Big Bend N.P. XXIV, The Northern Quemada Springs tour

Posted on January 3, 2026 by peregrine farmer

December 8-11, 2025

42 miles

Ever since Scott and I did our Mule Ears to Mariscal and back walk in 2017 and traversed many of the drainages in the Sierra Quemada, where we saw many water sources, I have been working on a massive eight day loop that would make it possible to check out the 90 plus springs in that area of the park but never have been able to find time to get it done.  A Quemada spring survey of sorts.

2025 was the 20th year of Big Bend Chat and we were having a gathering in the Park the weekend of the 12th to the 14th during the peak of the Geminids meteor shower.  Robert suggested that as there would be other BBC member backpackers attending, we should offer up a group trip to some of them before the gathering and split the springs tour into two shorter loops and he would take one and I would take the other.  So we did and ended up with Zach and Billy signing on.  Robert was more interested in the Southern loop and so was Billy and Zach was interested in the Northern loop so the two of us took that on.

I had worked out two loops, each about 40 miles long and each with about 45 springs to check out, four days and three nights and we would overlap on the last night for a group camp to increase the comradery.  Here is the Caltopo map for reference with both the planned routes (red solid line for the northern loop with individual days in different colors and blue solid line for the southern loop with the pinkish red lines Roberts actual tracks).  The red dotted line is the original 8 day loop.  If you hover over the lines or dots it will tell you (in a box in the upper right of the map) what they represent and the mileage of each line.  Blue dots had water, orange were dry, purple we didn’t get to, red indicate a specific place/thing or the end of flow of water from an upstream source.  I know it’s a bit confusing.  Robert and Billy ran behind and diverted to a more western route up Fisk Canyon and changed up the last day to skip the springs east of Goat Mountain.  Zach and I skipped a couple of springs but walked our original plan.

The usual MO occurred when I flew into San Antonio in the afternoon on Saturday and Robert picked me up at 6:00 am the next morning.  To Panther Junction by 1:30 to get our two different permits and Billy met us there.  Off to the Chisos Mining Co. motel to pack and organize and then we met Zach at DB’s BBQ for dinner to catch up.  Monday morning we met Zach for breakfast at Venga because it opens the earliest of all the places at 7:00.  Robert and I parted ways there, with him driving to meet Billy at the Mule Ears trailhead and Zach and I over to the Homer Wilson trailhead and we were walking by 8:30.

The weather the whole trip was nearly perfect, 60’s and 70’s and 30’s and 40’s with nary a cloud in the sky.  I was a little apprehensive to walk with Zach as he is 30 years younger than me and a trail runner but our paces matched each other pretty well or he was being kind to me.  We made good time along the 3 miles and 1000 feet up to the first high point on the Dodson trail where we took a break and had a chat with a couple of guys from Michigan who were heading out after nine days in the park.  This is one of the best views in the park from Mule Ears to Santa Elena

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Black Mtns. XXVIII (Bowlens Creek-Horse Rock), 8/25

Posted on August 20, 2025 by peregrine farmer

My usual summer escape to the Black Mountains to view the Perseid meteor shower was foiled by both weather and the fact that my usual campsite and trails were off limits, still closed since Hurricane Helene devastated the area a year ago in September. The east side of the range was ground zero for the worst of the storm’s rain and winds, 30 inches of rain in a few days which resulted in massive flash floods, landslides and thousands of acres of trees blown down. Mt. Mitchell State Park is still closed, some from damage but mostly due to the Blue Ridge Parkway being closed by multiple landslides and is not forecast to reopen until 2026. The Forest Service has closed most of the trails and will issue fines if caught hiking there. Most of the other high ridges in western NC have the AT running along them and that translates into too many humans for me in the summer.

I discovered that while the southern end of the Black Mountains, including the State Park, was not possible, the northern end trails from Deep Gap up to Celo Knob were open. The problem with gaining the 6000′ ridge from that end is that all three of the possible trails are brutal climbs of 3000′ or more in short mileage. I have been up and down all three and did not relish going up any of them but chose the most northern approach from the Bowlens Creek trailhead, 3100′ gain in 4.3 miles and an average slope of 18° with a max of 44° according to Caltopo! Bob and I came up this way in 2011 during our traverse of the range walk and it sucked back then but there is a water source near the top which the other two trails don’t have, so one can carry a lighter pack almost to the top of the climb and then gather the water needed for dry camps.

