Cursed With Ambition

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part VI

We pulled up to the outfitter's place and there were a bunch of people milling around outside, looking impatient.  "Great," I thought to myself, "we're late and holding everyone up."  As we got out of the car, Jan (the lady I told the "Doctor say you gonna die" joke to) asks us, "Did you guys sleep in this morning?"  I was in no mood to put up with any shit.  I was thinking, "You fuckers are going to just have to wait."  I had a bunch of things to do to get ready for the rafting trip.  For one, I wasn't dressed for it yet.  I had brought some wet/dry shorts just for this and I had planned to take certain gear and provisions in a dry sack I'd made a special trip to buy in Houston.  DB opened up the hatchback and I found that my stuff was buried at the bottom.  "Fuck me," I thought.  I dug my bag out, having placed half the shit that was in the compartment on the ground by the car.  I could just feel the stares of the assholes who were waiting for us, guides and customers alike.  "Fuck them," I thought.  I stared straight ahead and just dared anyone to say anything. 

None of the three of us were ready to go.  We were scrambling for gear and asking dumb questions.  "Do we need to bring food or water?" "No.  It's provided just like it said on your confirmation email."  "How long will we be gone?"  "You'll get back here around 5; just like it said on your confirmation email."  "Smart asses," I muttered as I went around to the restroom to change.

When I came out, Carmen, the ringleader, had sent the other customers ahead with one of the guides in a vehicle and we were to follow.  I'm not sure this was standard.  I got the impression that we were fucking up the normal procedure because we were late.  Carmen was doing little to hide her annoyance with us.  We were fumbling with our gear several minutes later when she pulled up in a suburban, rolled down the window and quipped, "There are six other people waiting on you down at the river.  We need to go now."  I jerked my head up and stared straight at her with a look that said, "Bitch, don't fuck with me right now.  We rearranged our motherfucking plans to accomodate you and the weather.  At the time, you didn't have any other motherfucking customers booked for today.  When we showed the fuck up early the other day, there was no one here AND, we paid a handsome sum for your services.  So I'll be goddamned if I'm going to take any shit off you."  Carmen didn't flinch.

I threw some essentials into the dry sack - sunscreen, bottled water, waterproof camera - and got into the front seat.  Carmen was pretty tough.  She was attractive and had a feminine figure and all, but she was not in any way delicate.  She was pure granola - didn't shave her legs and had a couple of outdoorsy tattoos.  No makeup.  Uncomplicated hairstyle.  She worked for a fucking river guide service in Terlingua, Texas.  What would you expect.  I thought she was probably a pretty cool person and, without giving the vibe that I was hitting on her in any way, I decided to make nice.  "We're sorry about holding you guys up.  DB had explosive diarrhea this morning and had to take extra time to clean himself up."  (Actually I didn't say that at all, but it would have been pretty funny if I had.)  What I really told her was, "When we were here two days ago there weren't any other appointments scheduled and there wasn't even anyone else on that day so we thought it was just going to be us.  We just didn't know and we thought being ten or fifteen minutes late wouldn't be a big deal."  She softened.  "No.  That's okay.  Don't worry about it.  Things can change pretty fast.  One day we'll have a dozen people and the next day we have none.  A lot of people just walk up on the day of, you know?"  The mood having lightened, we started asking her all manner of questions about the river, the business, the guides and about her personally.  As it turned out, she was pretty cool.  Another person I'd met from Terlingua who could've made it anywhere and done anything they wanted to, but chose to come way the hell out here instead.  I was beginning to like this brand of people.  They were starting to remind me of the cast of the TV show Northern Exposure, which is my favorite all time TV show.

We drove through the town of Lajitas, which made news a few years ago when a fatcat developer from Austin bought the whole damned town and tried to turn it into a resort.  We learned by talking to the locals that he is held in very low esteem around those parts.  The reasons are many.  A lot of them mentioned that he's sucking the river dry to water his fucking golf course.  Others probably don't like him because it's easy to hate the rich.  Whatever their reasons, I tended to agree with the general attitude for my own.  There was something pure and mystical about the whole area and this asshole was trying to scoop up a part of it, put his own brand on it and exploit it for profit.  It just felt...out of place.  I'll probably feel something similar when Caracol goes in across the street from our bayhouse in POC.

We pulled up to the put-in point on the river and the other customers were standing around while the guides wrangled the rafts.  There were three guys there from the outfitter - one guy driving who had curly grey hair, stylish sunglasses and an Asleep at the Wheel concert t-shirt on, another was a mountain of a guy who was one of the two guides and the last was a slim tan guy with a ponytail and wraparounds.  There were two rafts.  In one, the big guy, whose name was James, took four of the nine customers.  Two of them were some kind of friends of his and then two elderly people.  In our raft with the slim tan guy, Dave, as our guide were the three of us plus a young couple from Ohio.

The first thing I noticed about the river was the mud.  There was a beige colored mud all around the put-in that was the same color as the river water.  Once we got safety instructions from James and everyone was loaded in the rafts we got underway.  James' boat was in the lead with ours following.  "So I'm Dave and I'll be your guide today.  What are your guys' names?"

I know I said I wasn't going to do this, but I'm super time crunched because I'm trying to finish up a bunch of stuff for work before I leave for Italy (Yeah, I know!!) on Thursday, but - To be continued...

