Big Bend Summer Trip 2009 – Day 1 –LGK and I have been planning a summer trip for quite some time and finally put it together last week. The plan was simple… Camp in the Basin, do a couple of days of day hikes as a warmup, and then do Laguna West, Upper Cattail, and the Rim as a 3 day backpack trip. As it turns out we had some unforseen issues that caused us to limit the trip to day hikes, but the Bend didn’t disappoint us in any way.
Left H town at 0:4:30 hrs and went I 10/90 and arrived in the Basin at about 15:00 hrs. The Basin had received 0.75″ of rain the night before, but there was very little indication anywhere that it had even rained. The Basin was relatively green, but not so much as the summer trip we did in ’07. It still looked GREAT and it was good to be “Home” again. The thoughts of H-Town quickly melted away as we set up camp under the watchful eyes of some old friends…CG, Emory, Pulliam, and Carter.
Afternoon temps were in the mid 80’s and rain was in the forecast for that evening and it looked promising, so we took off down Green Gulch to get a better view of what was brewing in the desert.
As we descended into the Chisos foothills, it was clear that rain was in the area, but most appeared to be north and east of us. Still the downdrafts cooled the air and provided a beautiful evening spectacle of cloud, light and shadow.
We returned to the Basin in the waning light and enjoyed a good meal of grilled pork steaks and mac and cheese, before turning in. It was a long day and we had plans to go look for Quail Spring in the morning.
