navigate and you are taking a bearing and following the heading using your compass.
and very likely either tracking your distance or using some kind of like a backstop or a handrail. If I’m throwing these terms out and they don’t make any sense, you should not bushwhack under any circumstances. well, I had a compass in my backpack and I had a map in my hand and my brain turns off any time that you tell me how to take a bearing. but that’s true. I had a number of those things in place, so I knew I was going to be fine.
Well, I think you understand a lot of the principles of navigation even if You are absolutely hopeless when it comes to taking a bearing So, you know the more important things are, you know understanding Your location in the real world in relation to pretty good at that landmarks. yeah, I think you’re very good at that it’s when you start trying to translate that to paper and
and magnets that things get confusing. My feminine intuition comes through on the trail. OK. You know, the feminine mystique. But anyhow, I successfully bushwhacked onto the trail and then off of the trail back to my car when it came to it. Great, great trail for mountain biking. But I would agree it’s it’s not worth your time to hike it on foot. Well, fair enough. We’ll have to take the bikes. Yes.
I did want to say it’s actually really good to know that you are allowed to park in those pull offs that they bulldoze because I did not know that. And there are a lot of them around the park. Yeah. Often pretty close to trailheads that don’t have a lot of parking. Yeah. The trailheads at Big Bend Ranch State Park. Yeah. To clarify. Yeah, we can’t just call it Big Bend because people are going to get confused.
But yeah, the trailheads are really small. Sometimes they’re non-existent. Like horse trap didn’t have a trailhead. Right. Sometimes the trail just starts off the side of the road. Yeah. And so I was like, well, I see the trailhead for Ngino, but I can’t access it. And so I asked the Ranger like, hey, you know, and she’s, she was the one who brought up the pull offs or whatever. so yeah, that’s, it feels a little weird and random to just.
pull off on this bulldoze section and you’re like shut in by all these sharp plants and stuff. can’t even get into your car hardly without getting assaulted by all sorts of prickly things. But I guess that’s the price you pay for that solitude. I think it probably only feels weird because you’re driving a Honda Pilot. I think if you were in a 4Runner or a Jeep, would feel like natural. In fact, I think it would feel right. Right and just. Yeah, I think you would feel you would feel like morally good about it.
Anyways, yeah one time when I came out of the ranger station I walked out and when I had pulled in there weren’t that many cars at the ranger station But I had been there for 10 or 15 minutes. I walk out and I was like, my god I feel so out of place because there’s Probably six or seven cars parked there and they are all swooped up jeeps Four runners that are jacked up. They’ve got the water canteens strapped
on their side. they’ve got everything to show you that these are the people who are like they’re going into the heart hurt a big band. Yeah, they’re driving to those campsites that I was going to backpack to. And then there I am in the little my little two wheel drive Honda pilot like, hey, guys, don’t mind me. One day, one day we’ll upgrade. But in the meantime, you know, we’ll we’ll hoof it the old fashioned way.
So I drove to my campsite, which was one of the solitary campsites It’s called Los Ojitos. It was further off the park road than Rancho Viejo had been. I think it was almost a mile.
And I had verified with the rangers hey, can I get to this in a regular car and they’re like, yes and I could But it was a lot rougher than I was comfortable with and again This is me who’s scared of having to change a tire out there by myself and then have to drive over still 20 miles of gravel road on a spare tire If I can actually change the damn tire Yeah, we should probably
Take some time out one of these weekends and just go and have you take the tire off and put it back on. I YouTube’d it so theoretically I know how to do it. But yes, we probably should do that. But anyhow… It’s a good workout if nothing else. I didn’t love driving to my campsite and that’s unfortunate because I had planned to drive from my campsite to the Cinco Tenejas trailhead which was close to my campsite. And was like, nope.
I don’t want to have to drive down that road and back up it again. Like I have to leave in the morning to come back home to my fucking husband. But that’s the only one. That’s the only other time I want to drive down this road. I’m worth it. Cinco Tenejas not so much. Exactly. And so I said, but I really want to go to this Tenejas because these Tenejas have eluded us over the course of being at this trail twice. We still hadn’t managed to actually see.
