Nancy's birthday

 Friday was Nancy’s birthday, she would have been 66. I decided I needed to do something outdoors to celebrate, rather than sit home and be sad. So since Enzo is always ready to go, I grabbed my hiking boots, day pack and headed out to Lincoln National Forest and specifically Sitting Bull Falls Recreation Area. I’m fortunate that it’s approximately 40 miles from my lease lot (aka home). I decided I’d hike the Last Chance Canyon Trail, and if I found a desolate off road campsite nearby, then I’d spend the night.

The hike was perfect, a short uphill climb over a knoll and then a relatively flat desert hike through Last Chance Canyon. It’s not a loop, so I decided I’d hike 3 or so miles in and then turn around. Along the way I met two hunters, they were hunting Barbera Sheep. I was glad I had my salmon colored sun shirt on and that I had trimmed my facial hair. You may have to google Babera sheep to get the joke.

                                              Last Chance Canyon Trail

After the hike, I left the parking lot and headed up Forest Service Road 227. It was a pretty rough, rocky 4WD road, which at times required 4WL and some caution navigating some extreme sections. The F150 performed flawlessly and after 0.9 mile, I topped out on a high desert knoll with a 360 degree view and a large flat “campsite”. After parking, popping the roof, I settled in with a bourbon on the rocks and was very grateful for the ability to “escape” into the wilderness and be surrounded by nothing. I could see forever and except for the barb wired fence next to the road and my truck, there wasn’t a man made object in sight.

Just after sunset, a severe wind advisory popped up on my phone, just about the same time as the wind at my campsite began howling. Yes, I had cell coverage in the middle of nowhere. Wind speed was forecast to be 25-30 mph with more severe gusts, so I settled into Enzo and cooked a simple one pot meal indoors. It remained cloudy and the wind rocked Enzo all night long, later the temperature dropped into the mid 30s, but I was very comfortable tucked away in Enzo. I had hoped to star gaze and sit under the milky way, but mother nature did not cooperate, maybe next time. This morning the wind continued violently, so I nixed any plans to hike, packed up and drove home.

                                              Morning and the road out.

In case I don't post for awhile, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Be safe

Learning to make camping arrangements in the Covid World

I had a great time traveling and camping in Enzo on my last trip. I also wanted to get to the Big Bend area of Texas this winter. Big Bend Ranch State Park in February 2018 was our last real camping trip before Nancy was told she had MDS. 

The Big Bend area as well as so many other wilderness areas have become very popular during the pandemic, combine that with limited campsite availability and it’s a nightmare trying to get a campsite. 

Big Bend National Park is camping by reservation only. Normally, a large number of campsites are also available on a first come, first serve basis, not so now. To make matters worse, many of the first come, first serve sites were not put into the reservation system and remain unavailable.

I spent quite a few hours, on a couple of different days, online, as well as on the phone, but finally I was able to put together an itinerary combining both primitive campground sites and primitive backcountry drive-in sites, in both the national park and the state park beginning mid January.

I’m psyched. If the weather is nice in the Guadalupe Mts, then I start my trip there, then head to Big Bend National Park (BBNP). I have 7 nights at BBNP Cottonwood Campground in the desert along the Rio Grande, then 2 nights in the Chisos Basin, then 2 nights each at two drive-in backcountry sites. The different camping sites will put me within short drives of many of the best hikes in the park. It took 3 visits to the reservation website plus a phone call on two different days to make that all happen. Evidently, people are constantly canceling reservations and then they instantly become available. So its worth checking the website multiple times a day and then jumping on a available site. The site has a timer, which counts down and kicks you off after a certain amount of time.

Once I locked in my days at BBNP, I then looked at Big Bend Ranch State Park (BBRSP) and scored 3 different 4WD backcountry sites for a total of 6 nights in the interior of BBRSP and then another 2 nights in the river section of BBRSP. If the weather holds in the Guadalupe Mts, I’ll stop there before heading back to my motorhome at the Ranch in NM. All in all, I’m looking at about a month on the road in Enzo.

West Texas is leading the state of Texas in new Covid cases, but NM is pretty much leading the country. So I’ll bring food and supplies for the entire trip with me, as well as 3 months of meds, just to be safe. Then except for passing people socially distant on the hiking trails I won’t have any contact with another human, and hopefully no contact with any Javelinas as well. LOL.

In anticipation of the trip, I made a few modifications to Enzo. I added Polyisocyanurate rigid foam panels to cover the two glass windows in Enzo for those cold nights in the mountains and added another storage area for food. The wanderthewest.com forum was very helpful. The rigid foam panels are covered in foil on both sides but the edges are exposed. One suggestion on the forum was to wrap the edges with tape, which I did. I used black gorilla tape. The tape not only prevents pieces of foam from cracking off the edges, but looks good as well.

My two week quarantine ended on Sunday, so once this cold snap is done, I get out and do some hiking in the Lincoln National Park and Carlsbad National Park, both of which are in NM and therefore won’t require me to quarantine.

Tight lines and safe travels