Back in Bisbee

We arrived back in Bisbee last night, grateful for the warm house to sleep in after our few chilly days out exploring southeastern Arizona.  We left last Saturday, headed to Mt. Lemmon for a little rock climbing.  We hiked in through the canyon and tried out some of the easier climbs before committing to the harder ones down below where all the other groups were climbing.  We ended our day after Curtis tried out one of the hard sport climbs but fell above the 3rd bolt.  (Maybe I should draw a little diagram, but you can probably picture what happens when someone heavier falls toward someone much lighter standing on the ground when the two are connected by a rope).  Curtis fell down while I flew up and slammed half my body into his gear belt where we met somewhere in the middle, both dangling from the rope.  At least I didn't drop him.

Mt. Lemmon area

The next morning we drove up to the top of the mountain, past ambitious road bikers, to check out the little ski village on top (it's the southernmost ski mountain in the U.S. I'm told).  People were going crazy for the snow, stopping at every pullover to have snowball fights and sledding with the big pieces of cardboard from their huge tvs.  As we drove up, we saw one truck driving down piled high with snow so when I saw another family at the top shoveling snow into their truck I had to stop and ask what the heck they were doing.  They live in Phoenix and were bringing the truck full of snow to her mother to make snowmen!

We wandered the streets of Tucson, and visited both the west and east sections of Saguaro National Park (west side is much nicer) and drove the loop roads at both.  Saguaro cacti may be my new favorite things.  I probably took way too many photos, but here are a few of them:

Huge!

We camped out in the national forest in a torrential downpour.  No warm dinner that night, it was PB&J sandwiches for us.  We drove up into the Chiricahuas Monday morning, climbing into higher elevation where that big rainfall down below had piled up some nice fresh snow.  Apparently 5 inches is enough to shut down the roads, so we ended up hiking to the top of the mountain to see the Stand Up Rocks area.  It was still spitting snow and pretty foggy, so we didn't see some of the better known rock formations.  It's hard to find a duck in the snow.  Thanks to the road closure, we were the only people up there enjoying the fresh snow and chilly air.  

We camped out in the snow that night and woke to see this lovely sight out the side window of the truck:

But that's enough snow.  We drove down out of the mountains over to Cochise Stronghold and had a great hike in the warm sun.

Chiricahua's in the distance, driving out of Cochise Stronghold

Curtis got to exercise his off-roading skills on the way through the mountains over to our campsite for the night in the middle of some ranchland.  We fell asleep to the sounds of cows mooing and coyotes calling.

Lights of Tombstone and Sierra Vista (I think) in the distance

Curtis had his sights set on climbing Ewephoria on the Sheepshead rock at Cochise (don't ask me why it's call Sheephead; it doesn't look anything like a sheep). It's the big formation on the right:

So we patiently waited for the sun to rise enough to reach around the corner and warm the climb, then started our hike in, excited for the warm day and the great views we would get from the top. 

Then the clouds moved in. . . 

The group ahead of us bailed after the first pitch.  That should have been a warning flag.  Curtis lead the climb while I huddled in the shade down below, shivering in my puffy coat.  By the time I started climbing, I was half numb and had to huddle in big cracks to get out of the wind.  Meanwhile, I was wondering how I would break the news to Curtis that I would not be climbing the remaining 4 pitches when he called down to say as soon as I got up to him, we would be going back down.  That was all the motivation I needed.  I groveled up to him and we took a few shots before rappelling down to much warmer ground. 

At least our hike out was nice and warm and we had a short drive back to Bisbee where we could warm up.  We're settled in until after Christmas, enjoying the area.  We've been to Tombstone and Sierra Vista and wandered all over Bisbee to see the sights.  I'll get some good shots of the downtown area to share with you all while it's still decorated and festive for Christmas.  That's all for now!

P.S. very sad to report that I finished the latest George R.R. Martin book: A Dance with Dragons.  Now starts the long wait until the next one :(

Tombstone

    

All the way to Bisbee!

We made it!  We're in Bisbee watching the sun melt away last night's snowfall.  We drove all this way and it feels just like home with these temperatures.  Granted we're at 6000 feet, so that helps.

I'm going to have to dig deep to remember all the things we did since I last wrote all the way back in Austin.  Let's see. . . we left Austin in our cupcake coma to go to Enchanted Rock which has been on our list to climb forever.  I really liked the park, but you could say I was less than enchanted with the climbing.  Some days, I just don't feel like climbing and that happened to be one of them.  We did manage to do one pitch, but then opted for a nice hike up Enchanted Rock instead.

San Antonio was next on the agenda where we visited the Alamo and the four missions.  We realized afterward that we probably should have stopped to see a bit more of the town, but were so put off by the area around the Alamo and driving the Mission Trail itself that we were ready to move on.  Mission San Jose was definitely the best of the four, both for how much of it had been preserved or restored, but also in how much we could access.  NPS is doing some work on the missions that blocked off some big areas and really all of Mission San Juan.  We were most surprised by the fact that all four still held church services and Mission Espada still had friars living there. 

Front of the Alamo.  Impossible to not include people in the photo.

Alamo Barracks

Homes along the outer wall of San Jose

We camped out on Lake Calaveras just outside of town that night.  Other than the ridiculous amount of birds, the most notable thing about that campground was the fact that the bathroom stall walls only came up to my chin, which would have made for a rather friendly bathroom atmosphere if anyone else had come in while I was there.  Maybe I should have taken a photo of that too just for fun.