It had been a really wet early August and I waited until a good weather window opened and ran up on a Sunday morning early and started up the trail by 10:00, in the high 60’s and humid as hell, I was sweating buckets. I have avoided this area of the NC mountains all year due to the damage from the hurricane but I figured by now it would not be a problem. The first sign of the flooding on Bowlens creek was at the end of the road where there used to be an old failing bridge that was now totally gone

2011
2025
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South Mountains State Park II, 4/24

Posted on July 26, 2025 by peregrine farmer

I have been amazed at the number of people who have viewed our 2018 South Mountains trip in the last year, it is the second most read post during that time. I did this second trip as a short training run to see what kind of shape I was in after a late winter medical issue had me sidelined for several months and I hadn’t planned on writing a report but with so many people apparently interested in the area I thought I would go ahead and post what I found on the eastern side of the park and further thoughts on the park as a place to backpack.

Our 2018 trip covered the western side of the park including the high points of Benn Knob and Horse Ridge and the parks main attraction High Shoals Falls on the 20 mile black route on the map below. This time I wanted to check out the eastern side and Chestnut Knob. Day one is the red line and day two is the blue line. Here is the interactive Caltopo map.

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Panthertown, NC 3/25

Posted on April 7, 2025 by peregrine farmer

March 26-28th, 2025

30 miles

One of the last of the “jewels” in NC, that I had never walked in, had been waiting for a few years to do. Known as the Yosemite of the East like Linville Gorge is known as the Grand Canyon of the East, both are a stretch but still spectacular in their own ways. Bob and Stan had gone in some years back and Chuck used to frequent the area back in his youth but for some reason we had never made it together. Bob was tied up so I decided to go solo before the leaves were out. This area of the NC mountains did not get the devastating flooding or winds and destruction from hurricane Helene that places north and east of Asheville did, many of which are still closed and will be for some time to come, so it was safe to do a trip.

The Panthertown area, including Panthertown valley and the Bonas Defeat and Big Pisgah tracts cover about 13,000 acres but the real stunning area is the valley with it’s granite domes and big walls that are the headwaters of the Tuckasegee river. The Eastern Continental Divide is on the ridges surrounding the area. There are a ton of trails, many are old forest roads, in the area so planning a trip was fairly easy and I wanted to get a good over view so I tried to cover both the valley and the Bonas Defeat area but passed on the Big Pisgah area, which is the headwaters of the French Broad, river this time. Here is the map.

The area was privately owned until 1987 when Duke Power sold it to the Nature Conservancy after they built a huge transmission line across it. It was then passed on to the U.S. Forest Service and the Friends of Panthertown now do all of the maintenance of the vast trail system, which is heavily used in the valley as the surrounding ridges are lined with million dollar houses and as our friends in central Texas say “they have taken the hill tops!”.

Instead of the pre-crack of dawn starts that Bob likes, I left late enough to miss rush hour traffic in Greensboro and arrived at the Cold Mountain Gap trailhead at 2:00, after 4.5 hour drive and several stops, including lunch. Beautiful day in the 60’s with gusty winds, I headed down the trail where I cut over and crossed Greenland creek just below Schoolhouse Falls.

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Big Bend N.P. XXIII, Blue Creek to Alamo Creek, 2/25

Posted on March 18, 2025 by peregrine farmer

Feb. 16-19,2025

28 miles

I had not intended to return to the park for a second time this winter when Robert and I planned our December trip but in November, after the election and when Scott was now going to lose his high level job at the USDA, I started planning another trip west for Scott to be able to try to transition and to not be in D.C. during the inauguration in January.  The idea was to go sit in the desert and disconnect.

My original thought was to check out the fairly new 500,000 acre, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in southern New Mexico but after a good amount of research, I was worried it might be a little too cold and it was hard to get a feel for possible water sources so I turned back to Big Bend.

I always have trips on the drawing board and had an idea for a trip, then Scott’s partner thought she might want to go to the park for her first visit and I redesigned the plan to show her the highlights of the park via short overnight backpacks and to not have to rely on natural water sources in this desperately dry year.  She couldn’t do inauguration time but could the end of February.  I was worried about it getting too hot, if too late in the month, so we set the dates starting Presidents Day weekend and it would have to be compact, just a week, to work with her schedule.  Plane tickets bought and motels and Chisos sites reserved.  A few weeks before we were to leave, she decided that she couldn’t go after all so I redesigned the itinerary yet again but during the same dates.

