{"id":817,"date":"2016-05-08T00:19:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T00:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/?p=817"},"modified":"2016-11-28T01:08:14","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T01:08:14","slug":"a-few-days-in-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/a-few-days-in-the-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Days in the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Round-Trip Backpacking Distance:<\/strong> 20 miles
\nDay Hikes: ~<\/strong>14 miles: Devil’s Hall, Carlsbad Caverns, Buttercup Stagecoach and Frijole Ranch<\/p>\n

Sometimes you pick a vacation because you just need to get away. Looking through the list of national parks we haven\u2019t visited (more than 90% of them), I found something warm and south. Texas sounded good in a wet April in Portland. Not knowing much about the area and with a little research, I discovered it didn\u2019t have a huge bug problem in April (no-see\u2019ums are in Utah then) and the weather is almost always dry. So I booked our first national park adventure by airplane.<\/p>\n

Two weeks out, the weather looked ominous, possibly rain and large storms with massive flooding in eastern Texas. Our area looked good except for a \u201clittle wind\u201d. Each day I looked the wind and my concern increased.<\/p>\n

The last time I flew with the kids it was to Disneyland a few years ago, and I\u2019m not sure, but I think flying with kids is stressful and full of anxiety to just think. Well I packed for the trip I made sure to pack enough snacks for the flight. On a plane you can take dry snacks, but not liquids, so I made sure to pack, spice cake with frosting, buttered popcorn, Pringles, and trail mix, and top it off with a soda from the airport vending machine. With the looks at the end of the flight, I was probably the least popular person on the plane with each tasty odor that drifted over our seats as the kids ate treats while watching movies and filling out their Junior Ranger books. Who can resist the smell of butter popcorn, ginger sugar frosting, or sour cream Pringles? I\u2019m pretty sure the flight attendants sold more food on that trip than most others as I overheard, \u201cNo we are out of those now\u201d then most other flights I\u2019ve been on.<\/p>\n

Well booking our trip we discovered you can save almost $100 on a 5-day car rental by just booking the car off airport premises. However, one big learning lesson on our trip is if you rent a car close to a border you MUST have a credit card. We don\u2019t, so we paid a little extra.<\/p>\n

When we finally got our car, we drove to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and set up camp and hiked Devil\u2019s Hall. Devil\u2019s Hall is a short 5-mile out and back hike up a wash to a slot canyon that is maybe 10 feet across, known as Devil\u2019s Hall. We had high winds that night that kept me awake for most of the night. Even though our tents were staked down and we were in them, I was pretty sure they were going to blow over.<\/p>\n

By the morning the wind had died down and we were up early and on our way for our ranger-led hike in Carlsbad Caverns. If you have hiked there before 1990 then we did the same hike as you, however after 1990 they closed half the caverns off to general population and we took the hike through the area that is now closed to the public.<\/p>\n

Planning on returning that night for the bat program, we picnicked nearby at Rattlesnake Springs and found the remains (feathers) of a wild turkey. The kids had a hay-day just picking up the feathers. We learned the bat\u2019s had migrated so we only saw 15,000 of what is generally 500,000 bats leave the cave. It was pretty cool for all of 5 minutes and then we hit the road. We had an early day again tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The next day, we saw the remnants of the Butterfield Stage Coach Line, which was replaced by the Pony Express 18 months later, and then the Pony Express was replaced less than 2 years later by the railroad. It\u2019s an interesting part of American History because the mail went from 2 months to 6 weeks, to 2 weeks, to 1 week and then today we now have the mail in something like 3-5 days.<\/p>\n

After the Coach stop we made our way over to McKittrick Canyon Trailhead. The canyon was wonderful. As we packed in something like 20+ lbs of water, we came across a stream. I may never hear the end of packing in water from Will.<\/p>\n

\"mckittrick-canyon\"<\/a>When we approached 2.5 miles we found the Pratt Cabin. It was around mid-day when we reached the cabin and stopped for pepperoni cheese rollups, thinking we had made great time, little did we know what lay ahead. We were fortunate enough to have a ranger showing a friend the cabin and we were also able to go inside and look around. To think that a bleeding edge geologist of the 19th<\/sup> century brought in architects from Houston and Dallas and had ranch hands build a solid stone house (including roof) in little less than a year was awe inspiring.<\/p>\n

As we began to climb the mountain thinking we were more than half way to our destination Noah started to feel ill. Over the next 3+ hours that poor kid went through some pretty serious food sickness. We had no water extra water to clean anything and no extra clothes. However, we made the decision to press on, there wasn\u2019t anything we could do for him and we couldn\u2019t stop to camp, we were what we thought was halfway to our destination and Noah was game for pushing on.<\/p>\n

We learned that day, that hiking a mountain is twice as far as you think it is. As we climbed on the sun started going down and we were sure we were close. It was just around the next bend or it was just after the next switchback, we had to be at the top, right? No. We kept hiking well past dark and with our slimmed down packs (to hold the water) we not only took out the extra clothes we only brought 3 of our 4 headlamps, because Isabel hates headlamps so why bring it. I learned you bring it anyway when you are hiking a 2700\u2019 elevation with massive switchbacks and grades in the dark\u2026\u00a0as it starts snowing! Yep, we were so high and it was so cold that we hiked right into the clouds and the clouds were so cold that it was ice crystals floating in the air. It was crazy!<\/p>\n

