The Dusty Grumps

 

11-8-2022

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While I was in bed last night, all comfy and toasty warm, a front blew in. Not a particularly cold front, nor a particularly warm front, but some kind of front… and boy did it blow in with a vengeance.

This is about the time that I figured out the one problem with my Very Great campsite. Perched as it was on the outskirts of the campground, on the edge of a hill overlooking a gully, it was certainly made for great views. But, it turns out, it was also exactly located at the end of the main wind tunnel that funnels through the pass in the Chisos Mountains. And I had gone and placed my tent right at the edge of the campsite, right on the edge of that hill.

Consequently, my tent attempted to depart the planet all night long, as howling winds screamed down that pass and along the gully, banking right up under the rain fly and doing their best to take the tent with them. Fortunately, I stake my tent down pretty rigorously – not to mention, I was in there to hold it down! So the tent remained on planet Earth. Disappointed, the winds carried on without my tent in their grasp, leaving behind a large volume of thick swirling dust which would periodically settle, only to be whipped up and churned about the tent in the next gust of wind.

Now, I can sleep through just about anything. Extreme heat, extreme cold, light, dark, traffic, it’s all the same to me. But it is just a bit difficult to sleep when your tent is periodically laying down on you, creaking ominously, while whipping dust somehow makes it way past your eyelids into your eyes.

I was mostly able to solve the problem by laying my hoodie sleeve over my eyes to keep the dust out. With only the one problem (my tent laying down on me), I was able to get quite a nice night’s rest despite the windstorm.

I woke around 8AM and the wind was still howling. So I opted to hang out and read a book, waiting for the wind to die down. It is really very annoying trying to make breakfast – or any food at all – on a camp grill in heavy winds.

But then the wind just… didn’t die down. At 10AM I had finally had enough so I got up anyways, at which point I found that my contacts were also full of dust when I put them in - a painful discovery. And my fingers were also covered in fine dust, making reinstallation of contacts sans dust completely impossible. A bummer, to say the least.

Tears streaming from my gritty eyes, I made breakfast in the wind, having to chase down various plates and cups halfway across the campsite a few times. I count myself lucky that I only got my oatmeal flipped onto me once.

Needless to say, I was real, real grumpy.

The dusty grumps are the worst. See, if you are grumpy because you’re sodden, or freezing, that’s something that everyone can understand. But many people have never had the experience of just being so gritty that you end up mad, so it really doesn’t make sense to them. You don't realize how horrible it is to have a copious amount of dirt drifting in and out of your eyeballs. How irritating it is feeling sand scrape between your toes, or grind in any other joint, rubbing your skin raw in short order. The annoyance of turning your head and having a small shower of sand stream out of your hair and into your clothes - or worse, into your ear. It is really not my favorite state of being. I think that morning, everyone in that campground began to understand the dusty grumps pretty well.

Having hiked 17 miles the previous day, I decided that I was due for a lazy day. I thought that maybe I would try to hike a couple of shortish trails that start at the campground. But then I remembered that I needed to move campsites (it’s very challenging to book a single campsite for more than two nights in Big Bend), so I decided I would just get that out of the way first. No sense going out on a nice hike, then getting back and getting grumpy again trying to move all my stuff in the wind.

So, I moved my stuff first. Fortunately, the new campsite, although lacking a bit in views, did possess a very large bush that was a perfect wind block for my tent. My poor tent had survived the night’s gale, but not without consequence – one segment of the titanium poles was quite bent, and another had cracked at the end! Nothing catastrophic, but worth babying a bit until I can get the poles sent off for repair.

That done, I opted to set out on the Window trail, which runs down the Chisos Basin and out to the main drainage for the entire mountain range. It’s a fairly popular hike, but not too crowded. As I wandered along downhill through the brush, I encountered several groups of people, all of whom advised me that multiple black bears had been seen nearby. Not on the trail, but near enough to need to keep your head on a swivel.

Alas, I didn’t see any bears at all. But I did see one last late-blooming agave, which was neat. Century plants only bloom once in their lifetime after 10 or even 20 years of growth, so they are pretty rare to see except in places where century plants are abundant.

 

The trail narrowed as I continued downhill, the sloped brushy hillsides giving way to cliffier terrain and gravel-filled gorges. I considered continuing to be grumpy – especially after having to hike for a while near a group that was playing music aloud, a cardinal hiking sin – but it’s just very difficult to be grumpy when you’re out in nature (assuming you can get away from the people playing music). It was a kind of muggy, overcast day, but even that couldn’t keep me down for long. And other hikers helped stave off the grumps as well – I passed a number of very pleasant people, including a couple with a young child who wished everyone he passed, “Hi have a nice day!”.

Most people are pretty good.

