Big Bend - Lost Mine Trail

We've had some cloudy and cool days at Big Bend National Park, but those have made for nice temperatures for hiking.  This morning we headed to one of the top recommended hikes in the park--The Lost Mine.  We are here during spring break, but the only time we have felt the effects of the crowded conditions was that the parking lot for this trail head has been full every time we have passed by it.  We had read that you need to be early to get a parking spot. So this was the morning to rise earlier than our new retirement wake-up time, and eat cold cereal for breakfast.  We were successful in getting one of those coveted parking places this morning!  

We had other hikers tell us that this hike gives the most "bang for the miles hiked" because there are some great views along the way.  We totally found that to be true.

Most of the pictures are from the summit, where you are seeing adjoining mountain peaks at eye level.

You might notice that Denisa will usually be pictured in a safe place far from the edge of the mountain.  But you can always count on Mark to crawl up to the top of whatever ledge there is.  Since Denisa some times has to convince him to be in pictures, it is good to take advantage of these scary poses just to get him in the blog.

It's also lots of fun to make friends with other hikers at the peak.  We love taking pictures for fellow hikers, and it's nice when they offer to take a picture of us together as well.

This time it was a little scary to watch Mark get to this area of the peak.  It's another "where's waldo" picture, but you should be able to make out his tiny little frame in the left center of the picture.  Right after he crawled back up on the trail, a college student told him he was certainly brave to go out there.  Denisa thought he was certainly crazy to go out there.

We have another picture taken from another set of college friends at the peak.  There were so many really nice view points at the top of the Lost Mine trail!  Incidentally, there are no mines on this trail--or at least no found mines on the lost mine trail.

We exchanged email addresses with Christian and his girl friend, who were at the summit with us.  Through email we could send some pictures we took of them from a distance, and he reciprocated and sent us this picture as well. Isn't technology wonderful?  Thanks Christian!

We felt so blessed to have clear skies while we were at the summit.  We were forecast for rain in the afternoon, and we found out that hikers behind us had to hike up with cloud cover most of the way.  As we hiked back down, we met the clouds rolling in.  We sat and watched (and of course Mark scrambled up to the highest point) as the clouds continuously rolled up to the saddle area between two mountains, but never crossed the saddle.  There is probably some meteorological phenomenon that causes this, but it was certainly interesting to watch.

The most exciting part of the hike happened about half way down.  For some reason, we got a good phone signal (something hard to come by in Big Bend).  So we were able to get a text message from our son Luke.  Luke will graduate from medical school in May, and he found out today that he was matched to do his residency in Kansas City.  It was his first choice, and we feel so blessed that he and Jordan will be going where they wanted to go.  That's another blessing this day!