I always mean to do something to preserve the memory of my hikes but never do, so I figured why not a OOT TR. So here's the story of our attempt to hike Big Bend's Outer Mountain Loop (OML).

The Planned Hike
Big Bend's OML should only be hiked in the Winter/Early Spring because it's in the desert and there are no reliable water sources. This means carrying a lot of water. Luckily there is a place to cache water half way through. Here's an elevation profile of the hike. It's pretty nasty.



Pre-trip
I had a hard time finding takers for this trip as me and a lot of my friends (that would be interested in thist hike) are training for a 2 day 180 mile bike ride. Pansies. The only taker I get besides my girlfriend is Angie, which somewhat understandably bothers my GF as Angie and I have a lot of common interests that my GF doesn't share. Luckily, last minute GF's brother, Ryan, decides to fly in for his spring break and join us.

Day 0 - Friday
This should be day 1, but Ryan misses his connection into town. The plan was to pick him up at the airport at 6pm and high tail it out of Austin to Big Bend National Park. This is somewhat fortunate, as I barely slept the night before and needed some more time to pack. I also catch a quick nap as I've got an 8 hour drive ahead of me. GF and I get up at 11pm to go pick up Angie.

Day 1 - Saturday
A little after midnight the three of us are on our way to pick up Ryan at the airport. Things are pretty uneventful as I start the first shift. As we get further from Austin and closer to I-10 I find my self getting startled by the hordes of deer that are out. Things are uneventful until about 5am. I've got my brights off as there is a car ahead of me I'm overtaking rather slowly when BAM! I hit a deer. Not a live one, just a carcass on the road. We pull over, assess the damage (none, luckily) and I soon yield the wheel to Angie. Not much of interest occurs because this is West Texas. GF takes the final stretch from Marathon, TX into the park. Everyone except her is asleep when I wake up to a thud, a scream, and sudden braking. It's almost 8 am and I open my eyes just in time to see a deer flying over my car. I'm surprised at how little I care.





You can see Bambi in the distance. Progressive handles it pretty well, except for the fact they don't open til 9. I get a tow sorted out to Fort Stockton (~90 minutes away) I decide that if we can hitch a ride before the tow gets there we continue into the park.

I stick out my thumb and the first vehicle by happens to be Chester, a friendly photographer who says he'll take us to the park HQ, as long as we don't mind taking it slow as he'll have to stop for a few pictures. We weren't prepared to be picked up so soon and scramble to sort out what we need, what we're gonna leave behind and what is too valuable to leave behind. We all enjoy a nice nap on a cool sunny morning in the bed of the pick up as we cruise the last 60 miles of the trip.


(Chester background, Angie left, GF right, me standing in reflection)

Finally we arrive at Park HQ.



We realize without a car to cache water, our original hike is shot. We plan to car camp (minus the car) then do a 2 day hike. A very friendly 14 year old boy asks us where we are headed in the park. We explain our story and he calls his dad over. They are happy to drive us 10 miles down to the Chisos Basin. 2/2 on hitch hiking.

We set up camp and head out for a day hike (after some napping on flat concrete and picnic tables).


"The Window" is a nice 4 mile round trip hike.



We soak up the view and hike back.



A very long Day 1 is almost over. It's getting cold, but the whiskey helps.

Day 2 - Sunday (Easter)
We wake up and the weather is deteriorating as the clouds are sinking in on the Chisos Basin. I'm worried what it'll be like up the mountain. We pack it up while Angie tries to scout out a ride out of the park when we return Tuesday. I worry a little more since the campground is clearing out as the clouds keep coming.



Angie's gone about 15 minutes and comes back with news that the Park Host, Bob - A retired volunteer at BBNP, has offered to drive us to Fort Stockton when we return. We gear up and are ready to start our two day hike when Bob rolls up to warn us of thunderstorms and possible hail. I finally yield to nature's third sign that Big Bend is not happening. As we pack everything up Bob tracks down the nearest open rental car agency, that will let us return a car in Austin. Freaking Midland/Odessa Airport. Bob's kindness seems endless as he insits on taking us all the way there. ~250 miles.



This ends up being a 5 hour trip. The time passes rather quickly as Bob shares stories with us from his 50+ years of traveling. I'm very jealous of Bob.

We get dropped off at the airport and soon have the 5 rental agencies trying to find us the best deal. Enterprise wins giving us a Mazda 5. Not the sexiest car out there, but it got good mileage and fit us and all of our gear quite well. We've got wheels again and are determined to salvage some more of this trip and decide to head over to the Davis mountains. We don't want to get too far from Fort Stockton as we have to be back tomorrow to pick up some medicine Ryan forgot in the car. Despite a lot of detective work, we can't get a hold of anyone that will let us into my car by the time we pass through again Sunday afternoon, afterall it's Easter and nobody is picking up the phone in this small town in West Texas.



