That One Time Reid and I got Lost in Big Bend

An adventure story

It happened last spring break. My parents had booked a room at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, way out in West Texas. The plan was to bike one day, then hike Emory peak the next. Easier said than done.

(Note: This is kindof a place holder post. Nothing too much has happened recently, just been trying to survive and learn the language, so I hope you enjoy.)

 Arriving

This lodge is a National park installation. The room was small and sparse, but cozy and had an incredible view peaking right through two mountains to the desert below.

The night we got there, we ate in the bar and find that the food was surprisingly good. It had taken us like 10 hours to drive there so we were hungry and tired. Yeah, I know what the non-Texans are thinking, "What? Ten hours? From Seguin to Big Bend?"

Seguin is pretty close to the middle of Texas and it takes 8-10 hours to get to the far west side.
It's big y'all.

Lost 

On the first day, we woke up early and ready to ride.
It's really awesome waking up at dawn, about to go see nature and see like minded people emerging from their rooms to do the same.

I wasn't expecting much in the way of breakfast, but I gotta tell you when I ordered huevos rancheros and saw my plate, I nearly cried.

It was so good. I still think about it sometimes.

We drive to Terlingua and stop by for some bike tubes, a map, and some information about trail options at Desert Sports.

You're gonna need this for later;)

We were told we could ride Big Bend State Park and do about a 20-mile loop and can do about a 7-mile trail at a private place that is supposed to be the most fun.
We decide to do the 20 miler, then the 7, which is a little easier.

There are two trailheads for the Big Bend State Park. An East and a West. The trail that we were shootin' for started at the West. Immediately after getting out of the truck, I'm sweating and the sun is brutal. However, we're prepared and I coat myself in a half bottle of sunscreen and throw the rest in my Camelback along with plenty of food for a couple of hours.

As per usual my brother and I start, and soon after, Mom and Dad follow. It's hotter n' hell out there but Texans are used to 100° weather. Hell, give me 105°.

All is going well and we probably have about 5 miles left when we get to a fork that wasn't on the map. You see the map said we should take Fresno Divide to complete the loop. The trail fork sign had two options: back to the West Trail Head or Fresno Canyon.

My brother and I acting like any sane person thought, "How could we end our ride early??? Let's take Fresno Canyon and just hope that professional trail builders messed up on the permanent signs put there by a government organization!"
Yes, in hindsight you might say you shoulda taken the trailhead but we were tired, hot and running out of water and food.
So if you'll look back to the trail map that I have so helpfully provided, you will see that we went West on Buena Suerte... Off the map.

We saw some interesting landmarks along the way, a house here, an abandoned mine there.

We saw a neat little bunk cabin with four beds in it which was a little eerie but my brother and I were tough.

He was not happy with my photography, but what can I say? I'm a Professional;)

My brother time and time again encouraged us to continue, to keep going. It's gotta be around this next bend, the west trailhead, it's gotta be. But it wasn't. We were just heading farther and farther into the desert.
You see Big Bend State Park is 500,000 acres. Had we not turned around it would've been days before we reached a road.

First, we ran out of food.

I actually remember where I ate my last granola bar here with Reid. There was a huge beehive right above us which was cool #savethebees

And then water.

We were dehydrated and irritable when we found a small stream to fill up our waters. At that point, it was: take a risk drinking the un-filtered water or we pass out from everything. Just everything.
My brother and I had different approaches to the drinking situation: I was thinking about how much it would suck to get ecoli from this water and die a couple days after I got home. My brother did the smart thing and DIDN'T almost pass out from a mixture of heat stroke and dehydration. He drank as much as he wanted.

Said trail

Said ridge

You'd think that after re-filling our water, that we would turn back. Well, you'd be wrong. You gotta understand that we were biking along a trail parallel to a ridge that was not straight as things in nature tend not to be. So each time we contemplated turning back, we thought to ourselves, "No, it must be around this corner".

Eventually, Reid who had been pushing for us to press on, said aloud that we should turn around. I have to tell you, making that decision was the hardest thing I've had to do in a while. I was in no state to argue, and constantly on the verge of heat exhaustion. So, after a long rest, we groan and turn around.

