*We discovered we have a TON of photos, so we're splitting our Big Bend vacation into two parts. This is the second part.*
After we survived the river, we collected the rest of the gear we'd left in Terlingua and made our way back toward Big Bend. Losing daylight and worn out from paddling, we swung by the ranger station to check in. It was then time to pull out the GPS receiver, locate Pine Canyon, and crash for the night.
Nugent Mountain
Amanda took the opportunity to clean up. Brandon took some comedically unflattering photos. ^_^
Then, food. There's nothing more relaxing than food.
Did we mention there were pretty mountains in the background?
We car-camped that night, mainly because it was SUPER cold out, and we really needed proper rest after our overnight in the canyon. But we woke up the next day rested, and ready to start our big hike.
The drive into the basin of the Chisos Mountains was beautiful. The fog just made it look even cooler.
We packed up and started on what was supposed to be a 2-day hike...
The double-glasses look is gonna catch on! I swear!
The plan was to hike up to the South Rim of the Chisos, where we would camp overnight, then hike back down. Unfortunately, I was still suffering from heat exhaustion, and I barely made it a quarter of the way before I started showing symptoms again. So we opted to play it safe. We came back down the mountain, emptied our overnight packs and picked a day hike to do instead.
We took a quick last photo before leaving the trail. The valley in the background is actually the spot we decided to hike to instead.
We started on our day hike, and saw some awesome stuff while we were down in the basin...
Brandon found two wild tarantulas. He was REALLY excited.
The last leg of the hike brings you to a formation called "The Window." Brandon had the camera on video mode as we walked up to it, and he got some phenomenal videos. We're having a hard time getting them to upload to blogger, but we're going to leave them here in the hopes that it'll work. We'll keep fiddling with them and try to upload them some other way (possibly using my youtube account) so you can see them at a later date. Seriously, they're really cool.
But in the meantime, here are the few photos we took once we reached The Window. They don't quite catch how stunning it was, but they're fun photos nonetheless.
Just on the other side of us is a sheer drop of about 200 feet. So... we didn't get too close!
We got back to our room at the lodge and feasted on our picnic lunch. It was a welcome treat.
After a good night's sleep in a warm bed, it was time for the long drive home.
We saw a wind farm on the way and Brandon geeked out. He insisted I include a photo for you to see...
We got a lot more videos throughout the trip, both in the canyon and up in the mountains. We'll figure out what's going on with the uploads and do a video post some time soon. But for now, that was the whole vacation! We've been back for a month now and I still can't believe I slept in a canyon.....