For some years I had been refining a long 7 or 8 day loop that was based on following Alamo creek from it’s head to the River and then back up Blue Creek to it’s source.  Alamo Creek is the second longest drainage within the park (22 miles) and Blue Creek the fourth (20 miles) after Tornillo Creek (35 miles).  It would start in the Basin and cross Burro Mesa and down Apache canyon to Alamo Creek.  It was a grand plan but I had never been able to work it out, Robert and I attempted a smaller version in 2020, just before Covid, where we walked parts of it but were foiled by weather and a bad head cold.  This trip would be finishing up the parts we didn’t get to in 2020 and finally get me into Apache canyon and up onto Burro Mesa.

You can see from the map the extent of both of the drainages and the various options we had to go down Blue Creek and then back up Alamo and over Burro Mesa.

Saturday the 15th, we flew in separately to San Antonio.  We originally planned on early flights to accommodate Scott’s partners schedule which is counter to my, now normal, more leisurely, program of flying in the afternoon before and then hitting the road west the next morning.  Suffice it to say, it was a brutally early start and a long day by the end and won’t be repeated any time soon.  First stop was Whole Earth Provisions for a gas canister that I had them hold for me as they were down to only a couple left.  Second stop was at Reese Brothers BBQ which had a good review from Texas Monthly, especially for it’s sides.  The sides were good, the fresh tortillas great, the brisket needed more flavor but the carnitas saved the day.  The Reese brothers learned their BBQ skills working at Brick Vault in Marathon where we would eat at the end of the week.

On west on US-90 to Sanderson by 7:00 where we stayed at the Desert Aire Motel, very nice.  We spent the evening packing for the trip and finishing the leftover BBQ.

Trail Day 1

We passed on the limited continental style breakfast in the school bus at the motel and drove over to Marathon for a packed breakfast at the V-6.  Picked up sandwiches at the French Grocer and headed to PJ for a permit.  On over to drop a water cache near Maverick Junction and then back around and down the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive (RMSD) to where Alamo creek crosses the road and we dropped another water cache there.  Back up the RMSD to the Sam Nail Ranch where we meet up with Zach and Paul from Big Bend Chat for a very enjoyable lunch on the bench under the pecan tree.

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Big Bend N.P. XXII, The Harte Ranch and Northern Rosillos loop, 12/24

Posted on December 29, 2024 by peregrine farmer

The other final frontier

Dec. 8-15, 2024

48 miles plus another 17 miles down to Triangulation Station Mountain and back

Back in 2017, when we did the Arroyo Venado loop I referred to it as the final frontier and the least visited section of the park, with almost no reports of anyone backpacking in the area.  This trip has been in the works since then as the second least visited area of the park based on zone permits written. 

The Northern Rosillos unit, as the park refers to it, was added to the park in 1989 and is comprised of 67,000 acres of the sparsely vegetated flats of Santiago, Bone Spring, Chalk and Nine Point draws, the western uplift that I call The Mesa and the northern half of the Rosillos mountains.  It is the most northern extent of the park. 

While the dirt Terlingua Ranch-Marathon Road cuts across the middle and the park has a runway for the park plane, there are no other improvements and the only activities I have read about are people day hiking in to check out the Bone Spring ranch ruins, going up to see Buttrill springs on the flank of the mountains and climbing 5445’ Rosillo Peak.  I have never heard of anyone backpacking in the area.  Time to see what is there.  Here is the Caltopo map for reference.

I flew in late Saturday to San Antonio and stayed at a hotel nearby the airport.  As usual Robert picked me up at 6:00, heading west on I-10 with a stop at the Mary’s Tacos in Kerrville, just as excellent as the Boerne location.  Arrived at Panther Junction at 1:30 to get our permit and meet up with a friend from Big Bend Chat for a quick lunch at the picnic table.

