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In what I hope will be an annual tradition, I organized the second annual hiking trip to Caprock Canyon State Park in Quitaque, TX (according to a sign outside the town, pronounced “kitty-qway”; but according to a reference online, pronounced “kee-tahk-way”; never heard a local pronounce it though). This year, in addition to my youngest brother, Chris, coming along, one of my best friends, Brent, also agreed. The following is a summary of the trip (please note that it is very long).

Day One
My wife, Amy, managed to wake me up early on Friday morning so we could get going by 7am. Chris had spent the night at our place, but Brent was unable to due to scheduling conflicts and had chosen to meet at my place this morning. Amy prepared breakfast for the three of us and then, while Chris and I loaded up the van, she left for work. Brent arrived just before she left.

Once we all got our stuff in the van, we proceeded down the road. We gave my new Garmin a weekend long test to see how well it handled my driving. Good except it got a little bit perturbed at me a few times until I showed it how to shave 30 minutes off a drive to Lawton, OK.

We stopped in Wichita Falls to pick up a late breakfast/early lunch snack (we would end up having nothing else until the tent was setup) at Whataburger. About halfway, we had to stop to gas up and also find a Wal-mart for a few items that were needed.

We finally arrived just after noon to find a sign on the Park Office door saying that the employees were gone to lunch and would be back around 1pm. After a short discussion, it was agreed we would go down to the campground and pick out a site we wanted. After walking all of the South Prong Tent Camping Area, we settled on site 41. It was during this excursion we discovered that none of our phones would work in the valley floor of the canyon.

We drove around a little more to look at a few other campgrounds (but only to see what they were like) and finally returned to the Park Office after their lunch break was over. I had reserved online so we were unable to use the coupon for half-off one night that Chris had brought. His membership did, however, save us another $27 in fees.

I picked up some extra map copies, a bandana with the park map printed on it, a hiking medallion for my walking stick and a topographical map that I plan to later frame for my home office. We managed to see five bison bulls from an overlook at the Park Office this time around.

On our way back to the campsite, we stopped at the Interpretive Center to get some shots of the park and canyon from near the office. I had insisted on this and it was a good thing as the only other opportunity was when it was clouded over. We continued to the campsite and setup the tent, unloaded the van and finally laid down for about 30 minutes to rest. It was very hot this afternoon and I was having doubts about needing warm clothes for the night (those doubts were later proven unfounded).

Once we felt rested enough, we got our stuff together for our first hike at 3:30pm. I had mapped out a 6.6 mile hike according to one map. We had to drive over to the parking lot for the North Prong trail which would be our start and end points for this hike.

We discovered on the hike that the maps (printout vs bandana) differed on distances listed for two legs of the hike (and the sign for one leg differed from both of the maps). In the end, we had to depend on my Garmin watch (different Garmin from the one in the car) to inform us that we had done a 7 mile hike.

During this first hike, I saw a 6″ snake; we explored the North Prong primitive tent camping site (which wasn’t too bad) and no other hikers on the trails. This weekend would soon prove to be very sparse in other campers or hikers (at least while we were hiking or camping).

Unfortunately, due to the unexpected longer distance for the hike and the out-of-shape hiker (me*), we actually did not finish this hike until 6:50pm after sunset (thus, it was already the Sabbath when we finished). We went up to the Interpretive Center (which was the closest location to get a decent phone signal, but still no texting or internet) and called our respective wives to let them know everything was going well and to say goodnight.

Brent spotted a wild boar on the drive back to the campsite. We pretty much crashed for the evening going to bed around 9pm and the stars were breathtaking. We did not have the planned chicken dinner because it turned out that the chicken was still in the fridge at home**.

Just before going to sleep, we heard two distinct packs of coyotes howling from the upper ridges around our campsite. We soon forgot them as we settled into a night of high winds shaking the tent almost all night and making it difficult to sleep. The temperature dropped rather quickly and so we’re pretty much cold, tired, unused to sleeping on cots, dealing with wind noise and snoring. Brent slept the best as he was using some of the ear plugs I had brought along.

Day Two
I awoke first around 7am and, not long after, so did Chris who had also experienced back problems as his portable air mattress had slid out from under him causing his back to twist the wrong way. So he had, at most, four hours sleep. Brent finally awoke around 8am (not hearing us rustling around due to the ear plugs).

After dragging him out of bed, we ate a small breakfast, packed our hiking gear, got dressed and left at about 9am for our second hike. We had decided on three possible routes, but they all began with the South Prong trail. The longest choice was to take the South Prong trail, walk out to the overlook, walk back, take the North Prong trail, explore Fern Cave and return to the campsite (this would have been about 11 miles). The second longest choice began the same, but, instead of the North Prong route, return by the South Prong to our site (which would have been about 9 miles). The shortest distance took a trail down from the overlook that was a shortcut to the North Prong trail resulting in a hike of 6 miles. It was determined that, since all choices essentially branch off from making the overlook, we would decided then.

The South Prong trail was rather easy to traverse and we soon reached the climb up. The start of the trail was about 2,500 feet. The top of the ridge was 3,100 feet resulting in a climb of 600 feet. The elevation was about 2,600 feet at the 1.7 mile mark when the trail began climbing up. In just a short 0.4 miles, we would go up 500 feet. We stopped at 2,900 feet for a 10 minute rest before finishing the climb. Chris had the hardest time climbing while I had a touch of vertigo a few times when not looking down where I was stepping.