The Tenehas. So I dispute this point. Okay, well, hold on. Let’s start with for people who might not know what even is a Tenehas. So it’s like a rock pool. Basically, it’s an area of hard rock where water gathers in the desert. And I mean, that’s more or less it, right? And so Cinco suggests that there’s five of them. think that’s probably some pretty loose math. There’s a whole bunch of them in there. And depending on exactly what you count as a rock.
Maybe there’s five, maybe there’s ten. I don’t know. There’s a bunch. They are very cool. And there’s a way to approach them where you go down the cliff side, which is a trail. It’s an actual trail. loops on and actually ultimately connects, if you follow it, to another campsite. Although it’s quite a hike to get to that anyways. From the trailhead, you can very easily go down.
the cliff and hike up to what I think of as the front of the Tenejas. And if you are, you know, a moderately competent rock scrambler or climber, you can have a little fun in the area because it’s a lot of very smooth, hard rock. And so, you know, we’ve explored a little bit and we’ve seen, some rock pools for sure. Yeah, I think there’s
two rock pools that we’ve seen down there. Yeah, so maybe we haven’t seen all five from there. Yeah, but we always thought that this was the trail because there’s so the one that goes down, it kind of hooks around to the right and then you can take you right to him. Yeah, does. It takes you right to the two that you can see pretty easily with a little bit of scrambling. And we originally went that way because when we first went here, I had Googled how to get there and I had read some things online.
of people telling me go to the bottom of the cliff and turn right and you’ll be right there. It takes no time at all. Well, that’s how you see part of them. But we didn’t realize it wasn’t until after our second trip to the Tenejas, I was looking at a topographical map and looking at some other people’s pictures. And I went, John, we haven’t seen the Tenejas.
And I just couldn’t believe that we’ve been there twice and and just utterly failed to To really have the whole Cinco Tenejas experience. So Apparently I navigated wrong is what I’ve heard I Haven’t been out there to have this shown to me in person, but I’ve been told That I made a mistake and so I’m excited to hear
What the right way is well your wee little wife found them and I can’t use a compass hardly to save my life. So literally All right, instead of driving it was going to be 1.3 miles to get to the sinko tene house trailhead from my campsite Like nope, not gonna do that. I’ll walk it in the heat of the desert day so I had this button-up cotton shirt that
I was wearing when it was really hot and my skin needed protection, but I also didn’t want to be hot and I tied it up on my head to protect my neck and my shoulders and I hit the road. And as I’m walking down the main park road once I get off of the road to my campsite, there’s jeeps and forerunners blowing by me and nobody stopped to ask if I was okay, which I thought was a little bit weird. So that happened, but then I get to the trailhead.
I take it and instead of going down toward the canyon, I branched off to the right and went up. Great. And we had done that before. And you get a nice overlook into the canyon. Like it’s really phenomenal view. Yeah, the cliffs up there are great. This is a great place if you have some kids and you want to do a relatively short, relatively easy hike and have a nice overlook. You don’t go down the cliff with the little kids. You just go to the overlook. You hang out and turn back.
You could go down to the cliff with the kids because it’s not that hard to get to the base of them. Coming up though. Yeah, I guess maybe coming up to a bit of a climb. You know your own kids be the judge. You’ll see. You’ll see what we’re talking about if you go there and you can make your own decisions. Anyhow, if you just keep going past what you think is the overlook. Yeah, there’s some Cairns and you can see that some feet have traveled here. And if you look on your map or your Gaia map, I mean,
not your paper map, but if you look on your navigational app, the paper map, it doesn’t connect. It’s not, I’m not saying it connects. Oh, that’s a callback folks. okay. I got up with the program anyhow. Then once you kind of follow these Cairns and you look at where other people’s feet have been all of a sudden you’re like,
my god, here’s the back of the canyon, my god, here’s all these tenejas that you’re seeing from up above. And these were the tenejas I had seen in the pictures. This is kind of what I expected to see when I’m told that I’m going to see a tenejas. It’s these pools of emerald green water, which is probably so full of bacteria. But it was really, really incredible. And it was a lot more narrow back there in the canyon than where we had approached it from the base of the canyon.
