Big Bend OML Day 2: Ecotones, Dodson Zone

November 16, 2019

Miles: 16 (OML + South Rim detour)

Camp: Dodson Zone, 2ish miles east of Fresno Creek

There had been some hopeful talk of an early start to make the South Rim for sunrise, but between the long travel day, late start and now seemingly freezing temps, we all seem to be playing dead. At least I will admit to lying awake not daring to make the first move. The (imaginary?) standoff is broken when Riddle leaves his cozy quilt for temperatures he announces are still hovering below freezing having dropped to 30 degrees (-1C) in the night. A definite contender for the coldest night I’ve ever cowboy camped. Sleeping in all my layers, save my rain jacket (but including wind pants over leggings + gloves, buff, fleece beanie and puffy), I still woke with the chill of the darkest hours. It was manageable though, no need for sit ups or midnight snacks and no regrets with my gear choices.

As I’m gathering my food from the bear locker, Jared wanders over in his rain jacket, shoulders hunched against the cold. With an admirable sense of humor, he recounts a still-fresh dream in which I scolded him, finger-wagging and all, for not bringing his puffy- ha! He may have regrets for not heeding my advice in the parking lot. The rest of the gang soon rises, and, with only a few other faint mumbles about the usefulness of midlayers, we’re packed and on the trail before 8am.Up the carefully groomed switchbacks we go (again), moving through the magical kind of boundary forest (I think the fancy word is ecotone?) that has oaks and juniper but also prickly pear, and to my complete surprise, pockets of maples in full fall bloom as if under some kind of seasonal spell. Nearby, one agave sports uncanny red berries that I only later realized must have been gathered from a nearby madrone tree and painstakingly stabbed onto the needle-point of each leaf.

• 

• 

• 

At the junction to Emory peak we take group photos all insta-worthy with our compact packs. A quick discussion, and we’ve decided to do the South Rim instead of Emory peak. There’s a slivery pre-view of what’s to come, hint of distant desert ridges washed out by the glare of low winter sun, then our path veers off into pleasant forest toward the Southwest rim. Up and around we weave, until the land drops away and there’s nothing left but the view: an endless jostle of ridgelines like the frozen chop of a stormy sea, that even in the haze, stretch to Mexico and beyond. The skeletons of once-yellow agave blossoms make Sousian silhouettes against the sky, while somewhere far down below in one of the damper folds of desert lies Fresno creek, our stretch goal for this evening.

• 

• 

We pause for a second breakfast/early lunchbreak (it’s really snacks all day for most of us), spreading dew-dampened quits to dry in the not-quite sun. Recalculations for our detour reveal that we are still more than 10 miles from camp, so off we go until half a mile down the trail, Riddle realizes he’s lost his ditty bag. Which, contain no less than his wallet. And the car keys. So back he goes to our break spot with Jake, our group split in two with hopes of making better time.We leave the rim on the Boot canyon trail, yet another microclimate flourishing on the banks of an occasional stream. Today, there’s only a string of dark puddles and more snippets of fall leaves. The maps we have show the trails but not the springs, and none of us find the pipe that is supposedly boot spring. We have enough water to make the next one, so onward up and down toward Juniper canyon we go, instead of filtering from stagnant pools.

• 

• 

• 

As soon as we leave the better-traveled rim trails, the vegetation begins to close in, though the way is still clear. Switchbacks reveal new views, red rock walls towering above the next drainage. A lone day hiker headed up, asks us how to get to Chisos basin, and when I ask about the spring ahead he reports seeing no sign of water whatsoever, aside from the emergency cache box at the trailhead.A mile or two later, not wanting the group to get even more spread out, we wait 40 minutes where large boulders lining a dry stream bed. Still, there’s no sign of Jake and Riddle, and no sign of the next spring. I’m quietly growing increasingly anxious, when Romy arrives with her gaia gps app (she remembered to actually download the maps for offline use), and we decide to head for the spring since we will all need to gather water. The 6ish-mile south rim detour + lost gear incident mean we are unlikely to make it to Fresno creek before dark.Right where the GPS shows the spring (but no trail), I detect some slightly disturbed leaves and an imaginary path heading down an embankment. Matthew and I investigate and soon find the source of Juniper springs streaming steadily out of a leaf-covered slope. Not one to pass up, clean, cool and easily collectible water in the desert, especially when the day hiker made it seem impossible to find, I fill my bottles and the others follow, though we all suspect the actual trail to the spring is further down the trail. Riddle and Jake finally catch us, having retrieved the missing ditty bag (yay keys!) and collected yellow-tinted water from a trickle in Boot Canyon, though they too were unable to find the elusive piped spring. Then, as expected, 5 minutes down the trail is a junction with a well-worn path, that while unmarked must lead to Juniper spring.

As we reach the canyon bottom, the Juniper creek trail becomes increasingly overgrown with spiked desert plants. Toothy-edged sotol with brown blooms shooting 15 feet in the air; granny bushes like cat claw scrape a web of fine cuts in my bare legs. Though I had been warned about the overgrowth, I still stubbornly decided to hike in my skirt.As the landscape glows with the setting sun, we regroup again at the Juniper springs parking lot, a patch of gravel and a cache box (with scorpion surprise!) down a high-clearance road. The Dodson trail that follows is trickier discern from the general patchiness of the more open low desert. It requires actual paying attention more than real orienteering though.

• 

• 

• 

Not wanting to get separated in the dark, we stop to camp a few miles short of Fresno creek. There a space for three tents, just off the trail that we make work with 2 tents and a 4-person sardine row of cowboy campers. The evening air is much warmer at these lower elevations and we sit around our tiny stoves, sharing hot water with the cold-soakers and sipping warm drinks before tucking into our quilts under a hazy sky of stars.