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Showing posts from March, 2014

Winding Down at Big Bend

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We are coming up on our last week of work at Big Bend.  It won't be long before we'll be hitching up and off to our next new adventure.  But before we satisfy our hitch-itch there are a few things we are trying to cram in.  Between our work schedule and the weather there were places we never got to and plants and animals left unphotographed. Happily, while on duty at the Chisos Basin Visitor Center a Road Runner had moved to higher elevations with the rise in temperatures.  I guess his hunting opportunities were looking up in the trees and brush around the lodge.  I grabbed the camera and headed for the far end of the parking lot to stalk my prey. Checking the high branches. Checking the low branches. Nothing much up here.  Time to look for greener pastures. Scouting the parking lot. And we're off!  I think I heard a meep! meep! this time. Word is getting around that we, and a couple of other volunteers are leaving soon...

Day Trip

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We have been learning that the pursuit of our volunteer career requires a little more than just showing up.  To get our first job as campground hosts we had to sign a release for a background check and sit through a safety orientation for a couple of hours.  For our next post as visitor center hosts we had to go through a deeper background check, this one requiring a print from all ten fingers.  And the training ballooned to two weeks.  Recently we have learned that the last, more in-depth background check has only a six month life span.  If we are to return to a position that gives us access to NPS cash registers and computers we have to submit to an even deeper background check.  But once this one is done it will be good for "life", provided we never have more than a two year lapse in a NPS job. This latest background check requires a new, full set of fingerprints and filling out what seemed like a 25 page questionnaire, but was probably just shy of ten...

Spring Break

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Things had gotten into a bit of a rut lately.  If it were not for the challenge of dealing with the wind, it would be hard to tell one day from the next.  Here in the Big Bend March has certainly roared in like a lion.  That would be okay if it would live up to the agreement that it should go out like a lamb but there is none of that.  With the exception of a few hours here and there, the wind is inescapable. But we did have a little something to stir things up besides the wind.  Spring Break!  We had a crazy ten day period.  The whole state of Texas as well as most of New Mexico and Arizona let school out at the same time.  I can say with no hesitation that not every spring breaker goes to the beach for the holiday.  Our visitor count at the Chisos Basin Visitor Center jumped from just over one hundred a day in February to roughly six hundred fifty a day once spring break got underway. The above photo was taken on a Wednesday....

Great Weather

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With the weather being so great it is easy to get out and enjoy Big Bend.  On a whim we struck out for a hike to a place we had been thinking about for awhile now.  Like the hike in the Santa Elena Canyon, this one was short and easy.  The Burro Mesa Pour Off is only a half mile up a canyon, walking a sandy dry wash. Curiously, there were no critters to be seen on this day, but the geology was pretty spectacular on its own.  After a 25 mile drive from our camper in Panther Junction to the parking lot for the lower Burro Mesa we tighten our boot laces and shoulder our cameras for the walk to the pour off. As far as mesas go, Burro Mesa is not particularly large.  It takes in a few square miles but it is dwarfed by other mesas in the Trans Pecos region.  A couple of the really big ones have become home to wind generator farms with hundreds of those giant windmills atop them.  Burro Mesa could probably accommodate no more than ten. While i...

Canyon Hike

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I've posted a number of photos of Santa Elena Canyon from a distance or just at the mouth but with the weather turning great of late we took the opportunity to do a sunrise hike into the canyon. This is an easy hike as far as physical difficulty goes but it does not mean its a mediocre view.  The canyon walls are 1,500 feet high and the river runs narrow.  No sun penetrates into the canyon during the winter and as deep as it is, I doubt if sun directly hits the bottom any time of the year. Sunrise at the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon Right at the mouth of the canyon there is an up and over that has to be climbed.  It is a series of switchbacks but they are bordered by handrails and roughly paved with asphalt.  But once you get to the top you are on a more common dirt trail that gradually works its way down to river level.  Inside the canyon and down at river level the eons of rock layers are exposed.  The mouth of the canyon is to the left and the o...