The High Chisos, Mount Emory, and the Rim

While at Big Bend, I went on a two-day hike through what is considered some of the best scenery and views available in the park. This is a 16-mile loop, which some people do as a day trip, but is really best experienced as a 2- or 3-day backpack. I opted for a 2-day version.

The trail I took heading up into the mountains is called the Pinnacle Trail. Hmm, I wonder why?

After about 3.5 miles of up, the trail reaches a saddle. Just down a short way from the saddle is the junction with a trail going up Mount Emory, at 7832' the highest peak in the Chisos. This was to me a somewhat interesting summit, as there are three distinct crags to scramble up. I actually went up two of them. All of the sport radio transmission equipment, presumably for park services. (Bear needed to be careful about getting too close to the ledge for some of these pictures -- it was over 100' down from some of them!)

After scaling Mount Emory, I returned to the main trail, which descended into Boot Canyon (covered previously). Along this trail I met a group of young men that had recently seen a mountain lion! It was seen about 1/2 mile from my campsite for the night. While this may sound dangerous, the local mountain lions generally leave humans alone (2 attacks in 20+ years), although they may be attractable to human food, as the black bears in the area can be. All campsites in the mountains had bear boxes for storing "smelly things" -- basically food and any possibly-food-scented things, like soap, were supposed to go there. (This is old hat to people who've camped in bear country before, as I did
just last year.)

The next morning I woke early and headed for around a 4 mile loop that included the much-heralded South Rim, from whence there are wide-ranging vistas to the south, east, and west. You will wonder and the paucity of pictures at this point. When I got there, visibility was about 20 miles -- it was an extremely hazy day, and views of mountains such as the Sierra del Carmen (seen in previous posts) were badly obscured. By contrast (and much to my annoyance), only the next day (when I was out of mountains) there was in fact 100-mile visibility. Ah well.


The hike down was uneventful, with occasional views of The Basin and other features already shown in previous posts.