Sunday, June 18, 2006
Favorite Motorcycle Ride
For one of the most beautiful – and most lonesome – motorcycle rides in the continental United States, head north on highway 54 out of Van Horn, Texas. Past the Beach and Baylor Mountains, past the shadowy Diablo range, the rider is pulled northward towards Guadalupe Peak – at 8749, the highest mountain in Texas. The road twists and turns and heads upwards into the mountains after highway 62 joins in from the west. What I generally like do is to continue on to Whites City, NM, which is the nearest place to gas up. While there, I visit Carlsbad Caverns and then, with a full tank of gas and a good meal under my belt, I head back south to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. In the Guadalupes, the hike in to McKittrick Canyon is spectacular any time of the year but especially so in the fall – nowhere else in Texas can one find a place where the colorful hues of the maples, oaks and madrones are matched by the beautiful native rainbow trout in the stream.
Matt Walter
Historian/Curator
Museum of the Big Bend
Alpine
Our thanks go out to Matt for his "My Favorite Place" blog entry. We're sending him a Texas Heritage Trails travel diary with our appreciation! If you'd like to write a blog entry and receive your own free travel diary, email us at info@texasmountaintrail.org!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
YOUR favorite places!
We'd love to hear about your favorite places in the Texas Mountain Trail region! Please send your nominations (100-250 words only) to us, and if your entry is selected for posting on this blog, we'll send you a free Texas Heritage Trails travel diary! We're also interested in digital photographs of your favorite place! For more information, please email us at: info@texasmountaintrail.org
Summer Storms in the Desert
Walking through the desert conjures up many visions: thorny, spiny plants, quick moving lizards, earth tones of various shades of brown, the threat of a rattlesnake in a rocky area. What do you think of? What one does not usually think of is water on the landscape. Water the liquid of life, yet so seldom seen in a desert environment.
Water does come from rain with the wettest time of the year being in the summer months. When big storms form with lightning clashing and thunder booming across the desert it is an awesome sight to see and hear. Some of my most memorable moments in the natural world have been watching a storm build up with huge thunderheads and then lightning and thundering occurring with a symphony of sounds. Also some of my scariest moments have happen when caught in a storm with no place to seek safe shelter. These storms with rain occur intermittently. However water can be consistently found in the desert at seeps or if a large enough volume is present a spring can form. Seeps and spring occur primarily where water reaches the surface from sources that can go long distances back into rock layers and the ground. The desert swallows up the rain water and over period of time it gives some back through seeps and springs.
--Doug Buehler, Park Ranger, Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Would you like to write a "My Favorite Place" blog entry? Please email info@texasmountaintrail.org and tell us about your favorite place in Far West Texas!
Monday, June 05, 2006
Lawrence E. Wood Picnic Area
Roadside rest areas are rarely considered destinations in themselves, but the Wood Picnic Area is a pleasantly quiet, shady getaway for a picnic, camping or birdwatching. On Texas 118 a few miles west of the McDonald Observatory and a half-hour's drive from Fort Davis, the Wood Picnic Area (called "Madera roadside park" by many of the
locals) is on several acres of pine, juniper and oak woodland at about 5,900 feet in elevation. Madera Creek runs next to the park on private land. Plans are underway to build a public hiking trail on adjacent ranchland, but it probably won't open until late 2006. There is no drinking water or restroom.
--Pete Szilagyi, Fort Davis, Texas Mountain Adventures
Would you like to write a "My Favorite Place" blog entry? Please email info@texasmountaintrail.org and tell us about your favorite place in Far West Texas!
