An eventful day that deserves a full write-up:

The first time I visited Big Bend NP and asked for a backcountry site on the South Rim, a ranger excitedly told me that site SR 4 was available and that it was "the premier site of the whole park" with an amazing view. I booked it, thanked him, and got my hopes way up. Two days later, when I got there, I found that — though the rim is spectacular and the site very close to an amazing viewpoint — the site itself doesn't have much of a view; it was nestled in a little hollow. Looking at the map, it was obvious that only one site had a view off the rim: SR 3. I figured that the ranger must have made a mistake; it was too good to be true that the premier site would be available at such short notice. But I resolved that one day, with the proper planning, I'd stay at SR 3.

That day had finally come: this time, we had SR 3 booked for two nights. This was also fairly short notice, but the park had just started using Recreation.gov for some backcountry reservations, and we chalked the availability up to the change. Given my previous experience, I was still nervous during the hike up that somehow it'd be the wrong site again, but when we got there it was just what I wanted: a site with a private view, right on the cliff. I felt so proud... and then the wind started blowing.

The wind really battered our tent that night. We pretty quickly concluded that the site I'd stayed in three years prior really was the better one — near the good views but still sheltered. The next day we'd planned a loop down to the Chisos Basin and back, but now we were afraid to leave our tent up without us inside to weigh it down, even if the daytime winds were only a fraction of what was blowing that night. We debated trying to move to a site closer to the Basin, but how would that work? We'd have to walk to the visitors' center in the Basin to inquire about a site. Would we lug our gear down there before we knew if there was a site free? What would that mean for our loop plan? Those questions were mixed up with another: would we be getting an early enough start to take advantage of the Chisos Mountains Lodge's breakfast buffet? (And that question was mixed up with another even more contentious one: how early a start would we need to make it down to the Basin in time for breakfast? Paige was, I thought, being pessimistic here.)

We put those questions off until the morning, and in the morning I did exactly what Paige did not want me to do: say, "ugh, let's just go back to sleep" while secretly starting to psych myself up for a brisk hike down to the Basin. When I announced my change of heart, it did not go over well, and I ended up setting off alone.

I made my way down to the Basin at a good clip — breaking into a run here and there to make up for the time I spent taking pictures — eager to make it in time for a long breakfast and a little nervous because I'd insisted so confidently to Paige that there was plenty of time. Turned out I needn't have worried nor rushed. I made it with time for plenty of trips to the buffet. And as I was working on my third or so plate, who walks in but Paige, who herself had time for a fairly relaxed breakfast.

Paige, in fact, had hiked down there with her full backpack including our tent. She was rightly confident that we could get a site near the Basin in the Juniper Flats backcountry sites. The only problem was, my gear was still at the South Rim. So we (or at least I) would need to complete our planned loop and then hike down to the Basin a second time.

It wasn't crazy, the original loop was 11.9 miles; the total mileage that day would end up being about 16 miles, with roughly five already done, and it was a beautiful day. Though we were feeling lazy and full of breakfast, we set off.

The walk up was pleasant and colorful and went quickly enough. We took a short side trail down to Boot Spring, which we'd passed over in previous trips and ran into Eddie, an old coworker of mine, filling up at the spring. Though I'd heard he was in the park, I'd given up on us meeting up — too much land, too little cell reception — so this was a happy surprise. We caught up for a bit, but neither of us could linger — he and his friends were on the first day of the Outer Mountain Loop, a loop a good bit more ambitious than ours.

When Paige and I got back to SR 3, we took a moment to appreciate the private view one more time. We took a little deer trail up hill parallel to the cliff's edge and came upon an even better viewpoint with a narrow little projection that I could nervously walk out for a ~300° view (about 200° of which is in that panorama below).

The most dramatic viewpoints on the South Rim trail look down to relatively tiny, smooth, uniform hills on the desert floor, a jarring contrast from the cliffs your looking from. This site's views looked towards other mountains — a less severe contrast but way more colorful.

The rest of the day went smoothly, and we we got back to Juniper Flats at the golden hour and got to go bed knowing that we'd be getting another big buffet breakfast in the morning but be hiking only a fraction of the distance.

This was a day we'd been building up to and slightly dreading. We'd be gaining ~2,100 feet by bike, stashing our bikes near the Homer Wilson Ranch trailhead, switching to backpacking mode, and gaining another ~3,000 on foot hiking up the Blue Creek Trail to the South Rim of the Chisos. (If you picture "Blue Creek" as something that contains water, you do not know Big Bend.)

The bike portion of the day was along Ross Maxwell scenic drive as it climbs from the Rio Grande into the foothills of the Chisos. The foothills are very geologically diverse with hills of compacted volcanic ash punctuated by jagged igneous dikes and all sorts of other stuff that's beyond my geology knowledge.

We entered Big Bend National Park from the Terlingua side on February 10. This was my third trip to Big Bend after my first bike trip and the road trip Paige and I took after finishing the AT. Those trips had both focused on the Chisos Mountains; neither of us had seen the park's co-headliner, Santa Elena Canyon, except from a viewpoint miles away in the Chisos. This time, we made it a priority.

The canyon is reachable by paved road, but loops are always preferable to long out-and-backs, so we traveled one way on the unpaved Old Maverick Road. At first I thought we'd made a huge mistake; it was probably less than a mile before the washboards rattled a bolt loose from the hardware I used to convert my backpack into a pannier. I never found the bolt, but I had spares in a slightly different size with matching nuts. I spent the next couple hours bracing for my whole bike to rattle apart, but there were no more issues.

The Old Maverick Road is scenic enough — the canyon and the limestone wall it emerges from come into view pretty quickly —, but the road has virtually no shade. We were thankful for Luna's Jacal, an old dwelling preserved as a historical exhibit which we crawled inside for lunch.

From the canyon, our plan was to take the paved Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to Cottonwood Campground, which is small and first-come-first-served, so we were crossing our fingers. Luckily, a hiker at the canyon saw our bikes parked at the trailhead, saw us later, and somehow pegged us for the bike tourists. We struck up a conversation, and it turned out he'd done the Southern Tier a few years prior. He said he was camping at Cottonwood and said we could share his site if the campground filled up. When we arrived, it was indeed full, so we were thankful. It was good to have some company and chat about bike tours and other such adventures over dinner.