We made our way to Amistad National Recreation Area just outside of Del Rio.  We camped out there as a stopover on our way to Big Bend and unwillingly left behind warm weather, cell phone coverage, and data coverage for the rest of our trip here.  Not that I'm complaining.  About the weather at least.  Phone is another issue.

We had a long drive to Big Bend through a whole lot of wide open ranchland, stopping to check out the Pecos River as it meets up with the Rio Grande on the border.  We drove all the way down through Big Bend to the campground right on the river where we were pleasantly surprised with a hot springs just a few paces away from the Mexico border.  Not a bad way to spend my 30th birthday. 

On Monday, we hiked in the Chisos Mountains up Emory Peak (the highest in the park).  We're still used to Katahdin where when a mountain's elevation is 7000+ feet, you expect to hike all 7000 feet of that, but then we remembered we were already starting out at 5000 feet or so and we cruised that mountain.  The trail ended rather abruptly quite a ways below the peak, so we scrambled up to get a better view.

Casa Grande

Mexican Jay.  If you think seagulls are bad, you should meet this guy

View from the top

The temperature dropped pretty significantly that night while we camped out in the middle of the park, but thankfully we'd planned a driving tour for our last day in the park.  We drove all over the western half and stopped at a few places to hike.  The first was at Burro Mesa Pouroff where a river wash starts from the rain water off the mountain:

This gives you a better idea of the scale of it

We also hiked along the Rio Grande at the Santa Elena Canyon.  A beautiful spot and the trail wound along the river through huge boulders smoothed by the river waters.

We left Big Bend the next morning without a wildlife sighting to report, other than that pushy Mexican Jay.  No mountain lions, no bears, no javelinas, and of course no snakes or scorpions in this cold.  We headed due north for Guadalupe Mountains National Park and finally did see a few javelinas alongside the road.  At someone's recommendation, we went through this little town called Marfa.  I guess it's well know for it's art community and all of these great places to eat.  Can someone please tell me where these things are?  It was like a ghost town.  We actually wanted to stop and eat lunch there (you can only eat so many PB&J sandwiches before you need a break) but we couldn't find anyplace open!  No restaurants, no shops, nothing.  I don't know what all the fuss is about.  

Anyway, as we headed up into the Guadalupes, we finally got to see some snow!  Which of course means that I got pelted by a snowball as soon as there was enough snow for Curtis to grab.  We had planned on hiking Guadalupe Peak (highest in Texas) but some serious winds ruined my motivation.  Instead, we did just about every other hike possible in the park.  We did about 12 miles on multiple trails through Devil's Hall and along the foothills over to an old ranch and into some beautiful springs that you would never expect to find surrounded by desert.

El Capitan (of Texas)

Hiker's staircase on Devil's Hall trail

Hiking the Frijole trail

Looking back at El Capitan and Guadalupe Peaks

Manzanita Springs

We moved on a day early to explore Carlsbad Caverns, about an hour north of Guadalupe in the same mountains.  They were great!  And no King Tut's disease to speak of, which says wonders about how much nicer these caverns were than Mammoth Caves.  Cleaner, prettier, no graffiti, and we didn't need to go on a guided tour to see the caves.  We got to wander on our own, at our own pace.

One of the drip pools

Whale's Mouth

Cave Man

We drove into Carlsbad expecting. . . well, something more than there was.  Not much to the town so we headed out to Sitting Bull Falls in hopes of some hiking.  After driving 30 miles down a road that leads only to that place, we came across a sign saying the area was closed until further notice.  It might have been nice to put that sign about 30 miles back on the main road, but oh well.  We stayed nearby at Brantley Lake State Park which is now the recipient for my Worst Shower Award at any public campground I have visited.  And I've had some bad ones on this trip, so that honor is well earned. 

We visited White Sands National Monument the next day with the gypsum sand dunes glittering in frost and snow.  We didn't join in the sledding fun, but walked all around and slid down on our feet instead.  

Our drive that day had taken us through the Lincoln National Forest, climbing into the mountains with snow all around.  We even passed through a cute little ski town by a tiny little ski mountain.  It helped make it feel more like Christmas than when we'd been surrounded by desert.

We reached our 10,000 mile mark the next day as we drove over to Truth & Consequences, NM (known for its hot springs) and stopped into Hatch too so Curtis could try out one of the famous green chile cheeseburgers.  We camped in the Gila National Forest for our last (cold) night out for awhile.  We saw elk prints at our site, but never saw any.

On our way to Bisbee, we wound through the mountains and stopped by Silver City to explore the historic downtown.  Then finally we made it to Frank and Etta's house here in Bisbee and are settled in for the holidays.  I even got to decorate their Christmas tree yesterday morning before we headed downtown to see the sights.  There's a lot to explore in the area and all over Arizona so we're plotting our next move while enjoying our warm, cozy place to stay with family.  

So that's all for now.  I suppose I should get a photo of us here at the house, so I'll do that at some point.  This should hold you all over for awhile :)

A real post to come soon

We've wandered our way through western Texas, through San Antonio and it's missions, Amistad National Recreation Area, Big Bend National Park and on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park where we'll camp out one more night tonight.  I've got tons of photos to sort through and just realized that I have 20 minutes before the visitor center here in the park closes.  Not enough time to upload all those nice pics.  So I'll leave you with this, my delicious discovery all the way down by the border.

This one's for you Jan

We're off to Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow (hopefully I won't get King Tut's disease again from the caves) and then we're making our way across New Mexico to Frank & Etta's for Christmas.  I'll get all those photos up as soon as I can!