Back

Let me paint you a picture that was our current condition:
Reid and I had spent the last hour or two talking about what we might have to do if we must spend the night here in this unforgiving desert, so we were mentally spent and scared. We had run out of water again, and we're thirsty. I was extremely thirsty and felt horrible. We had just decided to turn back, a difficult win over the Lost Time Fallacy. And to top it off, we were in the middle of a desert with no internet reception.
By this time we had tried calling Mom about 8 times, and 911 several times as well. We had been out in the sun 6 hours and it was showing.
It might not sound like a lot, but that's 4 hours past what we had prepared for.
We knew our parents were freaking out, and it sucked that we couldn't tell them we were ok.

We make it back to the water source to re-fill and cool off. I get back to my bike after being upstream, and low and behold, I have a flat.

Reid was kinda spooked with all the pictures I was taking, but I knew Dad would want to see what we saw.

We had the stuff to fix it, and I'm lucky Reid was with me because the standard valve I had on my spare did not fit the rim, so I had to use his.

We have been out for 7 hours now ,and we finally start seeing landmarks again. The cabin, the house, the old mine; then Reid sees someone in the distance.

We wave him down to speak. And find he is French and very nice.
After relating our predicament, he tells us what to do. Up ahead there is a split it the road, the east is the left, the west is the right. The east is 7 miles but faster than the west which is 5.
He says that he will go down the east and for us to follow and try to keep up. Reid and I were skeptical because this guy was on a Raliegh 26'er mountain bike, surely we could keep up.
Well, this dude was fast. Really fast. He left us in the dust in just a couple minutes.
While this is going on, Reid believes this man said that once he got back to his truck, he would drive down the road to pick us up. I was so sick and thirsty I believed him, although some part of me didn't remember hearing it at all. This bit of information matters when we get to the final fork in the road of our journey.
To the left said Left Spur Road. To the right said to the East Trail Head. Yes, maybe a no-brainer but under the right sign, it said "no vehicles". Reid and I thought how could this man come pick us up when his truck won't be allowed on the trail.
We turned left and made the final mistake of that day.
After several miles of up and down, we hit a gate stating the termination of the state park at the line.
It's the final straw for my condition, and I have to lay down and try not to pass out with my depleted water and Psychologically induced stomach ache. I tell my brother that I don't think the man said he'd come pick us up, and we agree that since English was not his first language, there was probably a misunderstanding. Reid pulls me up and finally, we know for sure the way home. We got back to the fork as the sun is setting, and I find a burst of energy as the desert cools and the end is in sight.
I leave the sight of Reid who is starting to feel the exhaustion, when I see my mom on her bike leaving the East Trailhead to meet us.
She jumps off her bike, and with tears in her eyes hugs me.
She then proceeds to berate me for leaving Reid. "Calm down Mom, he's right here", I say as he pulls up next to me.

We had been in the desert for over 8 hours and it was dark. My parents had no idea where we were, and I was dehydrated and we were both physically exhausted. As we load our bikes into the bed of the truck, my Mom starts to tell me her side of the story.

About an hour after I called her, and while she is hysterical, my call gets through and rings her phone. She sees the call from me and although it cuts out in a few seconds, it gave her the strength she needed to find us. My dad and the sheriff are at the West trailhead, and there are two young park volunteers on bikes looking for us from there. We had gotten there just as a helicopter was about to be called.

The thing I remember most from after we were reunited with my mom, is when she had frigid applesauce in a Yeti cooler. That was the greatest thing I have ever experienced; eating that applesauce in my dad's familiar truck while my mom sped to the other trailhead to meet my dad.

When Mom pulls up with us, my dad is saved from the heart attack that he would've had if he had had to call his dad.

That night we grab a huge dinner at the Starlight Theatre while lauging nervously to ourselves of what could have happened.

Hiking

This day was a lot less exciting or hair raising. (Depending on who you are to the story.)

I got the Huevos Rancheros again because I'll be damned if I dont eat that for breakfast ever morning before I must go cold turkey with cereal. They say its a 7 hour hike, but as my past instagram post would indicate, i made it up in two hours and down in the same. (not counting a break for lunch on the top.) 

It was one of my first actual hikes and the bug really bit me. All I really have from that hike is pictures. However, the last 20 meters was a rock scramble, which in this case was essentially rock climbing.

My Grandmother, (The one who this blog was named after) said I should make a post about this a couple months ago. I didn't really want to, however, its nice to have it written down and I hope its made for a good post.

-Aufedershouen

P.s. My Grandmother is not actually named Plan 38c. I explained why this blog is called the way it is in a past post. It's just something she says when a plan falls through.