Davis Mountains

I was able to spend a very brief amount of time; just a couple of hours, on the scenic loop around the Davis Mountains of Trans-Pecos Texas. This is a beautiful area, nearly National Park quality scenic views, but unfortunately, public access is very limited. The Nature Conservancy has much of it locked down, and the rest belongs mostly to private ranchers. There is a state park in a portion of the range, although not the real high country, and there is an observatory and small town that you can explore. But mostly, you just get to drive along the scenic byway, one of the quietest, loneliest roads I've driven on (which is nice; you can stop whenever you want and take pictures or whatever). Here's a few of those pictures.

About five years ago, I saw that Livermore and Gearhart, two neighboring ranches, were for sale. Livermore in particular had access to spectacular scenery. Sadly, I wasn't in possession of the better part of $20 million, so I had to pass, and it looks like it sold to someone else. If I won the lottery or something (which I don't play, so... y'know) I'd reach out to the broker on that old listing and see if I could convince the guy to sell it to me, and I'd live there full time. Or mostly so, at least. I could probably get most of what I need in Alpine about 45 or so minutes away, but I'd occasionally have to make a bigger excursion to Midland or El Paso.

Most of the pictures I took are of Sawtooth Mountain, which is probably the most charismatic mountain on the loop. But I didn't really spend enough time taking pictures; the whole thing is really special.

I took a few others, but mostly, the Davis Mountains are pretty in a kind of understated way, so they didn't make the cut to transfer to my computer to use as wallpapers. The highest peaks, Livormore and Baldy, are dramatically rugged, but you can only get so close to them on the scenic loop, so I didn't take any pictures of them.

Hocking Hills

Hocking Hills, down in Ohio near the Kentucky and West Virginia borders, is a cool place to visit. I went with my wife this last weekend to hike there. According to her fitness app on her iPhone, we walked about 7½ miles and 37 flights of steps (equivalent). We did three hikes. I would have actually liked to do another one, but my wife injured her knee many decades ago, and it was feeling pretty sore. She was also just kind of done and tired in general. And then, the rain came in shortly after we called it, so it was probably for the best.

I would really like to go back and see more. This is my second time in the area, but the first time that I was actually in charge of the itinerary. Anyway, here's some pictures.

The place is pretty crowded any time that the weather is good, I think. But they weren't as crowded at every trail. Old Man's Cave and Ash Cave was crazy, but the Conkle's Hollow outer rim trail wasn't that bad (although I think the lower loop was crowded. The parking lot had plenty of people, and we could hear people down below from up on the rim.)

This isn't really exciting hiking, though. This is pull up with your family and a water bottle and walk for an hour or so, before driving to a new location and doing it again. I'm not suggesting that I'm at the point where that's the kind of hiking I'm migrating to, but with my wife and friends, I'll be doing more of that kind of less intense hiking, where I'm guaranteed to be back for dinner and sleep in a bed rather than a tent than I used to do.

Michigan and Ohio

I will almost certainly not do a big backpacking trip this year. I got laid off not long after coming back from the Bighorns, and while I found work again pretty quickly—better work, most likely even—my vacation is a bit limited this year because I'm still new at my new company. Just four months, even. 

However, since I live in the Midwest, my wife got some local small-hike books for us to do. We'll be doing hikes up near Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear Dunes, we'll be doing hikes at Hocking Hills State Park, and maybe we'll try and catch Cuyahoga National Park too. There will be a lot of smaller hikes too, that we'll do with some friends of ours. And there are places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that my wife and I would love to visit, like Tahquamenon Falls, or Pictured Rocks (you'll note I did pictured rocks with my son-in-law a year or two ago, but I'd like to go back with my wife at a different time of year.)

I've actually been to Hocking Hills before, although I didn't blog about it. I went with my oldest son about 12 years or so ago, and we did (among other things) rock climbing and rappelling there.

I'm not 100% sure I'm going to blog about most of these hikes, but if I can get some good pictures of them, I might.

Other than that, however, I doubt I'll have much to update this blog with this year. Hopefully in 2024 or 2025 I'll be in a position where I can afford to take time off for hiking in the Rockies again.

Bighorn post

I never did make a post on my Bighorn Trip! I actually did a number of different things; after seeing my son and his family further west, I drove back across Idaho, stopping at Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, which is a pretty cool scenic thing to do that doesn't take very long, and spent some time in the Bear Lake area on the Idaho/Utah border. We did do a couple of smaller hikes, including the Limber Pines trail in Utah and the Bloomington Lake hike in Idaho.

Then I drove to Worland and spent the night in a dive motel, before getting up early the next morning and doing some scenic canyon driving to get to the trailhead. On the way I saw some pretty cool stuff, including Fossil Butte National Monument.

I ended up not really having time to do both of the hikes that I wanted to do, but having a little bit too much time to do just one. So I dragged it out and took my time, but also ended up a little bit earlier than I hoped. Turns out that that was probably for the best. The ups and downs at high elevation really beat me up worse than normal. I guess I'm more out of shape than I was last time I did this.

Anyway, more scenic canyons on the way out to Buffalo, although I didn't take a lot of pictures until I got out of the mountains, looking back at them. And then I ended up doing one more scenic canyon in Spearfish, South Dakota before having to—sadly—say goodbye to the West and drive back East to where work keeps me chained down.

Anyway, here's some of the pictures I took.