CuRVWander

As part of our daily routine in the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, we download the weather report and post it in several strategic locations inside and outside the building.  This report gives a forecast of what the weather may be over the next three days for the mountain area and the lower elevations.  They also report the river depth at several locations as well as the flow rate.  But anybody that knows Texas weather knows that a weather forecast is outdated before the ink on the paper can dry. In the days leading up to the weekend before Thanksgiving we started noticing the forecasts predicting a cooling trend and each new day the predictions started changing to incorporate colder temps and increased chances of precipitation.  As the week went along we gradually switched from short sleeves to long sleeved uniforms, then we added fleece jackets and by Friday we had incorporated a vest under the fleece jacket. On our way home Friday evening the temperature had no...

We got an email from our volunteer coordinator that she was arranging a guided hike through what is considered an extreme section of the park.  The day fell on what is our normally scheduled day for being in the field.  We accepted the invitation, put on our uniforms and joined eight other volunteers for a walk in the desert. Our objective for the day was to start at the Marufo Vega trail head, which is a wide spot in the road where it crosses a dry wash, walk up the wash until it branches off to the Ore Terminal trail following an abandoned aerial bucket conveyor (think ski lift for ore) and then onto the Strawhouse trail where we would enter a narrow dry wash bordered by sandstone cliffs and its bottom lined with boulders we would have to scale. Cyndee and I both took cameras but after getting home we realized that we had hardly taken a picture.  Our trail guide was an energetic fellow, he kept things moving at a pretty good clip and didn't allow any room ...

A couple posts back I relayed the story of a bear and her two cubs on the hill out behind the Chisos Basin Visitor Center.  Through the binoculars I could see one of the cubs holding something down with his front paws, biting at it and then pulling up on it with his teeth.  Occasionally he would raise his head and shake until his ears flapped so hard we could hear it down at the bottom of the hill. The next day the bears were still on the hill and I told the story of climbers causing the momma bear some irritation.  Rangers were called in and people and bears went their separate ways.  But this encounter caused a stir in the natural resources group of the park.  The day following the encounter a ranger from the natural resources group came to the basin and climbed Appetite Hill to do a survey of the situation.  The outcome was that the hill was declared to be free of bears.  However, it was discovered why the bears were hanging around one spot for ...

On a day off we drove out toward Persimmon Gap just to look around.  We only know this road as one we have traversed on our arrival from Fort Stockton or a trip to the grocery store in Odessa.  But today we are just knocking around to see what we can see. The Persimmon Gap Road cuts right through the Chihuahuan Desert, generally flat with interesting geological features in the distance.  However we found one spot that looked promising and got out to see what the camera could see. In reviewing the shots I had one that I liked that I thought would look better in black-and-white.  Here is my attempt at an 'Ansel Adams'. Something else we saw brought home a discussion I had with a ranger.  During training, since we only were taught to do backcountry and river permits, I asked if there was someone special that would write rock climbing permits.  The reply came back that no rock climber had ever asked to climb in Big Bend.  All the rocks, it seems, ...

It is a beautiful day here at the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, one of only a few lately because of an unusual abundance of rain.  Looking around here in the basin you would lean towards thinking jungle rather than desert.  We were having a busy morning but during one lull in visitors it was my, (John) turn to walk this weeks interpretive program schedule over to the lodge front desk.  On the way back from the lodge I glanced up Appetite Hill to see if yesterday's bears were still around.  Bear is not the first thing I saw, rather it was a family of three - mom, dad and adult daughter scaling the side of the hill that faced the visitor center parking lot. Dad and daughter were well ahead of mom.  It was mom that caught my eye as she was at about the half-way point and deciding that going all the way to the top was not in the cards for her today.  As I watched her crab-walk down a boulder, movement on another boulder a couple hundred feet to the left got my...

One of the things we do as Visitor Center Hosts is document cougar and bear sightings.  Normally a visitor will come in from a hike in the backcountry and tell us about something they saw.  Many will even share the photographs they got.  We write up the sighting on, what else, an official government form, in triplicate of course, and turn it in to headquarters.  Unofficially we fill out certificates of sighting and present it to the person making the sighting, and a sticker for the sighting that gets put on the map hanging on the wall of the VC in the general area of the sighting. The last cougar sighting was more than a month before we arrived at Big Bend.  Bears on the other hand are getting sighted frequently.  We were getting one sighting every two or three days at first but as the number of visitors increase with the beginning of the high season, sightings are now daily. Most folks have a general idea of where they are when they see a bear, they us...

A couple posts back I had some shots of a female Javelina and one of her brood.  I mentioned that they would probably make a show again as they stick to an established territory.  They did.  Well, not they but more like he.  We suspect that the male of the herd was on a little private outing.  As we were leaving early one morning we spotted him rooting around in the yard of one of the border patrol guys. The peccary can't see or hear worth a darn, but their ability to smell is acute.  They are one of the reasons it is forbidden to leave anything outside.  All the bear-proof trash cans and recycle containers in the park aren't just for the bears.  There are a whole host of critters that can ruin your day by tearing up or making off with your stuff if it is not very securely put away. On this same early morning we headed north toward Persimmon Gap, a 26 mile drive across the desert to the northern-most entrance station of the par...

There is nothing quite like your first day.  Your first day of school each year, your first paid vacation day, your first day on a new job, or, in our case we had our first solo day as Visitor Center Hosts in the Chisos Basin of Big Bend National Park. We attended school for a week and received top notch training from a long line of some of the most knowledgeable people we have ever met.  Then there were two days of on-the-job training with our supervising ranger.  Once again, an inspiring level of knowledge and expertise with heaps of patience.   We were fired up and ready to go, confident that we had the tools and skill to get our visitor's questions answered and their permits written so they could embark on their Big Bend back country adventures. We had one day off between our last day of OJT and our first solo day.  During that time we would ask each other questions as if we were visitors to see how we would do at fielding questions.  Many times we...

Classroom training is over and we are in uniform at Chisos Basin getting broke-in to the rigors of assisting visitors to a national park.  Our supervisor, Ranger Rob, is going through the mechanics of operating the visitor center and demonstrating how to engage people and help them with all their questions.  We'll have the safety net of Ranger Rob being with us for a couple of days.  After that we go solo. Both of our on the job training days went well enough, but the thought of doing all the things that have to be done without someone prompting us is causing a little bit of anxiety. In previous posts I have included photos of our "office".  Once again our office has a great view. The Chisos Basin Visitor Center where we work is the building to the left.  The view out our back door, the big notch in the mountain, is called The Window. The Window view looks out to the desert more than 2,000 feet below.  The eye of the lens makes The Windo...