We headed back north to the Terlingua Ranch Road and 10 miles across to the Buttrill springs side road.  We had already planned to leave a food cache here and when we couldn’t get a report on if the springs were running, in this second driest year on record, we decide to leave enough water here to get us through the last two days.  Back down the road 8 miles to the Bone Spring ranch side road and we parked the truck there.  A little last minute packing and we were off at 4:30 for the short mile and a half walk to the ranch ruins for the night.

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GSMNP XIII Searching for the Fireflies

Posted on June 13, 2024 by peregrine farmer

June 7-9, 2024

30 miles

Seeing the synchronous fireflies has become quite a thing over the last few decades with tens of thousands of people entering the lottery for a few hundred spots in Elkmont, on the Tennessee side of the park.  At first research you would think that was the only place in the world you could see them but further searching finds that they are indeed found in places all over the world.  You just have to try and find similar conditions for the fireflies to live and fly.  The park service forecasts when their peak should be but it is usually between mid May and mid June.  This year it was supposed to be June 3-11.

In 2018, using the information I had found for what habitat they liked, Stan and I headed out to see if we could find some.  They like to be near water, above 50 degrees, no rain, no full moon and in Elkmont they are at 2000’ elevation.  We headed up Forney creek for one night and down Noland creek a second night and saw them both nights.

I decided to try and see them again this June and went in solo, as Bob had other things going on.  I waited to see if the weather would cooperate and finally a window opened up albeit Friday to Sunday which would not be my preferred days for avoiding people.

Starting at the end of the Road to Nowhere after lunch

I sailed up beautiful Forney Creek

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Big Bend N.P. XXI, Perambulations in the Park, 2/24

Posted on March 2, 2024 by peregrine farmer

Pictographs, Poets, Posts, Planets and Perambulations

Feb. 15-21, 2024

~27 miles as day hikes

Just as I got home from my December trip with Robert and Scott, I naturally started to think about next years trip to the Bend.  One of the things that had intrigued me for some years was the Lonestar Cowboy Poetry Gathering held in February, in Alpine Texas, at Sul Ross State Univ. and I figured I could work a trip around that at some point.  Southwest Airlines was sending me notices of really cheap flights and Betsy said I should go this February.  So for the first time ever I returned to West Texas twice in one winter.  This is also the first time I have posted a report that did not involve backpacking. Originally I had planned on a few nights in the backcountry but changed it to day hikes instead and thought I should still write up a report and post it here as it does have some distinct Big Bend National Park walks.

I flew in late afternoon to San Antonio, got a rental car and made it to the hotel for the night.  Up and on the road super early to both beat the SA traffic and to get to Seminole Canyon State Park by 10:00 for the Fate Bell Shelter tour.  I like to sometimes go out to, or back from, the park on US 90, for different views and places and take I-10 the other direction, the driving time is essentially the same.

Seminole Canyon is right on US 90 and about half way to Alpine or the park and makes a good stop for a leg stretch if nothing else.  Known for it’s rock art in big alcove shelters you have to take one of the tours to be able to see it, some are only offered in certain seasons but the Fate Bell tour is offered once or twice a day and only takes 1.5 hours.  I arrived in time to take in their good museum/visitor center before 20 of us headed down into the canyon with the guide.  This is looking up canyon to another alcove.

This awesome statue is the symbol of the park and modeled after some of the pictographs.  It was an overcast day, perfect for hiking into this potentially hot canyon.

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Big Bend N.P. XX, The Northeast Chisos Loop, 12/23

Posted on December 31, 2023 by peregrine farmer

Dec. 8-14, 2023

60 miles with pack, a few more hunting springs

My 20th backpacking trip to Big Bend in the 50th year of my explorations of the area was a bit different and as usual, intended for us to delve into areas we had never been in before.  There would be three of us with Robert and Scott.  Scott was coming out of too many hours behind a desk in Washington DC and so of the several options I had drawn up I chose one that I thought would be a little bit easier walking but there were a few cruxes, Robert concurred.  On paper, of the 60 miles, there would be 10 on real trails and another 20 or so on old roads and powerline track with not a ton of elevation gain/loss other than the first and last days, should be pretty easy, right?  My thoughts were not exactly correct.

I call it the Northeast Chisos loop because it starts by dropping out of the Chisos Basin in an easterly direction by an unusual route and then heads northeast toward Tornillo Creek, go upstream for a while before starting back southwesterly and then winding our way around the northern and western flanks of the Chisos finally climbing back up into the Basin via the Oak Spring and Windows trail.  You can see the map here.  It checks off a number of places Robert and I had never seen before and of course we would be hunting for springs on the map as well.

