Big Bend Sierra Quemada – Day 3 – After a fitful nights sleep we awoke to a glorious morning. Cool but not cold with the sun breaking over the Quemadas to the SE.
Because we knew that to stick to our plan, and try to make up some lost mileage, we only briefly climbed the bluff and glanced at the old rock house at Dominguez. We then dropped back into the wash and rounded the southern tip of the ridge that defines the western wall of Fisk Canyon
Within mere yards of entering the canyon, we encountered a clear flowing stream traversing the gravel floor of the wash.
Looking south just inside Fisk Canyon
We didn’t know it at the time, but this stream would be with us almost continuously for the next 2 miles or so.
The canyon is extremely well watered with persimmon, grapevines, Mexican buckeye, and Mexican walnut. During our passage we also were cursed with an ubiquitous grass burr that attached itself to every piece of exposed clothing. This plague of burrs lasted until we reached the end of the canyon and beyond as we spent the evening picking them off of EVERYTHING.
The unamed peaked marked 5386′ on the Emory Peak topo watched over us from the NW and was with us during our transit through the canyon.
The walk was relatively easy through out the canyon with only minor pouroffs and small rock piles which were all washed by a small tumbling stream. As we approached the northern end of the canyon and made our turn slowly to the WNW, the character of the canyon changed from a lush watered oasis to a more typical sotol/grassland environment.
As we climbed slowly higher into the narrowing wash, we came upon our first obstacle of the about 3.7 miles into the day. In front of us was a 10 ft pouroff that forced us to climb up and out of the wash on the right hand side. It was pretty steep and slowed us down a little but we went around it without incident.
The wash continued to climb and within another 150 yds or so we encountered another pouroff to be bypassed. This one was more difficult and involved a climb high out of the wash for a couple hundred yards before being able to drop back down in the wash and continue.
About 3/4 mile of ever narrowing and climbing wash we finally reached a point to climb out and go cross country over a small saddle that separates the Fisk/Dominguez drainage from the Smoky Creek drainage. Although this was a short transit, it was typical cross country in Big Bend ….thorny.
Eventually we began to descend gently and spied a junction of 2 small washes that opened into a bigger wash that would lead to the main Smoky Creek drainage. We entered this wash and believed that we had easy sailing the rest of the way to Smoky Creek.
As I said, Big Bend always surprises, and about 9/10 mile down the wash we had another stinkin’ pouroff to climb around. Well…. I’m about wore out by this time, but we circle the pouroff and hope it is the last one of the day.
It was the last pouroff and with about 1/4 mile we arrived at the junction of the “official” Smoky Creek trail. Someone had built a little dam in the creek and backed up a nice pool of clear, cold water. What a welcome sight!
We rested a while, soaked our bandanas, and cooled our sweaty heads before moving on downstream to our eventual resting place for the night.
Behind us we left the wash entrance that connected to the Fisk drainage and moved on toward the Smoky “crossover”
The “crossover” is marked by a wooden sign in a sharp bend in the wash and leads up over a saddle to the main Smoky Creek drainage. Although it is not long, it is quite steep and by the time we reached the other side we were about depleted. We knew we had the one “big pouroff” (the lone cottonwood pouroff) to go around and then about 1/2 mile to go before we could rest.
We finally made our intended campsite after passing by water almost continuously for the final 1/4 mile.
Dinner, rest, hot sweet tea, picking grass burrs and a beautiful sunset finished up a long hard day.
We had travelled 9.7 miles during this day and I felt it. My left knee was starting to react to the abuse of the last 3 days and tomorrow would be a painful 6.5 miles back to Mule Ears
Thanks for your scenic and informative travelogue. Two of us are headed into the Sierra Quemada after Christmas Day (2023), though traversing the area from the Dodson trail and, being older and thorn-averse, sticking to trails and well-carved washes.