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part V

We hustled down the trail toward the Chisos Basin inspired by thoughts of ice cold beer.  Unlike on the way up, Robo led for long stretches and dictated the pace.  Robo really likes beer.  Needless to say, we made really good time.  I managed to take some more pictures along the way and we still took several breaks.

We reached the bottom in mid-afternoon after hiking about 6 miles.  We offloaded our packs at the car and went inside the ranger station to change our campsite reservations again.  Brittany wasn't there this time.  Instead, there was another coed college intern who was very proper and spoke very deliberately, almost condescending.  I imaginged that she was from some upper crust family in the northeast down from Vassar or some such and doing her life's good deed with the Park Service before marrying some young investment banker in Boston with an MBA from Harvard, getting her master's in education and finally settling down in the suburbs to have her prim little children.  In other words, she was a yankee prude and she quickly lost our attention.  This after not seeing a female for two days.  We didn't even make any lude comments.

We made our reservations for another desert campsite called Croton Springs that was convenient to the highway to Terlingua and the river guide for the next morning.  That out of the way, we walked over to the store for cold beer.  Precious, precious beer.  We discussed whether we should get 2 or 3 six packs.  I was worried that if we drank 6 beers apiece, and there was no question that we were going to drink all we had, that we'd be up slow the next morning and either miss or be late for the guide.  I also didn't want to have a hangover while negotiating whitewater rapids in a canoe.  The other two guys wanted to go for 3 six packs, but in the end I won out.  No sooner had we cleared the door of the store when Robo cracked the first beer.  We set about packing the car with our gear when I accidentally knocked over Robo's beer that he had set down on the ground next to the car.  "AAAAIIIEEEHHH!" I shrieked like a little girl as I watched the beer spill out on the hot pavement.  With a quickness I scooped up the beer can trying to save as much as I could.  Robo was laughing maniacally.  I had moved too fast and my fingers were too slow and I sent the can skidding away, spilling even more out.  I chased it like an animal and I was finally able to corral it.  From the weight I knew only a couple of swallows were left and it was mostly foam.  I turned and asked Robo why he was laughing.  "That's the most precious resource we have and it's just spilling out on the road!"  Robo has a sick and twisted sense of humor to think something like that is funny.  But he did.  Some sort of gallows "We're Fucked" kind of humor, I guess.  "That one counts against your share," he followed.  "Bull-sheeit," I said, "You're the one that left it in a high traffic area."  We didn't say anything more about it for a while but I think he was steamed that I'd spilled his beer and I was steamed that he wasn't willing to take any responsibility.  We got in the car and started down the mountain.  DB and Robo grumbled a little over my persuasion to only get 12 instead of 18 beers.  I stood by my argument and told them they'd thank me in the morning.  "Well, when we run out in a couple of hours you're the one that's probably going to want to get more," they said.  I thought they were probably right, especially since we'd wasted nearly 1/12 of our supply carelessly.  But I still felt strongly that we needn't overdo it.  I hate hangovers and I wanted to be fresh for the river trip.

I cracked my first beer a few minutes into the drive.  That first sip...damn.  It was soooooo good.  The beer washed the dust and fatigue of the trail away in one cold swallow.  "You know, I think you guys were right.  We might should've gotten 3 sixers instead of 2."  DB and Robo looked at each other with a knowing smile.  "We can stop at that little store in Panther Junction."  "Cool.  I need cigarettes anyway."

We stopped at the store and I even bought Robo a single to replace the one that had spilled.  In know he thought I owed it to him, but I really did it just to keep the numbers even in case he really tried to enforce the spilled one against my share.  No reason for a confrontation over the last beer four hours from now with a heavy buzz.  Loaded with 3 six packs of beer (minus 3 by this point - Robo drank a fresh one on the way down) we made our way to the Croton Springs campsite.

Again I was impressed with the desert plants.  We set up camp and I took a few more pictures.

We sat around in the desert sun drinking beer and bullshitting.  We cooked dinner and stayed up for a couple of hours after dark before turning in for the night.  I didn't sleep very well because I was hot.  Plus, I heard coyotes really close by.  The next morning we even saw what looked like coyote piss on one of the rocks inside our campsite, but it might've been me.

As I feared, we got a later start than we wanted and all of us were moving a little slow.  We managed to break camp, pack the car and get on the road a little before 9, which was the time we were supposed to be at the outfitter's place.  We figured we were going to be a few minutes late, but the last time we were there the place was deserted and there were no other trips booked so we thought it wouldn't be a big deal.  We would soon find out we were dead wrong.

To be continued...

Coming before Thursday - Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part VI:  The final installment.

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part IV

Heading up the trail to Emory Peak was remarkably easy without the pack on.  I felt light and springy by comparison.  I took my new camera and a bottle of water for the one mile hike to the top.  I stopped frequently to take pictures (I've always felt guilty about not taking enough pictures in my life) and we stopped as a group several times to marvel at the views.  Here are some photos from the Emory Peak trail:

The trail the entire way up from the bottom had been extremely well-built and maintained.  Up this high though, the trail became rougher.  The rocks were larger and more exposed.  In some areas the trail was little more than broken rock faces bearing slight signs of boot traffic  The trail to the peak felt less managed, less cared for.  In most of the other areas we'd visited I definitely sensed the Park Service's management of the place.  The well-groomed trails, constructed steps, water diversion channels, erosion controls, sturdy signs and metal food boxes to keep animals out of your food (especially bears) all gave the impression that things were safe and under control.  It struck me that the Emory Peak area was dangerous; manily because it was the highest and most inaccessible of the entire park and just beyond the reach of the rangers.  If you got hurt or ran out of water it would be hours before anyone could reach you.  And the prospect of being packed down the mountain on a stretcher from that point was iffy at best.  I picked my path carefully.

