Summer Camping Trip

Earlier this summer, I was struck by a strong desire to get out of town and away from all the mundane distractions of my day-to-day life. This desire resulted in a camping trip upon which I traveled alone to a couple of Texas state parks. The original plan was to go to Colorado Bend State Park, Devil’s River State Natural Area and South Llano River State Park, staying at each park for 3 nights. However, a little ways into my trip, I realized that I may have been a bit over eager in my planning, so I cut it short to a four night trip.

I attempted to document my travels with a Nikon d80 and a tripod for landscapes and self portraits. The following is an account of my experiences on this trek.

Day 1:

The first day of my trip started with a bit of packing, followed by a great church service. After that, I finished loading up the car and set off on my adventure. The drive down 71 was gorgeous as always:

Hwy 16 and 501 were pretty as well. Texas highways are a great way to start off a camping trip. Hwy 501 was actually the narrowest 70 mph two-lane road that I’ve ever been on. It probably would’ve been pretty scary if I had actually seen a car coming the other way:

After a while on 501, I came upon a little church that I just had to pull over and take some mid-day photos of. At first, the roof caught my eye:

(I used Photoshop’s perspective control tool on this shot to correct the effects of my wide angle lens on the vertical lines.)

Behind the church was a cemetery. It was a very Lively Cemetery…

Continuing on, I made my way to the park, which was located a few miles back on a dirt road. Eventually, I arrived at the Colorado Bend State Park headquarters and checked in:

I parked my car, got all my gear ready and at about a quarter past 4, I stepped onto the trail to my campsite.

Unfortunately,it was only a one-mile hike to my campsite. However, that meant that it was only one mile to clean water. Which, seeing how it went up to 106 degrees everyday, was okay with me. I checked out the first four campsites that I came upon, but ended up choosing the first campsite. I set up camp and walked down to the river to try and fish and take photos:

I was surprised to find that there were houses across the river from the park.

Thousands of frogs crowded the river bank. It almost looked as if the ground was moving and hopping around.

(bottom-right third)

Once I gave up on fishing, I went back to my campsite and opened up an MRE and had some dinner and a glass of very warm wine. After dinner, I cleaned up and hung my pack from the large pecan tree in my campsite and started getting ready for bed. However, while there was still a bit of light out, I heard some rustling around the pecan tree and looked up to find a racoon already making its way toward my pack. So I scared it off, hung my pack from a different branch (a little lower from the branch itself this time) and went to bed.

Day 2:

It was a long night. There was a lot of movement and noise in the woods around my campsite, big splashes in the river, and all sorts of birds screaming into the night. At one point, I woke up to find a racoon staring me in the face from about six inches away, with only the mesh screen door of my tent between us. I shooed him off and eventually fell back asleep.

Here’s how my campsite ended up being set-up by the morning:

This was my sleeping situation:

And this is the footprint that the racoon left on my chair. Notice how close it is to my pillow:

Upon exiting the tent, I found a little army man that I hadn’t noticed the day before. I named him Norman. He had a pretty gnarly neck wound.

After another failed attempt at fishing, I packed some things up and started hiking towards Gorman Falls around 10:30. I was expecting a quick and easy hike, so I only brought 2 Nalgenes of water. However, the hike ended up be a lot longer than I had thought, so I was pretty unprepared with the water.

A little ways into the hike, I noticed a little clearing with some cacti and nice clouds:

Later on during my hike, I heard some rustling in a juniper grove on the edge of the trail and stopped to check it out. To my surprise, it was a little skunk sniffing around in the leaves. I set my bag down and started to change out my camera lens while the skunk, nose deep in the leaves, started making its way closer and closer to me. Pretty soon, it was about to bump into me so I made some noise to get its attention. Well, it apparently it had no idea that I was there. In a startled moment, it looked up at me and slowly lifted its tail into the air. We both stood there silent and still for a few tense moments until he lowered his tail and scurried away. So I followed him. Because I wanted a photo. And this is the best that I was able to get in the thick juniper grove:

A little farther down the trail, there was a spot where I was given the choice to either stay on the maintained trail, or take the “non-maintained” which was not recommended. So of course, I took the non-maintained trail. which was interested. I was sure that I was lost the whole time I was on that section of “trail”. Eventually, the trail started going along the Colorado River bank, so I knew that I could find my way back to the campsite if I really felt lost.

After a while of hiking through shoulder-high grass where I was probably constantly inches from snakes, I started to hear music. As I got closer, I realized that this house was playing some version of the song “I’ll Fly Away”, which I really like:

After that revitalizing song, I continued on my way toward Gorman Falls and crossed over a cave on a very narrow ledge.

Eventually, I came up to the maintained trail that took me to Gorman Creek, which feeds Gorman Falls.

I came upon the cut-off trail to Gorman Falls and started down it. It was such a dry, hot area on the way to the falls, with not much more than rocks, juniper, cacti and small, scraggly trees. Having said that, I’m sure you could imagine my surprise upon finding the lush, green, fern-covered falls. They were awesome.

After taking a few photos, I walked down to where Gorman Creek (after the falls) met the Colorado River and took a little break. I had some lunch and washed my face and feet with the surprisingly cold water.

On the way back to the campsite, I hiked the short Gorman Spring Trail. It was really pretty. All the water that made up Gorman creek and fell off of Gorman Falls came from this single spring. The trail traveled upstream, along the creek all the way to the spring.

