Each of us had his or her own little adventure on Friday getting to the meeting place at Taqueria El Milagro in Terlingua. This turned out to be a rather mediocre culinary experience, but we were on a schedule dictated by time of sunset, and it was reasonably quick, and there aren’t a lot of fast food choices in the town. After eating and taking care of some administration, we adjourned to 3 separate locals for the night. Four of us stayed in the Grassy Banks campground on the river, which we had all to ourselves. We were witnesses to a spectacular sunset, a “blue streak” at twilight, a bright quarter moon, warm temperatures, stars, meteorites, satellites, heat lightning and a fairly healthy mosquito population.
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Saturday, October 5th, which I will refer to as “Day 1”, we broke camp to a great sunrise and headed to the designated location to meet the outfitter, and all drove ourselves with boats and gear to the Take–out, where we transferred said selves, boats and gear to the Outfitter’s van and trailer for the ride to the Put-in. The shuttle trip was narrated with local history, edible and medicinal plants, and how one lives in the desert environment without the usual municipal infrastructure (water, electricity, groceries, etc.). We unloaded ourselves, boats and gear, and packed our boats, getting underway at about 2:30 in the sunny and hot afternoon after a short safety instruction focused on prevention – “This Side Up” and “the cane is not your friend”.
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The river was a very solid tan color with colloidal mud, with no transparency whatsoever. We encountered lots of standing waves and rock gardens in the beautiful canyons that unzipped before us as we rode the currents into them. The water kept us interested enough, but in addition to the rocks and riffles, an ambitious and aggressive gar, perhaps scarred from childhood trauma and with ADH, jumped out of the water and tried to eat Amy, starting at the back of her PFD. Fran fought it off, and Amy escaped with no more than a minor heart attack. The gar suffered yet another defeat in its pathetic, life-long losing streak. I say, aspire to less and get some successes under your belt. But I digress . . .
At some point we had to assume we had passed Panther Creek (probably during the gar incident), which was supposed to signal our first night’s campsite. Realizing this, as we passed a steep, muddy take-out, I summoned all of my navigational skills and asked the guys there where we were. They responded that this was the Madera Canyon take-out, about 2.8 miles further than plan for a total of 9.5 miles for the day, so we started looking for a place to camp.
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We found it in a steep, muddy bank (a recurring theme), where we pushed in, unloaded our boats by tossing contents up to others on the bank, and then roped the boats up about 8 feet to our camp level, in case the water rose during the night. This process generated one of the memorable situation comedies of the trip when John asked Amy if she could catch the bag he was going to throw up to her, and she said yes, whereupon John tossed his bag, and Amy watched it as it arced up and landed on the bank next to her, and said, “Oops, I missed”. In her defense, John was still dialing in his trajectory, and it was not an optimal throw.
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Once we got up to it, this was a good campsite with lots of grass, which seemed to produce a comparable number of mosquitos to the quantity we felt the first night. We could see that the bats were not keeping up with the available food supply – a demonstration of mild hysteresis in the constantly self-adjusting balancing act of nature as the mosquitos momentarily were winning and there were no starving bats. We saw another “blue streak” in the evening – even bigger than the one the previous night (see photo above left).
On Sunday (Day 2, October 6) we reversed the process to a bank rappel, and were on or in the water by 10:30. John encouraged Alice to attempt a “seal launch”, and, good sport that she is, she got in position and started down the bank before John realized her boat has a keel – not a good idea – resulting in our first baptism of the day. We paddled past the Contrabando movie set and saw the yellow Subaru that has been rotting halfway down a cliff for 20+ years. The water was low and bony today and the weather continued sunny and hot. As we passed the Lajitas take-out, John and Ken went into town to buy some more water while the rest of the group continued into the hilly desert, progressing into sand-colored mesas while searching for a suitable campsite. We were all pretty worn out from the heat and long day on the water by the time we found our camp opposite Matadero Creek. For those keeping track, this was a 14.5-mile day, putting us 8.5 miles and a day ahead of schedule.