Despite the isolation and the danger, the place felt peaceful.  Breezes blew through the trees, birds chirped and sunbeams penetrated the canopy making bright splotches on the ground.  Several times I thought, "Having a stand of trees just like this in a backyard would be nice."  Just as I was thinking that, I heard a strong whining buzz.  "What is that?" I thought.  I looked up in the direction of the noise.  BEES!!  It was a huge swarm of bees coming over the tree tops right over us!  I turned to DB, who was right behind me.  "Get down!" I shouted.  "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"  We got down as low as we could and turned our backs to the swarm.  We tried to cover our heads as best we could.  I was wearing a dark grey shirt, almost black.  I'd heard that bees attack black.  My synapses started firing - what would I do if the bees attacked us?  I thought, "I can't run very fast in this terrain so I don't think I can just run away from them," "I don't have enough loose clothes to pull over my body and even if I did they'd still find a way inside," "I wonder how many bee stings I could take before I died," "Can you die from bee stings?" "I've never been allergic to bee stings before, but what if I have developed one?"  "I do have two Benadryls in my bag - I'd better tell the guys where they are."  Then I had the best thought, "I know!  I'll light up a cigarette as the bees are stinging me and start blowing the fucking smoke all around me!  Smoke fucks with bees right?  Beekeepers use smoke to subdue bees.  This has to work!"  Just then the swarm of bees passed harmlessly overhead and out of sight.  Soon enough we couldn't even hear them anymore.  DB and I looked at each other in relief.  Robo came up the trail behind us, oblivious to the peril we'd just faced.  "Man, a fucking swarm of bees just flew over us!"  "I thought we were fucked."  "If they attacked I was going to light a cigarette and start blowing smoke like mad.  Bees don't like smoke."  DB and Robo laughed at the visual.  I laughed too.

The very last stretch of trail before you couldn't go any higher was especially rough.  In fact, there really was no trail.  Just a stack of boulders fifteen feet high to a relatively flat area between two huge rocks that made up the summit of the mountain.  At the base of the boulders were some ruined bags of concrete partially covered by a tattered tarp and a dozen or so blue water cans.  This was the first and only sloppy work I'd seen by the Park Service.  Seeing this reinforced the fact that it was very, very hard to make it up this way and cutting corners on the preservation of the natural beauty of the place was understandable.  I felt sorry for the pack mules that must have had to carry that heavy-ass concrete up there.

Once we scrambled up the boulder pile, the view was spectacular.  We could see the green ribbon of the Rio Grande far off to the south, distant lesser peaks in all directions and miles and miles and miles of Chihuahuan desert.

The very summit was inaccessible unless you climbed a sheer rock face 30 feet high.  There were two of these on either side of the spot we're sitting in the pictures.  On each was some type of communications equipment - solar panels and antennas of some sort.  I thought out loud that I would have hated to be the guy who had to install those puppies.  Heights normally don't affect me much, but for some reason sitting on top of that exposed mountain next to a cliff that dropped away at least a thousand feet gave me the peepee shivers.  I was ready to head back down to camp.  Plus, dark clouds from afternoon thunderstorms had begun to gather and I certainly didn't want to get caught way up there with lightning and all.

We picked our way down the boulder pile and got back on the trail leading to the campsite.  Not five minutes into it, we heard the first clap of thunder.  I turned and looked at DB.  "Not good."  I picked up the pace a little.  This was the first time I had actually descended all day.  It was much easier than ascending, although I still had to be careful where I put my feet.  Thunder rumbled again.  "Fuck me, I thought.  I'm destined to get caught out in a thunderstorm on this trip."  I did some quick calculations in my head:  "The storm is about five miles away and traveling about 15 miles an hour in our direction.  It took us about forty five minutes to get to the top of the mountain.  We stopped for pictures and rest a few times, so figure it takes 30 minutes to get back to camp.  At 15 miles per hour, that means that the storm will travel 5 miles in 20 minutes, which means it will overtake us when we are still 10 minutes away from camp.  Fuck."  I picked up the pace again.  Robo was lagging behind because he was nursing a very tender sprained ankle he'd suffered the week before in a pickup basketball game.  I started sweating and getting hot.  I took a swig of water.  I felt the exhaustion in my legs from the hours of hiking I'd already logged.  Thunder rumbled again.  DB and I were eating up the distance.  We hopped down stone steps and clopped over the gravel.  We felt the first few rain drops.  Just then we came to the trail fork that led to our campsite.  We managed to cover our packs with plastic bags and dive inside the tent just as the rain started.  Robo came in several minutes later.  The rain didn't last long and the lightning didn't strike close enough to make things interesting.  We got out of the tent and started cooking dinner.  Several bands of showers came and went.  A couple of times we got in the tent to avoid getting too wet.  It never got serious though.  Here are some pictures from that evening at our campsite:

We finished dinner and hit the wiki and the peppi and talked about all manner of things.  I tried to explain legal damages and how a case like the McDonald's coffee-on-the-crotch case could happen for the billionth time.  We talked about whether we were going to marry our girlfriends and how it is impossible not to let money become an important part of your life.  It started to rain again at around eight o'clock.  We crawled in the tent again.  It was still very light outside.  We were all exhausted.  I knew what was likely to happen.  Fortunately for me, I had stowed my sleeping bag, inflatable mattress and pillow inside the tent before the rains started.  My main reason was to keep them dry; my second reason was that in case it rained really hard and we were trapped in the tent, my sleeping gear would already be there.  Boy was I glad I'd done that.  The three of us fell asleep within minutes.  I woke up at one point and it was dark.  I pulled my sleeping bag on, adjusted my pillow and mattress and slept like a baby.  I must have slept for ten hours straight.  I was the lucky one though.  Robo and DB suffered all night.  Neither had all of their stuff in the tent when we went to sleep.  Robo was without his sleeping bag.  He was still in shorts and a hoodie and he shivered all night until sometime an hour or so before dawn when he finally couldn't take it anymore and stumbled out to get his sleeping bag from his pack.  DB was without his mattress and slept on a mat of stones and twigs under his back.  Not me though.  I was toasty and comfortable with my full complement of gear.  I woke up just as the sky was getting light and I felt really well rested.  I got out of the tent to enjoy the sunrise and make some coffee.

I had a smoke as I sipped my coffee, watched the sunrise and listened to the sounds of the morning.  Any remnants of job stress and the city were gone.  During those moments I was just a human being enjoying the earth.  I snapped a few pictures and explored the immediate area around our campsite. 

I pulled out our park map and studied it as I waited for the guys to get up.  When they finally did they crawled out of the tent bitching and grumbling about the fucked up sleeping conditions.  Each of them had gotten half as much sleep as I did.  "I feel great, " I told them.  "I am totally rested up."  They just scowled and resented how chipper I was.

Over breakfast, I brought up how I'd been looking over the trail map and I thought we had a problem.  "We camping out on the Southwest Rim tonight, right?"  "And we have to be at the river outfitter at 8am tomorrow, right?"  They saw where I was going.  "That means that we're going to have to hike from our campsite on the Southwest Rim all the way to the ranger station at Chisos Basin and then drive all the way to Terlingua and get there by 8am.  The hike alone is 4.5 miles.  We averaged 1 mile per hour yesterday on the way up.  We would have to start out in the dark at like 3 in the morning if we had any hope of getting to Terlingua by 8 am."  We tossed it around.  "We'd probably average much faster on the way down."  "True, but we'd be doing it most of the way in the dark, which would slow us down."  "I don't see us getting up a 3 o'clock in the damn morning, breaking camp and hiking 4-1/2 miles to get anywhere by 8 am.  Just not going to happen."  "What were we thinking?"

Obviously, our plan was flawed.  Park rules require you to stay at the campsite you reserved.  The Park Service keeps a record and there are some very good reasons to do so.  Regardless, we immediately resolved to nix the Southwest Rim campsite.  It was too far away.  We thought we would try to find a spot off the trail somewhere closer to the ranger station so we could cut off a lot of the time we would have to hike out in the morning.  We knew nothing about the area or whether there would be any place suitable to camp, but we were going to look for places along the Laguna Meadows trail and hope for the best.

We broke camp and headed out onto the trail once again.  I felt fresh and I had eaten and drank as much as I could out of my pack to lighten the evening before.  We were down to about a gallon of water apiece.  Just right for one day, but without any to spare.  DB had a quart or so over his gallon, but all the same, we were a little concerned about our water supply.  We consulted the maps again and looked for creeks along the areas we'd be hiking.  There were a couple of likely spots that we agreed to check out.

We set out on the trail, descending most of the time.  The hiking was much easier.  I suppose it was because our packs were a little lighter, our muscles were a little more used to it and we weren't going straight up anymore.  The scenery was beautiful.  There were deep green canyons and interesting rock formations.  We walked mostly in the shade of forests.  We took breaks and I snapped off some more pictures.

We hiked for a couple of hours and were making up a lot of ground.  We checked both potential sources of water and found none.  We made the decision to hike all the way to the ranger station and change our campsite reservation again, either getting a campsite fairly close to the car on back in the desert on the road to Terlingua.  Plus, we thought, if we hurried we could get back before the store closed and get some cold beer.  With that incentive, we pressed on for the end of the trail.

To be continued...

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part III

The Chisos mountains are described as "an island oasis in a desert sea."  From any point surrounding the Chisos, all you can see are the sparsely vegetated scarps and raw cliff faces.  From a distance, the mountains look just like the surrounding desert, only higher and with more rocks.  As we drove in to the Chisos Basin Ranger Station I quickly realized that the "island oasis" description was true.  For the first time in two days I saw trees; lots of them.  And there was grass!  With a simple rise of several hundred feet in elevation and inside the giant watershed of the mountains, the entire landscape had changed dramatically.  It was like a completely different place.  I never expected to see forests, much less forests of trees that were uncommon to me.  Agave (century plants) were more abundant.  There were also several types of oak, juniper, pinion pines and a very rare tree, the Arizona cypress.  In fact, the only place in Texas where the Arizona cypress grows is in the Chisos.  The road wound up and up into the mountains.  We could see mists obscuring the tallest peaks.  Finally we came to the Chisos Basin lodge and campground.  It was quite a developed little spot with a small store, ranger station, restaurant, National Park Service-run motel/lodges and even a restaurant.  Here are some pictures from there:

