This weekend, 57 scouts and parents from Troop 990 drove to Big Bend National Park for a weekend of backpacking. Everything was wonderful, except for the 8 hour drive to get there. Our destination was Chisos Basin Campground at the base of the Chisos Mountains. People left Austin at varying in times so the arrival times varied from mid afternoon to the middle of the night on Friday. On Saturday morning, we divided into 4 groups based on experience and speed. Due to the size of our group, our campsites were spread over a couple miles of trails. It’s a beautiful place.
I hiked with the group that was camping the farthest out on the rim of the mountains and when they got there, I circled around and met Preston’s group who had hiked our to the rim and doubled back to their campsite which was at the bottom of Emory Peak. The peak is the tallest in the park at 7,825 ft. This is a picture of me after I left the far group. The view behind me is looking south and the land you see extends across the Rio Grande into Mexico.
Preston hiked with a group of his friends and it looks like they had a great time
Most of the people intended to climb Emory Peak on Sunday. I encouraged my group to do an early ascent so we could enjoy the sunrise from the summit. Initially, we had very few takers to get up at 4:55am, but when morning came, all but a few packed up and left in the dark. The pictures below are from 20 ft below the actual summit – the summit is so narrow, it wasn’t possible or safe to have all of us on it at a time.
Beautiful view on the sun breaking the horizon
The mileage and elevation varied by group, but the full circuit of the mountains is about 20 miles and 3,500 ft of climbing.
All my remaining pictures are below and a really cool video done by one of the other dads.
