JohnRich 4
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JohnRich 4
QuoteOh, and as for the mountain lions... I once attended this "big cat" seminar in Big Bend, where we spent the day hiking, looking for mountain lion tracks...
Oh, that's neat. I'm going to have to do that sometime.
They are very rarely seen, being nocturnal. Your best chance is at sunset or sunrise, as they move back into their hiding places.
I was hiking in the Guadalupe Mountains once, off-trail, in a remote canyon. I found a footprint in the dirt next to a tiny water hole. The sand was coarse, so the definition of the print wasn't real clear. However, it was too big to be a coyote. It was either a bear or a lion.
That made me suddenly real paranoid. I was alone, about 30 miles from the nearest human, in a box canyon with a deadly animal, and nothing but a knife for self-defense... I escaped with my life!
Photo #1, attached, is my photo of the footprint. That object to the right is a chapstick, for scale.
Photo #2, is something which reinforced my interpretation of that print - a lion lure. These are set up by park biologists to collect info on mountain lions. It consists of a piece of strong wire hanging from a tree limb. Attached to the wire is a piece of carpet soaked in animal scent, to attract the lion. It also has a pie-plate dangling from it, for a visual attraction. At the base of the tree is a piece of carpet with tacks sticking through it, pointing outward. As the cat brushes up against the tree trunk, the tacks pull out tufts of hair. The biologist comes by and collects these hairs now and then, and has them DNA analyzed. From that info, they know which cat was in the area, and how many cats total are in the park from all the other lures, migration patterns within territory, and so on.
JohnRich 4
Quoteand the fact that every beach in the state has brown water and tarballs.
The Galveston beach isn't very pretty, and the water is unappealing. But if you get further south, it's gorgeous.
Last summer I was camping on the Padre Island National Seashore, which is the barrier island on the Gulf Coast at the southern end of Texas. It is said to be the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world (although I wonder about that claim).
The road comes down about 10 miles from Corpus Christi, and then dead ends at this beach. At that point, there is 60 miles of pure undeveloped beach ahead of you. There are no roads, no jiffy marts, no houses, no hotels, nothing - just beach and dunes. You can drive on the beach in a regular car for about the first 4 miles, but beyond that the sand starts getting mushy, and 4-wheel drive is required. You have 60 miles of nothing but beach for access. I’m glad I had 4WD so I could enjoy this drive. That keeps the number of people low, and most of those are fishermen. In many places the sand is packed hard and smooth, and you can drive 50 mph. In other places there is lots of debris to dodge, like logs and boulders. It's about as remote as you can get on a beach in America. And there is some great shell collecting out there.
This is *north* Padre Island. South Padre is the built-up beach, full of hotels and tourist junk. There is a channel between the two, and no bridge, which keeps north Padre pure and undeveloped.
Attached is a photo of my Chevy Blazer on this beach, parked next to a huge buoy float which broke away from it's mooring and washed up on the beach.
S. Padre is absolutely goregous.
SD Aggieland took everything and went to S. Padre for a boogie last March. Talk about a great place to jump, a great place to walk the beaches and a great place just to have fun! Sunrise on the beaches was unreal!
SD Aggieland took everything and went to S. Padre for a boogie last March. Talk about a great place to jump, a great place to walk the beaches and a great place just to have fun! Sunrise on the beaches was unreal!
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."
Paige 0
QuoteAustin the town isn't bad, Austin the liberal center of the state being full of hippies is pretty annoying.
I feel ya there. I wonder if killing kittens is anything like killing hippies?!?!
Tunnel Pink Mafia Delegate
www.TunnelPinkMafia.com
www.TunnelPinkMafia.com
For the other readers, here, I'm sure you are referring to the "El Capitan" in the Guadalupe Mountains, not the one in Yellowstone.
Texas' El Cap is the highest point in the state, at about 9,000'.
The first photo, attached, is El Cap as seen from the highway at the bottom.
The second photo is the view from atop El Cap, which I climbed, looking down into the desert floor.
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