There was an interesting pipe and machine that, I assume, used to be used to pump water from the spring:

I hiked back to the main trail and headed back to camp. This time, I stayed on the maintained trail. This trail tackled a little more climbs and hills than the non-maintained trail, which generally stayed along the river bank. Needless to say, hiking that trail around 4 o’clock on a hot summer day after running out of water became a bit treacherous. However, I managed to make some stops to take photographs. Of course. At one point, I found a really cool canyon-type thing:

Eventually, I made it back to camp. But I was still out of water. So after a little break, I finished what little bit of water I had at camp and made my way toward the park headquarters to get water. Next on my list of hikes-to-do was the Spicewood Springs Trail. I was told that there were some nice swimming holes along the spring-fed creek that paralleled the trail, which sounded amazing. As I searched for one that I liked, I crossed a few little pools and waterfalls:

I came upon a very alluring swimming hole and stopped there for a while. I did some laundry (rinsing out my sweat-soaked t-shirt)

Following the laundry and a quick swim, I packed up my stuff and started back down the trail towards camp. I followed the creek down to where it poured into the Colorado River and took a few photos.

(I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. They’re very similar)

I stumbled upon an unfortunate gar carcass while I was on the bank of the receding river

Around dinner time, I made my way back to camp, stopping to fill up all my water containers. I grabbed some dinner and my camera and sat down on the river bank with hopes of photographing a group of Egrets flying downstream. They seemed to do that every day somewhere between 7 and 8. However, I only made it down there in time to catch one small group, and the photo ended up being blurred because I wasn’t quite ready at that moment.

I was blessed with some neat lighting when a bunch of clouds rolled in.

I also noticed a peculiar tepee across the river:

After dinner, I went back to camp and hung my pack from the tree and, before bed, sat down and played the guitar that I had hiked in with me. That was especially revitalizing after my day of over-eagerly hiking 20 miles in the Texas summer heat.

Day 3:

I awoke to the soft sound of a light rain. I got up, put the rain fly on my tent, lowered my pack from the tree and laid back down in my tent and listened to the rain and the birds. It was pretty soothing. Once the rain stopped, I decided to move my temporary home to the drive-in campsites since I was going to try and get up early and leave for my next destination the following day.

Once camp was set up, I ate some lunch and got in the car and drove to the other, shorter Gorman Falls trailhead. It was a pretty rough looking area. The dirt was dark and hot and there were dead trees everywhere. Once again, the trail to the falls was pretty foreboding, and a bit misleading of its destination.

The falls were awesome the second time around, as was the cold water with which I washed my face and neck. The hike back was a little more demanding, seeing how it was mostly uphill, but eventually I stumbled upon my car. Once back at camp, I tried to play the guitar, but popped a string immediately after tuning it. So I fell back on photography and walked down to the river to take some more photos.

(Once again, I know they’re very similar, but I couldn’t decide which on I prefered)

I made a little diptych to show how low the river was:

There was an interesting tree trunk standing triumphantly in a small grassy area, which intrigued me:

I went back up to my campsite and ate some dinner. If you’ve been wondering what I was eating the whole time, the answer is MREs (meals ready to eat). They’re a type of army ration that are great for backpacking. Notice the bigger bag on the bottom left, that’s what it all came in.

And to drink, I had some very warm wine that I had the great idea of putting in a small pot full of room-temperature water. Somewhat like a backcountry wine chiller. Notice the fancy titanium wine glass too:

I ate dinner by lantern light:

After dinner, I watched and listened to all the critters roaming around the campsites, then went to bed.

Day 4:

I shared my morning with the deer. As I opened my eyes, I noticed 3 of them walking around my campsite, and about 5 or 6 more around the area. I laid there a bit and watched them move around, then got up and began breaking down my campsite. When everything was in the car, I started my drive to Devil’s River State Natural Area. I stopped in Junction to get some groceries since you have to pack in and pack out your own food and water. Eventually, I found the dirt road took me 22 miles back to the camp entrance.

About 45 minutes after I got on the dirt road, I made it to the park. I checked in, noticing that I was the only person to do so in the past two weeks. So I asked the ranger what there was to do at DRSNA, and he told me that you could hike (in the shadeless desert) or swim in the spring-fed river. Realizing that I would probably be having a short visit to DRSNA, I went straight to the trail head for the river and started the short hike.

I noticed a windmill along the way:

Though the heat made it seem like a long hike, I made it to the river pretty quickly.

This was the ridge next to the river:

You can see the springs in the foreground of this shot:

These shells were all over the rocky ground around the river:

I wanted to swim, but something was a bit unsettling about the river. It could’ve been all the gars that patrolled its water…

Or it could’ve been the deep holes and slippery rock. Or a combination of the three. But I still took some time to relax by the water’s edge.

I also filtered some of the spring water:

I realized that the sun was starting to sneak down closer to the horizon so I got my stuff together and started my trek back to the car so that I wouldn’t have to set up camp in the dark. I was cutting it close, but I had my tent up just as the sun set behind the hills.

In the desert of the Big Bend country, the darkness of night seems to be an ever-engulfing being. The vast area around you seems to just consume every sound you make, though your ears catch any sort of movement or noise for miles, especially when you’re alone. That, mixed with substantial time spent in the summer heat, could make a man go a little crazy. However, I think I kept my sanity…

Eventually I found myself in my tent, staring at the starry sky through the mesh ceiling, falling asleep.

Day 5:

I woke up pretty early and decided that I was ready to pack up the car and head back home. Whatever I had been looking for on my trip, I knew I had found it, though neither before I found it, nor after, did I ever know what it was. I was very satisfied with my little adventures and my solitude. So with a smile on my face, I said farewell to Devil’s River State Natural Area.

But first, I had my first shower in 5 days at the park headquarters. It was glorious.

The drive handed me the most amazing lightening storm that I had ever experienced. Several strikes hit within a quarter mile of me, and I swear that one hit just off the other side of the road from me. It really made up for the weak fireworks that I saw on the 4th of July. I stopped by the Fredericksburg Brewing Company for a beer, which was great as usual, and eventually pulled into my familiar driveway back home.