so it was really, really cool. I didn’t have the balls to go down and check them out on foot because you know, there’s so many things that could go wrong in my paranoid mind. mountain lions are probably down there because there’s water and that means there’s a prey source. And my SOS device isn’t going to work down in the canyon. And what if I can’t find my way up and you know, just what if I accidentally down climb and can’t up climb again and I’m one of those who
stuck in the tenehase and just I guess it would take me a long time to die out there because I’d have water. Right up until you puked it all out. Yeah, but you know, a satellite device is not going to work inside a canyon. So then you’re fucked. Yeah. Yeah. Very challenging to get a satellite signal inside a narrow like a slot canyon like I would imagine the ones in the back there would be. Yeah, we’ll have to check it out together. It’s always that’s that’s one of those things where again
I think if you’re by yourself, great decision to not go ahead and do the risky thing. I think if you are there with a group of people and you’re able to check it out and you want to maybe, you know, climb down a little ways to somewhere that might be difficult to get out of, you have to judge your own abilities. You just don’t all go down together at once. You make sure that there are people there who can get you out. Well, and it didn’t even look like it was that hard of climbing. I was just kind of.
You’re just paranoid. Yeah, if we’re honest, it was a bit of a paranoid trip It was yeah, you were off on the wrong foot. I don’t hold that. don’t hold that against you I’m not gonna judge you other people might well You know As long as they leave a five-star, you know rating I they can say whatever they like
Okay, well, that’s the tenejas and I think that’s pretty much it, right? you camp out one more night and zoom home in the morning at a blistering 10 miles an hour through the gravel roads and yeah, it took me three hours to get out of that damn park. It always takes so long. But, you know, on the bright side, at least you’re in a Honda pilot and not trying to drive like with a camper attached to your vehicle or something.
Yeah, that would be a terrible idea to ever try to take an RV into the interior of the park. I hope nobody ever listens to this who attempted to take an RV into the interior of Big Bend Ranch, because I would feel so bad that we were making fun of them for doing that.
All right. Well, let’s let’s close it out. Any final thoughts, takeaways, commentary on gear from this trip to share? No, I don’t think so. I’d like to redo it at some point and maybe have my plans not fall through so that I can have a trip where it’s a little bit feels a little bit more organized and a little less stress and paranoid.
But I am really proud that I finally just did it and went into a park that I was terrified to go into by myself. I feel a lot more confident that I was able to navigate on all the trails and really didn’t have major navigation issues. for anybody considering going into the park, whether by themselves or with a group, you need to do your own research. You need to know what you need to have to get into this park. If you’re going into the interior.
because it’s involved. This is not your average state park. there’s a lot that goes into getting into the interior of the park and we’ll talk about that one day, but just know you cannot just drive into the heart of Big Bend. You’re not going to have a fun time if you do that. Yeah. You know, there are a lot of parks, you know, I see folks, they, they show up and they walk out onto the trail with one bottle of water between two people and somebody’s in flip flops. And I’m just like,
Alright, well, hopefully you’re not going to be out here for too long, but you try to do that in Big Bend Ranch State Park, and I think you are asking for bad things to happen to you There is not a lot of shelter on most of these trails. Like, yeah, you got to you got to be prepared if you’re going to go into the backcountry. Yeah, you do. And you need to be prepared for what if your car.
breaks down and the kind of person who’s going to try to hike and flip flops with one bottle of water doesn’t even know that they’re going to be driving on 20 miles of gravel road, you know, so there’s a lot of logistics to take into account and there’s no, you know, no water except as I’ll say, just lots of things that we’ll talk about. Yeah. Well, I, I suspect and hope that anybody who is found this podcast.
is the kind of person who’s going to do their own research and is going to have a great time because they show up prepared to kick ass and take names. And I think that’s the kind of person who’s going to appreciate my anxiety and paranoia. So thank you very much for that. All right. Well, I think that brings us to a close. This has been another episode of this fucking trail. Happy trails.