Tuesday Feb 21, 2023 - Today it was an hour drive to the middle of the park and up into the Chisos Mountains. There is a ranger station, camp store, and lodge along with the campground we'll be staying at. We took a 2.5 mile afternoon hike and then a 4 mile late afternoon hike down to "the Window" (one of the hikes the park is best known for). This hike starts in the campground and descends 800 ft into the canyon and ends where the two mountains meet forming what looks like a window. When you look out the window you can see for miles and it appears to be hundreds of feet above the ground. It was scary getting too close to the edge. We were lucky to have the Window all to ourselves and saw only a handful of people coming down the trail after us. The sunset on the walk back up was amazing.
pretty purple cactus on our drive to Chisos Basin
it was a windy drive up the mountain, which said no vehicles over 24 ft. Nice bear crossing sign.
This is a view from the short hike at the visitors center out to where the two mountains come together forming the Window
more views from above of the Window
We love hiking in 70 degree weather, with no bugs!
lunch on the Basin Loop trail
hanging at the campsite until our late afternoon/evening hike...we have cell service for the first time in a few days.
Site 30
The start of the Window trail...lots of steps down
stop for a quick break
at the bottom of the trail, there was a little rock scrambling and some steps up and over tougher areas
love the trekking poles for a hike like this
we made it! Don't get too close to the edge
a short video of the window
hopefully we saved enough to get back up
we brought hot dogs and baked beans for supper on the way back
nice sunset behind us on our walk back out of the canyon
love this view of Emory peak with the prickly pear along the trail
sunset time
made it to the top just in time
Wednesday Feb 22, 2023 - This morning we decided to look online to see if maybe there was a cancellation that opened up a campsite here at Chisos Basin. We like the cool weather up here and no bugs. We were happy to find an open spot that we grabbed. We had a quiet morning catching up on e-mails and then moved to site 40, which has a great view of Emory peak. We decided to hike up to the visitors center which was 2.7 miles round trip. We thought we'd take it easy today, since we're doing the Lost Mine trail tomorrow that's going to be our most challenging yet.
nice morning with a workout and enjoying the view at our new site
site 40
new growth on what I think is a cholla cactus
another day another hike
one little purple flower. I guess we're early for many wildflowers, although I did see a few lupines on the drive to Chisos Basin, which were everywhere in June, in Alaska.
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