 

We first had to go inside the ranger station to change our campsite reservations.  There we met Brittany, an attractive young intern whose mountainous cleavage was also very impressive.  Dogs that we are, the phrase "huge tracts of land" was thrown around in plain earshot of poor 20-22 year old Brittany.  (Hey, we hadn't seen a woman in a couple of days, we're dudes, on a dudes' weekend and away from our girlfriends - what do you want from me?)  Anyway, we reserved campsites near Emory Peak, the tallest spire in the Chisos, and on the Southwest Rim near where the peregrine falcons were reported to nest.  Here's a map of the Chisos Mountain trails for reference.  Our route would be 3.5 miles along the Pinnacles Trail (blue) to our first campsite where we would drop off our gear and make camp, then 1 mile from there to Emory Peak.  That was to be Day 1.  On Day 2 we intended to make our way out to the Southwest Rim, which was another 3.5 miles to our campsite for the second night.  From there, on Day 3, we intended to hike back to the basin lodge along the Laguna Meadow trail (red), which would have been about 4.5 miles from our Day 2 campsite.  We were scheduled to be at the river outfitter at 8am on Day 3, which was Tuesday.  (Some of you probably already see the flaw in this plan; for those who don't it will become evident shortly.)

We were giddy to get going.  We had spent a lot of time over the previous weeks planning food and coordinating gear.  None of us are really experienced backpackers or campers, but we knew enough to know that pack weight is critically important.  Of course, we all brought way too much shit, but before we actually loaded our packs for the last time, we pared down most of it to the bare essentials.  We knew we needed 1 gallon of water per day.  We figured we each needed 2 gallons for the whole trek, plus a little more for reserve.  Water is fucking heavy - 1 gallon weighs 8 lbs.  So right there we each had 16 lbs.  When I checked my backpack at the airport I had to put it on a scale.  It read 36 lbs.  That was without the water.  Setting 50 lbs. as the reasonable limit for my backpack, I started making some tough decisions about what to take and what to leave at the car.  First stuff was easy - food.  I had several MRE's and then a ton of different trail mixes and dried fruit.  I packed extra baggies, so I basically halved all of the food except for the MRE's.  I had also packed way too many clothes, so I reduced to one extra shirt and pair of shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt and fleece jacket for warmth, plus socks and underwear.  I was going to relish that one clean pair of underwear.  In addition to food and clothes, I had my sleeping bag (used Kelty 3-season I got at a garage sale), inflatable mattress, inflatable pillow, camp stool, camp stove and fuel, cooking pots, cup, bowl and utensils, 40 ft. of rope, plastic trash bags, 1 roll of TP, extra baggies, napkins, sugar, coffee singles, tabasco (in case the MRE's sucked), new digital camera (anniversary gift from the GF), flashlights, toiletries, the plastic flask of peppi and two packs of smokes.  I was also carrying the tent for the three of us.  I'm a pretty meticulous guy, especially when it comes to having everything I need.  I thought I had done a masterful job of separating out the essentials from the nonessentials and keeping the luxury items to a minimum.  I carefully packed each item according to weight distribution and accesibility.  Fortunately, I have an awesome backpack.  My brothers gave it to me several years ago when I graduated from college and it would prove to be the most important piece of equipment I had. 

The gear was checked, the packs were packed and it was time to hit the trail.  I made one last very important attempt to vacate my bowels in the civilized restroom and then we gathered at the car one last time before we donned our packs.  We were excited and laughing.  This was going to be great.  I went to lift my pack onto my back and when I felt the weight, the "Oh shit" alarm went off inside my head.  Having awkwardly failed to swing my heavy fucking pack over my shoulders, I set it down and looked up at the mist-covered peaks.  "There's no fucking way the trail goes all the way up there," I silently assured myself.  I had no idea how wrong I was.

With a little teamwork we each got our packs on and adjusted.  Mine was very heavy, but at least the pack made it as comfortable as possible.  We walked up the paved road to the trailhead, which was about 100 yards away.  50 yards in, the "Oh shit" alarm had reached 3 bells.  My shoulders and hips were already hurting.  I'd be damned if I was going to complain though.  Especially not at this early stage.  We needed to keep morale up, although I suspected that if I was hurting, so were the other two guys.  We made it to the trailhead and immediately there was a steep-banked hill to climb.  I started up first.  About halfway up a group of younger guys, probably high school or early college, came happily bounding down the hill.  They nodded as they passed and said, "It's beautiful," "good luck" and "enjoy it."  I thought back to when I was their age - 20 years old, fit and way before the thousands of cigarettes and heaps of bad food I've consumed since then.  I looked down and the ground in front of me and put one foot in front of the other.  When I got to the top I turned and looked behind me at the other guys.  I was absolutely fucking winded.  I wanted to take the goddamned pack off and take a knee.  The DB and Robo were grimacing slightly under the weight of their packs, but they were trying to hide it.  When they reached the top I said in a serious tone, "That's just the beginning.  There's going to be a lot more of that."  They each just nodded.  We had gone maybe 30 yards of a 3.5 mile hike that would take us all the way to the top of the Chisos.

