My partner and I backpacked up to the Juniper Flats campsite on the Pinnacles Trail in Big Bend last weekend. We took one Golite pack and an LL Bean daypack, and in those two packs were our RayWay tarp and net tent, our RayWay quilt, our inflatable pillows, our canister stove and a canister, one pot, two cups, some food, and assorted extra clothes, and two of those blue foam pads, cut to torso length. A pretty light load. The climb was 400 feet over a mile and a half. Parts of it were sort of steep, but the park has built steps so it’s not too bad. It took us maybe an hour to get to a lovely campsite with lots of desert grasses and juniper trees.
We saw two small deer strolling through our campsite. These deer are a special species found only in the mountains of Big Bend and a few mountain areas in Mexico. A brochure said that they were stranded in the mountains when the climate got drier and hotter, ten thousand years ago, at the end of the ice ages.
The night started out calm and clear, but after a few hours of darkness it became quite windy. We had to readjust the tarp to fit the conditions. We pinned down the windward side of the tarp. Still, quite a lot of wind came thruogh the ends of the tarp. We possibly could have prevented this somewhat by pinning down the beaks closer to the ground, but it was dark, and instead we just put our heads under the quilt. I slept pretty well this way, even though the wind was causing hte tarp to make quite a bit of noise.
My partner had polio as a child and the four hundred foot elevation change was a bit difficult for him, especially going down. He fell a couple of times. I would not recommend this hike for a handicapped person. But it would be a perfect short backpack for a family with kids. However, I would request one of the more sheltered sites on the lee side of the mountain, rather than Juniper Flats 1, which is rather exposed.