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We were greeted at this camp by a big white bull standing in the water. He was not happy to see us, but didn’t make a big deal out of it. He just climbed up the bank and wandered off somewhere behind our campsite. We were glad that he was not feeling particularly territorial, because it was a great campsite, complete with ants, mosquitos, and even a velvet ant sighting. The clouds started gathering as the sun went down, and conveniently, after all was prepared and we had finished our meals, and as we were sitting around discussing world peace, ending hunger and the fact that it was not supposed to rain tonight, it started raining and we split for our tents. It only rained for about 20 minutes, I think, but it was a good, soaking rain for the first 5 or 10 minutes.
On Monday (Day 3, October 7th) we got on the water by 10:35. It was mercifully overcast and the water was low and often bony – lots of rock gardens. There were a few less-than-optimal interactions with rocks and cane that don’t require extensive elucidation here. This is the section of river where the copper-colored, vertical volcanic dikes are exposed below the white, horizontally deposited limestone tops of the mesas – awe-inspiring.
At our first break on a gravel bar, one of Fran’s sandals came completely apart. Christy got out the duct tape and fashioned emergency repairs sufficient to continue, and, with additional tweaks in continuing “sandal sessions” at convenient times, they made it all the way to the take-out. I suppose REI will be hearing about this, if they haven’t already.
The wonderful scenery and interesting water continued past the False Sentinel, and then on to the Sentinel and our Entrance Rapid Camp. This was another great camp, with easy access from the water compared to our previous campsites, and breathtaking vistas. The mosquitos seemed to have remained upstream for the most part – a welcome relief. Most of our group set up camp and then collected at my still-clear campsite overlooking the rapid and the entrance to Santa Elena Canyon. We talked and laughed and had a good time, then broke to prepare and eat dinner, gathering again for more conversation, reminiscing about the day, and more laughs.
Tuesday morning (Day 4) we were “hulls wet” by around 10:30, walking the upper most, worst portion of Entrance Rapid because of the low water (about 6” lower than the previous night), and putting in where it looked more possible. It worked out well. We all paddled into Santa Elena Canyon and took in the stunning views of the entrance behind us, the mirror canyons to either side of us, and the foreboding downstream curve of tan water between stone walls that owned our imminent destiny. We successfully negotiated the hazards on the way to Rock Slide Rapid. Two of us went for a swim near the beginning of Rock Slide, but the rest were good. I think some lined it, but I was too busy to notice.
Wet exit with new IR Klingon spraydeck – check.
We regrouped below Rock Slide and continued down the canyon, in awe of the great gash that forms the inverted wall in this portion of the border. The water was low, so we had to read ahead to avoid the gravel bars.
I think it was here that we noticed that our two crippled boats were definitely not fixing themselves. John’s Pyranha came on the trip with a patch over a crack under his seat that failed, but was keeping most of the water out up to this point. From here on, he had to bail fairly continuously as he paddled down the canyon. Fran, who paddles a sit-on-top, discovered that a small portion of her outer hull had been crushed onto a molded scupper hole, opening up a couple of small gashes. Small as they were, they required a few sessions of standing the boat up as a gesture of gratitude to the Tarpon gods, allowing the water to drain.
We continued downstream, watching water levels in the boats and enjoying the scenery. We exited the canyon and found our take-out, steep and muddy as expected. Ken and John formed a human chain to assist in the transfer of gear from one boat at a time to the more solid portion of the take-out ramp, and then roped up the boats. After some moderate sorting of gear and draining of boats, we loaded up, took a photo and said our goodbyes, sending some on to further adventures, and others heading toward home.
LINKS TO PHOTO ALBUMS:
Christy Long Robert Killian Kent Walters
GEEK MATERIAL: Map - Travel was right to left – west to east:
(click to enlarge)
FLOW: High side of normal on first day, low, but navigable on the rest of the days
OUR ACTUAL TRIP PROGRESS:
WILDLIFE OBSERVED:
We saw coyote, javelina, and a roadrunner before we got on the river. On the river, we saw GB heron, swallows, kingfishers, hawk, vultures, golden eagle (unverified), skunk, ravens, lizards, ants, bats, mosquitoes, velvet ant, dragonflies, a toad, red wasp, yellow wasp, turtles, gar, and we heard canyon wrens.
OUTFITTER:
Big Bend Boating & Hiking Company – 469-607-9869 – Erica Little (we used for shuttle only)
www.hikingbigbend.com
hikingbigbend@gmail.com