We hiked under the weight of our packs for what seemed like 30 to 40 minutes.  My muscles were burning, I was hot and sweating profusely.  I wanted to take off the long sleeved t-shirt I was wearing over another short sleeved one.  I wanted to take that fucking backpack off for a few minutes.  We finally came to a natural rest area.  We took off our packs and rested there, drinking water and eating snacks.  Here are a few pictures from that first stop:

We helped each other on with our packs and set out again.  We carried on in much the same way for the rest of the afternoon - hike, hike, pain unbearable, rest.  One hour turned into two, two into three.  One mile to two and finally to three.  At certain points, the trail was near vertical and each plodding step felt like your feet were in concrete.  My shoulders burned like fire and I discovered a muscle inside my hip that I never knew I had.  At first I could adjust my pack to shift the weight from my hips to my shoulders and back again.  Pretty soon though, every muscle was tired and shifting weight from one set of spent muscles to another didn't help any.  We rested frequently and drank plenty of water.  Towards the end the trail got narrower and steeper.  The impossible peaks got nearer.  The searing pain in my shoulders, hips and legs got worse.  For long chunks of time we walked on in silence, alone with our thoughts and concentrating on the trail.  I thought about my girlfriend, my job, my family.  I also thought, "Whose fucking idea was this?"  "This is why I stick to drinking beer on the beach."  "My time has passed.  I'm too old for this shit."  "God where is the fucking campsite!"  During our frequent breaks the three of us would talk about serious topics like whether we would ever participate in organized religion again, how many kids did we want, how we were going to manage retirement and what were the best blow jobs we ever had. 

Slowly, the world I'd been living in as a frantic young attorney in Houston melted away and the mood of Big Bend took its place.  I relaxed a little bit, focusing on the best places to get a foothold instead of how I was going to attack a client's problems when I got back to the office.  We finally made it to campsite EP 1.  The hike up there had been grueling; probably the most difficult physical exertion I'd experienced in years.  But we'd made it.

We rested and bullshitted for a little while, drinking water and nibbling on trail mix.  We set up the tent and the rest of camp.  Then we headed out for the mile-long hike, sans heavy-ass backpacks, to the tallest mountain in Big Bend - Emory Peak.

To be continued...

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua Part II

I'm normally not a desert guy.  I like green grass and trees.  Growing up  on the relatively wet southeast Texas coastal plain spoiled me, I guess.  This desert was different though.  For one thing, there were plants there that I'd never seen before - ocotillo, lechuguilla, century plants, and creosote bushes, to name a few.  Plus, many of the plants were in blooming season and the area had received rain recently so many of the plants were green and flowering.  Here are some of the pictures I took on the first hike from Paint Gap:   

As most people know, when you hike toward a mountain it looks a lot closer than it actually is.  We hiked for twenty or thirty minutes and I figured we were a little more than half way.  We saw a jackrabbit and a rock that I swear was a fossilized turtle shell.  Every low spot or draw between landforms was greener with mesquite or bunchgrass.

There had been some dark clouds to the west when we first set out.  The other two guys didn't make much of this, but I did.  See, I don't like lightning.  I got caught out in a small boat in a severe thunderstorm on the bay a few years ago and I was convinced that we were going to be struck by lightning and the last thing I was going to see after the bright flash and loud BOOM! was my father, grandfather and cousins twitching on the deck of the boat with steam coming off them right before the curtain closed.  The lightning was striking every 15 or 20 seconds less than 400 yards away.  After that, I wouldn't say I developed a phobia of lightning so much as a healthy respect.  Lightning strikes are actually pretty common; more common than shark attacks.  Anyway, I have made it a personal rule not to put myself in danger of lightning strikes ever again so I pay attention to the weather when I am going to be outdoors.

At first we only heard some distant thunder.  Then, I caught the fluorescent flashes of lighning in the clouds.  I didn't want to be a pussy, but I knew the storm was heading out way and I wanted to be in camp and near the car when it did.  We had walked 20 or 30 minutes away from camp and it would take at least that long to get back.  When the thunder sounded again, I looked at Robo and Desert Boy.  Nobody said anything so I piped up, "What do y'all think about that thunderstorm?"

"It's pretty far away."

"I don't think it's coming this way."

"Do y'all still want to try to make it to the mountain."

"Yeah," they said in unison.

I thought to myself, "Okay, haul ass to the base of the mountain and haul ass back and we should be able to make it back to camp before the lightning gets too close."

So we continued on toward the base of the mountain.  Not 30 seconds later there was a much louder, obviously closer, boom of thunder.  I turned to the fellas, "I think we should turn around and head back to camp."  Fortunately, they agreed.  There's a fine line between keeping yourself reasonably safe and being a pussy.  Maybe I was being a pussy, but fuck pride though, I don't want to get struck by lightning.