Nearing the end of the trail, I heard running water and encountered a small creek winding down the gorge. It cascaded beautifully down a series of small pools carved into the rock floor, burbling cheerily from one to the other in a path cut by hundreds – or even thousands – of years of erosion.

 

I traipsed down the smoothed rocky corridor for a while, following the rivulet along from pool to pool. Until, very abruptly, the rivulet cascaded over one last rocky shoulder and vanished completely in a pile of gravel at its base.

 

Andddddd it's gone

There was not a trace of it to be found further down the creekbed. I assume that there’s a big fracture in the rock under the gorge floor that the water flows through. Fascinating! And although at the time of my visit the creek vanished entirely into this crack, there was a lot of evidence for a massive amount of water flow through the area beyond this point. I would guess that during heavy rains, this area flash floods pretty hard, swelling the creek into a raging river that cannot all drain through that small crack.

A short while later, I reached the true end of the trail – the Window. Although I had been hiking along a basin floor the whole trail – something that should theoretically be a low point – here, it became evident that that was not the case. Although the Chisos Basin is indeed a low bowl in the Chisos Mountains, it is still much higher than the surrounding area! Consequently, a hike along the basin floor to the lowest point in the bowl leads you to the brink of a massive cliff with an awe-inspiring view of the rest of Big Bend.

 

Now *that* is really, really cool.

I didn’t inch too close to the edge of that dropoff, even though it promised even better views, for one very good reason: the rock there is smoothed almost to glass, slippery and treacherous even when dry. Even my hiking boots struggled to maintain purchase on it. I imagine that thousands of years of floodwaters have funneled brutally through this small bottleneck, battering the constraining rock endlessly in their quest to escape the Chisos Mountains. It must be quite a sight during heavy rainfall.

This would have been a wonderful spot to stop for lunch, if not for the fact that there was already a group of four young teenagers there who had had the same idea. They mostly ignored me as I noodled around for a bit taking pictures and checking out the rocks, as they were embroiled in a daring attempt to rescue a wasp drowning in a puddle.

“I hope this guy doesn’t sting me, but I guess it would be okay. My good karma for the day,” one of them declared.

Most people are pretty good.

Not wishing to bother them, I wandered back up the trail to the burbling creek and had lunch between two of the most picturesque pools. Along came the family with the young child (another “Hi have a nice day!!”), the elderly couple, the two tie-dyed ladies, and a number of others. I decided to skedaddle on so that the end of the trail wouldn’t clog up with people all trying to find somewhere to sit and hang out without bothering others.

The way back up the trail was not as pleasant, mostly because the day had gotten even muggier (in November! In the mountains! Argh!) and it was just a long uphill slog through the brush. But, I got to see some pretty Mexican jays snacking on some worms, so that was neat.

 

As I hit the last mile of the trail, the sky cleared and I was treated to some very classic Big Bend views. Not a bad end to the trail!

 

A lizard even came out to warm itself in the sun! This is a Canyon Lizard.

Looks like "The West" to me

Arriving back in my campsite around midafternoon, I figured I would sit and read a while before trying to find parking up at the Lost Mine trailhead – apparently a cool trail, but one with a very small parking lot that fills up fast.

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt absolutely no inclination to go do more assing around. So instead I just kept sitting there in my site, reading my book and enjoying the day. It’s important to do that sometimes, you know. I forget about that a lot in my eternal quest to see everything. But in that moment, sitting in the warm sun, sprawled in my camp chair and burrowed in a good book, I remembered.

At some point, a girl – well, truthfully, probably around my age, but I have trouble referring to even myself as a woman still rather than a girl – approached me, rousing me from my book. She introduced herself as Ginny, a fellow camper who really loved my car. And wouldn’t you know it, but she has a vintage Mustang of her own! She told me all about her car, and I told her all about mine, and then we got to chatting and a very pleasant hour passed. Although it’s common for someone to comment on Jane, it’s fairly rare for the comment to come from another vintage Mustang owner – and even more rare coming from a woman, especially my age! So I was really excited to meet a new friend.

Eventually I popped over to the Chisos Mountain Lodge to suck up some of their WiFi and a power outlet. More importantly, I also took the opportunity to get a warm brownie and some ice cream from their restaurant. A beautiful day deserves a nice dessert, don’t you think?

 

I wrapped up the day with a nice big bowl of turkey and wild rice soup (which I had frozen at home to use as an ice pack in the cooler – one of my more genius ideas). The dusty grumps had been completely banished. Sure, I was still dusty. There were still some errant specks of dirt in my eye. It was promising to be another windy night. But hey, I had a nice walk, I saw some nice people, I saw some cool stuff, I had some good food, and I’ve got a nice bush to protect my poor tent. Seems like a pretty good life after all. 

Kelly signing out.