America's Best #5: The National Parks

I know I've blogged before about the great American parks - something Canada used to have in an earlier time - and this most recent trip hasn't changed my opinion one bit. There wasn't a single national park or national monument or bureau of land management area that wasn't well-maintained and well-staffed. I spoke with one park ranger in Guadalupe who said that the parks had been severely hit with cutbacks. To the casual visitor this is simply not apparent. The trails were all in superb shape and every campground we stayed in was basically spotless when you think of the number of visitors who come to spend time in the south. I think many of the parks make excellent use of volunteers. Hurrah! The fee for a US National park pass is $80US which is cheaper than in Canada. Here, the parks still have pride in what they provide. I can't say enough good about the American national parks!

McKittrick Canyon

One of my favourite hikes of our entire trip was the one to McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe NP. It was a fairly warm and windy day so I figured it would be a great day to be out of the wind inside a canyon. That worked fairly well, but the we could certainly feel the wind for the first 30 minutes of the trail until the canyon deepened. Because the trail was so good, we figured it was going to be pretty easy to access the plateau and it was, but the traverses were so long and flat, we actually did decide to give up 3/4 of the way up - we could see how windy it was. Came back to this spot called Grotto for lunch - these picnic tables and benches are made out of slabs of stone. It was a really beautiful spot in the canyon. We only saw 3 other people on the trail and managed to find a few spotted towhees along the route, but nothing really out of the ordinary in the birding department. We startled one smallish mammal who went into a small cavelike shelter and we're pretty darn sure that it was a skunk.

Bagging TX

Here is Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in TX. We were lucky enough to bag this within 24 hours of our arrival in TX. The hike was in great shape - there were extreme winds in the forecast so we were up early and on the trail by 7:30 a.m. Arriving at the top, there were 4 other hikers up there and another 3 arrived while we stayed on top. Counting hikers on the way down, (practising our numbers in Spanish) we came across 33 more. The winds didn't really materialize and I was pleased to see that everyone made it back down by dark. It's just a nice hike with nothing extreme about it and it's got lots of great views. Highly recommended, as is the park. It's quite a bit off the beaten track, although if you visit Carlsbad Caverns, NM, it's only an hour away. I liked the fact that there are lots of trails and not many people - at least not in January. Many of the hikes are on the top of the mountains and one big issue is water because there isn't much of it around. Doubt if I'll be doing any multi-day hiking here. Great sunsets and sunrises while we were visiting.

Lees Ferry

This picture shows where Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon meet - at Lees Ferry, AZ. We simply fell upon this little gem of a spot (although I'd remembered reading about it in our Rough Guide a year or two ago) as dark descended and we needed to find a place to camp. Just after crossing Navajo Bridge there is a sign to Lees Ferry National Recreation Area. Our campground host immediately came over to introduce herself, tell us about the California Condors and to invite us to visit the historical sites. She also told me she thought the place should be called Emma's Ferry. Emma was married to John Lee who has a bit of a notorious background. I'm reading a book about Emma right now, but unfortunately, it's pretty poorly written so I can only take it in small chunks. It doesn't sound as if John Lee (Emma's husband) was around too much and Emma basically ran the ranch and the ferry service for a good bit of her life. As a good Mormon woman, she was probably happy to do that. This picture also shows where everyone crossed the river by ferry from 1873 until 1928 when the first Navajo Bridge was built.

International Troubador

This canoe is located in Mexico at Bosquillas Canyon and I'm pretty sure that it belongs to Victor, the Singing Mexican, although I didn't ask him. Our very well-used Rough Guide to the Southwest mentions a fellow who used to take people across to Mexico to spend the day (for a price, of course). With increased border patrol that is no longer quite as lucrative as it might have been in happier times. The day we visited, Victor sang to us in Spanish and he has his "busking jar" out on the American side. I just had to give him some money because after I called out "Hola" to him he asked me "Como estas?" and I was actually able to answer him - my first real conversation in Spanish with a true Mexican! Naturally, I left him a twoonie.

Recuerdos a la Venta

Here's a sample of souvenirs available for sale along the Rio Grande. While visiting Bosquillas Canyon there were several Mexicans on horseback patrolling the donation containers and asking if we'd like to "buy stick". The walking sticks are quite the rage around these parts, I think. I'm not sure how many items they manage to sell, but I know there were some successful sales made the day that we walked to the canyon. Usually, there was a plea to "help children" alongside the donation jar. The park newspaper was pretty adamant about NOT purchasing these items, but I'm sure most ignore it.

The Rio Grande

This is a picture of the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park so you really can see that it is simply a small wade across the river to get into Mexico (or into the United States). The Chisos Mountains make the backdrop in this photo. We were certainly surprised to see how small the river is at this point and we observed that it was even smaller as we headed further west in Texas, at least in a few spots. The Mexicans tend their souvenir kiosks on horseback (future post) and border patrol isn't really evident in the park at all. We did get stopped leaving the park, but we were about 100 miles out of the area before we were asked to answer a few questions. We did notice a couple of blimps up in the sky in southern TX and southern NM which we figure must have been border control units. As well, we drove over a nearly deserted road in southern NM and saw 3x more border patrol cars than ordinary users.