The desert is deceptive in a lot of ways, especially to someone who is not used to being in one.  First of all, your sense of distance is all screwed up because you can see so far in every direction.  Second, even though it's a desert, there are actually a lot of plants.  These plants are all relatively short, but they come up just high enough and are just dense enough so that your field of vision is pretty limited above the tops of the plants.  There could be a dirt road ten feet away that you couldn't see because of the foliage.  Also, the ground is not flat.  There were small hills and low dry creek beds in between.  What I'm trying to say is, it would be really easy to get lost.  We couldn't see our camp from where we were although we knew the general direction.  We also knew that there was a dirt road to the campsites off to the west by a hundred yards or so, but we didn't know if it veered away from us from where we stood.  Of course we didn't take a compass or any marking tape from our campsite.  So we did the only thing we could do - walk in the general direction of camp.  A couple of times we would get on top of a rise and stretch to see the campsite, but all we could see were the tops of creosote bushes.  Every few minutes, lightning would streak and thunder would sound in the distance.  I tried to count 1001, 1002, 1003... a couple of times, but I was too busy picking my way through the thorny bushes to get an accurate count.  Desert Boy was still convinced that the storm was moving away from us.  He pointed to the sky above us, which was still blue with sparse clouds.  The clouds were blowing toward the storm, which he took to mean that the storm was being blown in that direction too.  I tried to tell him that different layers of wind could be blowing in opposite directions and that we would probably feel the wind shift from the direction of the storm a few minutes before it started to rain.  We kept hiking toward camp and the thunder kept getting louder.  There was no sign of camp.  "It would really be easy to get lost in this shit," I said; verbalizing everyone's fear.  I fought off the vision of trying to cower in some creek bed under a bush as the rain and lightning came down all night because we couldn't find our camp in the acres and acres of desert scrub.  "Let's angle more to the right.  At least that way if we miss camp we'll eventually find the road."  The guys agreed.  They had been thinking the same thing as me.

I kept looking over to my right to gauge the distance of the storm.  The bolts were clearly visible now and the thunder following them at 3-5 seconds.  We needed to find the motherfucking camp.  I came up out of a draw and onto a small hill and, still looking to my right, spotted the dull blue dome of our tent.  "There it is!" I shouted.  We had missed it off to the left by about 50 yards, but were right even with it.  The first few raindrops started to fall.  We picked our way through the last brush and came into camp.  I was relieved.

I was still really damned worried about the lightning, but at least we could get in the car.  The drops never started coming down hard and the storm seemed to sit a few miles to the west.  We decided to try to cook dinner before all hell broke loose.  I started up the camp stove to boil some water for dehydrated Jamaican Jerked Chicken.  I had just poured the boiling water into the package and shut off the stove when the rain started coming down.  The three of us made for the car.  The rain and lightning got more intense as we ate, but it never got really bad.  After we finished dinner, Robo asked, "Where's the wiki?"  I knew immediately that he was talking about the pint of Dewar's White Label that he'd brought.  I found it on the floorboard and passed it forward.  We nipped on that for a half hour or so and bullshitted until it got dark.  Eventually the stopped enough for us to get out of the car.  There was still lightning all around us, and especially to the west, but it was all pretty far away.  We cleaned up all the cooking utensils and put as much stuff away as we could.  Someone discovered that we hadn't closed the flap on the tent and there were large pools of water on the floor.  I thought, "Sweet.  I fucking love sleeping in pools of water."  I sacrificed my towel and was able to sweep most of the water out of the tent.  Desert Boy elected to sleep in the car.

Before we turned in, we hit the "wiki" and the "peppi" (peppermint shnapps that I'd bought at the Cheapo Liquor in Marfa), smoked cigarettes and talked about the things that three dudes in their early thirties who have relatively new girlfriends talk about - sports.

We watched the most spectacular lightning show that any of us have probably ever seen and turned in around midnight with it still firing off in every direction.  I woke up many times throughout the night - a couple of times to coyotes howling nearby.  We had a guided Rio Grande float planned for the next day so our alarms were set for 6:00.  We got up before light and the lightning was still going strong.  We quickly broke camp and headed out.

We got to the outfitters' place way too early so we went to the nearby cafe for a hot breakfast.  The place doubled as a convenience store and gast station and was crowded for that early in the morning.  90% of the people in there were Harley motorcycle people - clean-cut older people in the their fifties with black and orange t-shirts and hats.  Accountants by day and Hell's Angel's on the weekends.  Anyway, we took our time finishing up breakfast and drove the short distance back to the outfitter.  The woman running the show was friendly and, as I would come to find out, pretty typical of the people living in Terlingua.  The woman told us that they might not be able to take us on the river because of the storms last night.  Apparently, some of the roads inside the park had been washed out and wouldn't be open for a couple of days.  She was waiting to talk to a park ranger and they didn't come in for another hour or so.  She had some books and gear for sale in her place so we milled around for a while.  Desert Boy repeated the punch line to one of the jokes we had told the day before, which goes "Doctor says you gonna die!"  Of course, Robo and I laugh, but the lady was not in on it.  Not taking her for a prude, I asked, "Have you ever heard that joke before?"  "Uh-uh," she says.  "Well, here it is:

"Two fellas were hiking out in the wilderness when one of them had to take a shit.  As he was squatting off the trail a rattlesnake came up and bit him right between his balls and his asshole.  He was real scared and couldn't move that well so he screamed for his buddy to run into town and get help.  His buddy hustled into town as fast as he could and went to the local doctor's office.  The doctor was busy with other patients who had emergencies of their own so he couldn't leave.  But he told the buddy, 'What you have to do is suck out the wound.  You gotta suck it real good to get all the venom out.'  The buddy left the doctor's office and made his way back to his snake-bitten friend.  When he came up, the guy who'd been bitten frantically asked, 'What's the doctor say?  What'd he say?'  The buddy looked at him, real somber-like, and said, 'Doctor say you gonna die.'