We arrive as it's getting dark and our greeted by a bunch of Javelinas. These traits of these stupid and stubborn relatives of the hippo are exaggerated by their extreme near-sightedness.



We cook up some curry, then fold down all the seats on the M5 and have a little party in the car. It beats the freezing temperatures outside, and gives our neighbors some peace and quiet.




Day 3 - Monday
With the promise of better weather we plan a day full of hiking. We pack up our site and get ready to head out.



Nature cooperates more and more as the day goes on and we are rewarded with some wonderful views.





Our day ends with a pretty rocky and steep descent. Upon finishing we see the trail was closed due to hazardous conditions:



At this point it would have taken a sign much bigger than that to stop us from salvaging what we could from this trip.

We piled into the Mazda and hit the road to Austin.



Aftermath
Despite hoping my car was totaled so I wouldn't have to return to West Texas to retrieve it, that appears not to be the case. They ended up towing it from Fort Stockton to Midland, which is even further from Austin. Luckily I've got some friends who need flying hours, so for $50 they're going to fly me to Midland/Odessa Intenational Airport on a Cessna, or something else likely to crash. From there I'm going to bike to the auto body shop and drive that damn car straight home, hopefully while avoiding deer.

Cliff's Notes:
I tried to hike the Outer Mountain Loop in Big Bend. Instead, we hit a deer and hiked some other stuff while lucking out on finding nice people that let us hitch a ride. My car is stranded in West Texas, but we made it home.

well played, nice trip report.

Good read. Too bad the trip didn't turn out as you wanted.

Nice TR OP.

hope the cessna doesn't hit any deer

Very cool report, man.

Any reason you neglected to include your venison stew recipe?

Very nice trip report.

great story & pics - I especially liked the early one showing the long stretch of road with your VW emblem in the foreground and the dead deer in the background. Attach that one to your Progressive claim

I consider myself quite lucky. I'm of the belief that you shouldn't buy insurance for things you can afford to replace. Last week I was contemplating getting rid of collision insurance on my car. So glad I didn't. I'll only have to pay my $500 deductible.

A coworker suggested I ask them to cut a check for the value loss, since this car will be worth less because it was in a wreck. Anyone ever hear of getting awarded something like that?

I would have felt like a complete bad ass had I shouldered the deer, hiked it into the park and cooked it for dinner. I was kind of disappointed on the way out of the park to see that nobody had claimed the spoils, besides the buzzards that is.

Very nice trip report, dude.

Don't feel bad - trips to Big Bend are pretty much an exercise in being broken up and defeated by life, between the climate, the thorns-in-everything and the distance you have to go for aid. I myself left blood and terrorsweat all over Mount Nugent back in the day!

Awesome TR. I went out to big bend on New Year's and did a two day hike of the Chisos, took a ton of pics, and enjoyed it. It was 20F for the overnight lows during our camping. ****ing hell it was cold.

After two days we drove down into the desert on River Road, which was great. We then hit up the hot springs along the rio, I swam to Mexico, and then we got ****canned at Terlingua and drove through US border control at 4am in the morning.

Welcome to Big Bend, sorry for the deer mishap, hope the rest of your trip was enjoyable.

I love it out there, been over 30 times. I hope you can go again and do the Outer Loop trail.. which I've done before. Hiking in the Chisos mountains is quite the treat.

btw, here is a live cam of the window, which you hiked. I use it as my browser startup page.



Take care.. BB

OP-- Very cool TR, and great pictures as well. Although it seems as if your trip was cursed from the get go, it sounds like you made the best of it and had an awesome time.

I really need to hike more often.

Nice!

I went out to the Guadalupe Mountains this past fall with my girlfriend and we ended up staying a night in the Davis Mountains as well. The animals there are nuts! We stayed at a state park and on the way back from the showers to the campsite I got attacked (luckily not sprayed) by a skunk. Then deer came up to our campsite while I was cooking, then of course as you found, the Javalina came. Noisy little bastards.

Awesome TR!

So has anyone else heard of this? It sounds like something that would be difficult to get the insurance company to agree to. My claim appears to be moving along slowly. I just hope it takes less than a month, as I'm moving across the country then. That was part of the reason for this trip. Looks like I'm going to have to come back someday to conquer the Outer Loop as well as hit the Texas High Point in Guadalupe National Park.