At about 7pm we said we had to find a place to camp, whether we were at our destination or not, but the slopes were so steep and the trail so narrow, there was no option except to hike on. The trail wasn\u2019t even wide enough for our tent. We hiked for another 2 hours, when I told everyone to stay put and I would hike on to find a flat spot, we had to be close to the top at this point, right?<\/p>\n

After about 20 minutes of hiking without a pack, I found a flat enough spot (in the middle of the trail) that we could put our tents. I ran back the best I could in the dark to tell everyone else. At that point, Will was freezing and beginning to panic from being so cold, in the mountains, and not having a place to camp. Noah was exhausted and had no base layer due to the ninja poops from earlier, and Isabel was scared because she couldn\u2019t see. I told everyone my find and everyone begrudgingly hiked on. We found my spot and as we put up one of the tent, I suggested maybe all of us could fit into a single two-man tent. It would keep us warmer than 2 separate tents, especially because of the cold. Will didn\u2019t care at that point, he climbed in and said make it work. We were all so tired we made the decision that dinner was pepperoni cheese roll-ups and we would deal with tomorrow, tomorrow. We even ended up eating in the tent. We were all cold, wet, and tired.<\/p>\n

In the morning, we woke up to the most beautiful sunny vista, we had indeed made it to the campsite, even though we weren\u2019t in an official tent site. We were that tired and we couldn\u2019t see. We were glad to have flat ground to sleep on. The map says our hike should have been 7.6 miles, but both going and coming out, both Will and I, paced on our Fitbit\u2019s 10.2 miles. We are pretty sure the map isn\u2019t accurate.<\/p>\n

One interesting phenomena was the trees were raining. Even though the air was dry in the morning, the few trees we came across (Pines) had absorbed so much water from the night before they were dripping water.<\/p>\n

We hiked in with over 3 gallons of water, but it wasn\u2019t enough. By the time we hiked out we were all incredibly thirsty. We came across the stream and wished we hadn\u2019t stripped the 3 ounce water filter from our pack to save weight\u2026\u00a0another life lesson. Bring the filter no matter what. We said that in Yosemite, but didn\u2019t think of it here because we didn\u2019t think we had water, but 3 ounces isn\u2019t much when you are thirsty.<\/p>\n

After hiking out, we made our way back to the campground (first come, first serve) and thought it was a slam dunk to find a site on a Tuesday during the school year, but the whole campground was full. There was a note that you could drive halfway back to Carlsbad Caverns and there was free BLM camping, so we climbed back into the Yaris and made our way down dusty, backroads of New Mexico and found a \u201ccampground\u201d (3 firepits in the dessert).<\/p>\n

We woke up to cows in camp, but it was a beautiful view. Totally flat with mountains in the distance as the sun rose. Picture perfect New Mexico. We made our way back to El Paso, passing by Guadalupe Mtns again and stopping at our last stop the Frijole Ranch. This ranch is the coolest place on earth. One day when I retire I\u2019m going to find a place just like this.<\/p>\n

The homesteaders who lived here were some of the most industrious people. The spring bubbles something like 6 gallons a minute, which the homesteaders enclosed to keep the bugs out to make drinking water, they then trenched the water around the cellar to keep it cool, then made a waterway under the outhouses to keep them clean and out into the orchards to fertilize. They also discovered that the local rock (calcium carbide) when mixed with water and held in a tank creates an acetylene reaction to make electricity for the house.<\/p>\n

We made our way back to the airport and flew home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Round-Trip Backpacking Distance: 20 miles Day Hikes: ~14 miles: Devil’s Hall, Carlsbad Caverns, Buttercup Stagecoach and Frijole Ranch Sometimes you pick a vacation because you just need to get away. Looking through the list of national parks we haven\u2019t visited (more than 90% of them), I found something warm and south. Texas sounded good in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Few Days in the Desert","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backpacking","category-car-camping","category-hiking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/guadalupe-mtns-2.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p527vR-db","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/backpacking-trip-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":0},"title":"Badger Creek Wilderness","author":"Mom","date":"May 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Round-Trip Distance: 5.8 miles, plus 2 miles at Multnomah Falls. We learned a bit from our first trip. One being that we hoped to find a little different scenery from the heavy fern forests we had been used to hiking. So on the other side of Mount Hoods Rain Shadow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Backpacking"","block_context":{"text":"Backpacking","link":"https:\/\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/category\/backpacking\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1020743.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1020743.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1020743.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1020743.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1020743.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1171,"url":"https:\/\/richerdesign.com\/backpacking\/mt-lassen\/","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":1},"title":"Mt. Lassen National Park","author":"Mom","date":"August 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A few years ago as we were on our way to Yosemite National Park we drove by a little known park called Mt. Lassen. It was late June and the park was still closed. The park is high in the California mountains and doesn\u2019t usually open until July. 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We sold our popup camper and double stroller to pay for equipment. Also, we had to kick in a little extra. 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