The route crossed a paved road three times which allowed for liberal use of caches to make for even lighter packs.  In the end we dropped one water cache and two water and food caches using 5 bear canisters.  We counted on water in Tornillo creek and several springs around the base of the Chisos to augment what we dropped in advance.  That plan worked beautifully.  Going in the weather forecast was nearly ideal, 60’s and 30’s with a slight chance of rain the last 2 days, we did have a few surprises.

As usual I flew into San Antonio late Wednesday afternoon and Scott met me at baggage claim, everything arrived with no issues.  We took the shuttle to the hotel and then Ubered to downtown to check out our first BBQ place, Pinkertons, which was in Texas Monthly’s latest Top 50 list.  Excellent.  Back to the room for an early night.

Robert rolled in at 6:00 a.m. to pick us up and we headed west to Boerne for the excellent breakfast tacos at Marys and to pick up a few things at HEB that Scott needed.  A few more stops on the way and we rolled into the park around 1:30 and stopped at the Fossil Bone Exhibit to prepare our caches.  It took a surprisingly long time to organize our food and water between the 5 bear canisters but finally got it all done.  We drove across the Tornillo creek bridge and hid one there to be picked up the third day.

On up to Panther Junction for our permit and I was a bit more anxious than usual about the process.  Just a few weeks before we got there a young girl was lost for a week on the Lost Mine trail (LMT) which is where we were going to start and I was nervous about how we would negotiate the permit writing and not tell them that was where we were also going to begin, figuring that they would be extra sensitive about anything off trail in that area.  In the end it was all good and they were somewhat amazed at the miles we were going to do.  Another first, they asked if we had a satellite communication device and I said I did and they wanted the contact number, I had brought it just in case they asked, particularly because we were going to go in through Pine canyon, not because I thought we might need it for this trip.

Afterwards we dropped our other two caches and headed to the Chisos Mining Co. Motel to finish our packing for the trip.  Off to the Starlight Theater for dinner and to bed for an early start.

Trail Day 1

Rolling at 6:00 we made the 45 minute drive up to the Basin lodge for breakfast just as they opened and to meet an acquaintance from Big Bend Chat that was going to help with the small but time consuming shuttle from the Amphitheater, where backpackers leave their vehicles, to the LMT.  We had a great visit but had to pull ourselves away as we knew this was going to be a long, hard day and needed all the time we could get.

Finally on the trail just before 9:00 we took our time on the thousand plus foot climb to the top, it was a brilliant day.

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Mt. Rogers/Grayson Highlands V

Posted on May 2, 2023 by peregrine farmer

April 23 & 24, 2023

Ran up to Mt. Rogers/Grayson Highlands the end of April to try and catch the Lyrid meteor shower after a big, rainy, front had rolled through and cleared the skies.  It was indeed the clearest I had ever seen it up there.  It was also the first time I had been back to backpack the area in 20 years.  Rolled in at 1:30 to the backpackers parking lot at Grayson Highlands State Park, you have to reserve a spot online now, by at least the day before, $15 a night and you can’t enter before 1:00 p.m., which Bob would definitely not go for.

On the trail by 2:00 heading north on the AT.  Got to Bob’s favorite, the Yuppie shelter (Wise) and there was a thru hiker there that said he had started in mid February but had to take a few weeks off with a sprained ankle.  He headed out before me as I took a break.  I was surprised when I easily caught him not too far down the trail as I figured he would certainly be in better shape and moving faster than me.

Did a modified, reverse, Bob loop and went down the Bear Pen trail but didn’t take the Kabel trail so did not check on the Viking Settlement.  I wanted to go on down the Bear Pen trail, which still has the sign that says “deep mud, travel not recommended” to see what that was all about.  Not bad at all, a few places with streams flowing down the trail.  Caught the First Peak trail at the gap between First and Second Peaks.  Up the climb to Second Peak and then over to Third and finally out into the open areas on Stone mountain.  6:00, 7.5 miles.  The views were excellent, clear, with a firm breeze.  A perfect spot to layout and look for meteors!  Looking west towards Mt. Rogers and Wilburn Ridge.

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