Paddling around the big bend of Big Bend National Park
Oct. 16-22, 2011
by Natalie Wiest
This section is more commonly referred to as “The Great
Unknown” because it was not often paddled until our master of the Big Bend
guidebooks, Louis Aulbach, wrote the
guide. Louis himself coordinated our
trip of October 16-22, 2011, and ten others of us were pleased to accompany
him: Milton "Skip" Johnson,
Charles Zipprian, Richard Morin, Chuck and Sandra Leinweber, Robert Langley,
Robert Killian, John Rich, and Zoltan Mraz plus
myself. My good fortune included being
in Louis’ “food group”. Louis did all
the menu planning, shopping, packing, and most of the preparation. That left the job of chief dishwasher to me,
a position I was happy to fill. Robert
Langley also took his turn over the hot stove and with assists from others of
the group, the eating was very good.
We camped Saturday evening, the 15th, at
Cottonwood Campground in Big Bend National Park. The 16th we ran shuttle and put
boats in the water. Our start included
dragging our boats through the first shallow riffle within 100 yards of the
put-in; an action that came to be very
well practiced over the next 70 miles.
Indeed, we are unanimous in deciding that levels below70 cfs on the
Castolon gage (USGS88374550) or 100 cfs on the Rio Grande Village gage (USGS
88375300) mean the river is too low to paddle on this stretch. Indeed, the gage readings showed us that the
river was in fact dropping as we paddled but we didn’t know that at the time
and we dragged on.
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On the Rio Grande
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Louis Aulbach
with guidebook
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Cross Canyon camp
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Many of us know that
the most important ingredient of a successful group trip is a good sense of
humor among the participants. That was
indeed the case for this group and we had a marvelous time despite the
dragging. The weather was superb with
warm days and cool nights. The scenery,
heck this is Big Bend, is excellent. The
most frequent “wildlife” we saw were horses.
I’ve never seen so many along the river – tribute no doubt to the
continuing drought and desertification of the area; the only green forage to be had was right
there along the river bank.
We broke camp every day except one, which was a layover day
in Mariscal Canyon. Side hikes at Black
Dike, Johnson Ranch, and Woodson’s campsite allowed us to stretch our legs and
see what most of the arid region looks like away from the river. Mariscal was a double treat for me; the hike up the side of the canyons almost to
the tablelands and a great view of the topography; and a chance to paddle solo up into the
canyon to sit in quiet reverie enjoying only the sounds of nature. As I sat in motionless silence, birds came
within 5’ of my boat. Conspicuous for
their absence were the canyon wrens. I
thought I heard one only once; they have
been real songsters on other trips.
Black phoebes were numerous; I
heard and saw at least one flock of sandhill cranes but bird numbers seemed
down over other trips.
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Scenery
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1,500' deep canyon
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Camp sunrise
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The Milky Way put on a magnificent evening show. Shooting stars put in infrequent
appearances; satellites the most
frequent movement across the night sky.
The moon didn’t come up until very late so it was an excellent time for
stargazing.
The low water wiped out even the more challenging
rapids. Tight Squeeze was hardly
recognizable. Toward the end of the trip
a “wild” hot spring filled a shallow pool with enjoyment for the weary boat-dragging
crowd. Even at those low levels,
however, we hated to see the takeout at Rio Grande Village coming so soon. It was a fabulous trip down the river.
The shutterbugs among us were snapping like crazy. In addition to the few photos I’m including
here, you can find two wonderful Youtube videos by Chuck Leinweber. They really give you a good idea of what it
was like to be there. The rest of us
have a chronicle of still photography.
Here are the links:
Chuck Leinweber:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemE4xI1Bfw
Part 2: http://youtu.be/jLuTrT4jh3E
Chuck’s still photos are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60765236@N00/sets/72157628038736886/
John Rich’s photos are at:
http://tinyurl.com/3zdwctk, the Houston Canoe Club photo link.
Richard Morin’s photos are at: October 31, 2011 Please note that our
Kanadian Kanoeist’s friend Larry the Lizard is responsible for the Mexican
Village photos. No Kanadian (other than
Larry) or US citizen illegally trespassed in Mexico. For the record, none of us had negative incidents that might be interpreted as a border issue.
The rest of my photos are at:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/581779471KoZcpj?vhost=outdoors
and
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/581772429otmXSh?vhost=outdoors
Natalie Wiest
Houston Canoe Club
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The author, Natalie Wiest
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