The woman laughed like hell at the joke.  We found out a little while later that the roads were washed out and there was not going to be a river trip that day.  We booked for two days later, Tuesday, said our goodbyes and headed back into the park to change our campsite reservations for the following two nights.  We were headed into the high Chisos.

To be continued...

Intermission

Before I start back up with the Big Bend story I have to mention something that has been monopolizing my time and thoughts for the better part of the last four weeks.

I got a client in mid-April that everyone in my office, including a couple of lawyers who have been practicing for over 20 years, agrees is the worst and most difficult client any of them have ever seen or heard of.  Put it this way - if it was any worse I would be bearing physical scars.

This whole imbroglio has been my toughest early test by far.  Not only did I have to make sure I got all of the legal shit right, I had to babysit and keep a lid on this crazy person.  I also had to manage my own emotions.  My client could not be reasoned with, could not understand logic, refused to accept my explanations (even after the fifth, sixth, seventh time), thought I was conspiring with the other side to screw him, called me 6, 7, 8 times a day or more.  On my cell phone.  On the weekends.  Then I had to put up with verbal abuse by this client.  This after I took every call, responded to every email, patiently answered every question, followed up on every instruction and was even nice about it.  Oh yeah, I also took his shitty case in the first place - where he never once paid the amount of rent listed in his lease, when he did pay it was not once on time, he failed to carry insurance required by his lease until several months in and made unauthorized improvements to the property - and I was only able to go to the eviction and unlawful lockout hearings (which turned into more of a bench trial) and got him a $6,034.00 judgment!

The end result is that I passed this test.  I handled myself extremely well with this client and many people who have been present have commended me, including the lawyer for the other side!  I also handled the technical courtroom stuff very well.  Thanks in large part to Matt K and allBilly I had a very positive first experience in a courtroom setting and now I feel comfortable there.  I almost fucked up by not proving up attorney's fees with my own testimony, but I asked to reopen testimony during my closing argument and the judge allowed it.  (Incidentally, to my knowledge I've never heard or read the speech used to prove up your own fees at trial, but somehow I gave that speech perfectly.  I have no idea how.)  I got what can only be called a sweeping victory against very long odds and I feel damned good about it.

*  This is the same case where I was dealt my first significant loss a couple of weeks ago that I blogged about.

Big Bend and Viva Terlingua

Last Friday I surgically removed myself from the chair in my office and took my first mini-vacation of my professional life.  It took a little more time (and alcohol) to remove my thoughts from the office though. 

I had planned several months ago to take a trip to Big Bend with my cousin Robo and my good friend known around here as "Desert Boy."  The final plans didn't really take shape until the final week or so.  Plus, I had to figure a way around the fact that the chosen weekend was also my one year anniversary with the GF.  Fortunately, my GF is way cooler than I deserve so I got to go with no grief.  (More on this later.)  We were pretty good with the gear logistics, but specifics on campsites and schedule of activities was left to the last minute.  As it would turn out, we were forced to make some planning decisions on the fly and according to some crazy weather.

Robo and I flew into El Paso on Friday night where Desert Boy picked us up and took us to meet his new love interest who was hosting us for dinner at her place.  I'll forgo any crude, piggish handle and refer to her as "Double D."  You know, Desert Dame.  DD was friendly and attractive and she had a really nice place that was very tastefully decorated.  From the looks of it, her furniture probably cost about as much as my private law school education.  She had an awesome spread of food prepared.  T-bone steaks, grilled asparagus and peppers, homemade black bean salsa, the whole deal.  She also had a nice selection of wines to go with the meal.  I was too full for the coffee and dessert, but took it anyway.  She cooked everything and was talkative, smart and charming to boot.  I already told Desert Boy this, but DD scored pretty high on the "Keeper Scale."  After drinking a little too much wine and staying out a little too late, we turned in at Desert Boy's house a little before 1am.

The next morning we left El Paso for Big Bend.  It was a fairly uneventful 4-plus hour drive, but we did see Prada Marfa, the famous town of Marfa itself, tons of pronghorn antelope and miles and miles of West Texas landscape.  I ran into a dude from my dart league at the Dairy Queen is Marfa, which was very weird.  Also, the population of Marfa happens to be a number of some significance to me.  So, the whole "enchanted Marfa" thing was going on for me.  Anyway, we made it to the park headquarters in the mid afternoon where we realized for the first time that we hadn't really planned for shit.  We annoyed the poor park ranger when we were studying her maps and being indecisive about which campsites we wanted.  We intended to backpack and hike the majority of the time, but we also had a guided trip down the Rio Grande planned for Day 2, so we had to work around that.  We decided to camp at a desert floor campsite called Paint Gap 1, which was right off one of the main paved roads and convenient to the river outfitter where we had to be at 8:00am the next morning.  We also reserved campsites for the nights after our rafting trip including two sites high in the Chisos Mountains.  Mother Nature would promptly fuck that all up.

We drove to the Paint Gap campsite and had to go about a half mile down an unpaved road.  We quickly realized that the little VW Golf with the 2-1/2 ground clearance wasn't the best choice for this.  We parked and unloaded some of our gear, pitched the tent and scratched our heads wondering what to do next.  We were itching to hike and explore and there was a small mountain very close by.  So we struck out through the desert toward the base of the mountain.  It was about 6:30pm.

To be continued...

(Hey fuck you.  I've got work to do.)