Once we reached the top, Chris kept on walking (and found a bench at the first trail fork) while Brent and I enjoyed the view for a little bit. After another break at the fork, we were all feeling pretty good and made a decision to eliminate the first choice in trails. This meant that if we wanted to see Fern Cave, we better do it now. As it was only 0.2 miles from the fork along the North Prong trail, we sent Brent on ahead to determine if it was worth the trouble. He soon discovered that it was almost at the bottom of the valley on the north side and would mean we would have to climb back up the 500+ feet to get back to the overlook. At that time, we chose to forego the cave visit and proceed to the overlook.

Several times at this point, Chris and Brent had to stop and wait for me to catch up (see note on out-of-shape hiker). They worried about me, but I just kept plugging along. We finally reached the overlook at noon and it was worth the effort.

After taking dozens of photos, I sat down and ate a little lunch and called my wife (who was most likely already at church which was going to start in another 30 minutes) and left her a voicemail (I later found out she had not heard her phone go off so she missed my call). Yeah, it was funny that this was another point in the park where our phones did work.

I was so worn out though. Brent saw it and offered to take my backpack and though I tried to brush him off, he took my burden and gave me his lighter pack. I was actually thankful for the switch. I had brought 6 bottles of water (there were still 4 in the pack) along with enough food for all three of us for two meals. And I brought a tripod which I never used and now kick myself for not getting a group photo of the three of us on the overlook.

We ended up choosing the shortest route back to the campsite which was a shortcut to the North Prong trail back to the parking lot. We could see this lot from the overlook, so we then took several pictures back towards the overlook to see if we could get any idea of which peak we were on.

The last leg of the hike involved walking on the park road back to the campsite. We crashed once again for a few hours as we cooled off and tried to nap (Chris did, I failed and Brent just sat in a chair outside the tent to read). Once we felt sufficiently rested, we gathered our things to go get a much needed shower and proceed from there into town where we had a late evening dinner at the Caprock Cafe (best Chile Relleno I have ever consumed).

We also picked up some aloe-based sunburn care product for Chris and returned to the park. One last phone call to our respective wives at the Interpretive Center before returning to our site. We saw a gorgeous sunset this evening with the red colors reflected on the clouds almost mirroring the red canyon we had seen earlier in the day.

We packed some stuff into the van and then got a fire going. Three hours of conversation around that campfire was one of the highlights of the trip; possibly the best part of the whole weekend. The clouds were covering up the stars and we heard one more pack of coyotes before going to sleep with all three of us wearing ear plugs.

At about 2:30am, I awoke and removed my ear plugs. There was no strong wind so it was very quiet. I was pondering a trip to the chemical toilet*** when I heard a pack of coyotes barking like crazy and running along the South Prong trail a few hundred yards away. At one point they must have captured their prey as within seconds, they all stopped barking. I decided I would wait until morning for any relief, put in my ear plugs and went back to sleep.

Day Three
Chris and I awake around 7am and he had not awoke once during the night so he had plenty of rest. Once we were all up, we proceeded to pack up everything. Despite word that there would be a good chance of storms overnight, we didn’t have a single drop of rain and only felt a few drizzles as we packed things up.

We left the park and proceeded with our new destination that was decided the night before, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge just north of Lawton, OK. With heavy rains along the way, we made it to the park by 1:30pm. We picked up some brochures and then did a tour of the main campground and decided this was an excellent choice for next year’s hike (they have several trails). However, it is not a definite at this point as we may consider some locations in Arkansas as well.

We left and headed south expecting to get lunch in Lawton. However, it turned out that I44 passes just east of Lawton and so we ended up continuing down the highway until we got to Chicken Express in BurkBurnett, TX. It continued to rain this entire time and so we arrived at my house around 6pm (just as planned) and unloaded the van. Brent and Chris soon left and Amy arrived. Everything was back to normal until next year.

* Out-of-shape hiker: I discovered that I was having much more difficulty with this year’s hike than I did last year and realized a few things. First of all, I had been running regularly each week leading up to the 2009 hike; however, this year I had taken a sabbatical since my marathon attempt and had not done any running for three months. Secondly, I checked my weight on our WiiFit after returning from the trip and found I was 10-15 pounds heavier this year than last. Thirdly, to avoid the problem we had on last year’s hike (running out of water with still one-third of the hike left and it was in the 90s), I was carrying extra water and food just in case. All three of these added up to one very out-of-shape hiker who struggled through the weekend.

** Items forgotten on this trip include:

• Chicken and veggies for dinner one night
• Mallet for tent stakes
• Knife for cutting bread
• Brent had picked up the wrong sleeping bag from home
• Tarp to place under tent

*** Chemical toilet: This was new to me as I’m used to traditional bathhouses and restrooms at Texas State Parks. The first thing you notice is what you expect to find but don’t, stench. However, what you don’t expect is a slight breeze every once in a while wafting up from down there. Quite an unusual feeling as you sit there. Also, there were no lights, so at night, you had to take one with you or you were really in the dark. I don’t know how many times I reached back for a flush handle that didn’t exist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 12:29 am and is filed under @Vacation, Family, Friends, Health/Exercise, WebCudgel. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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