Lost on the Chisos Trail

A wrong turn can have some nasty consequences in the wilderness

Today we were at the Chisos Basin area of Big Bend National Park. I wanted to do some hiking and got a bit more than I had bargained for.

I got lost.

The hike was the Chisos Basin Loop Trail, which was a 2-mile trail that was not supposed to be very hard. I took a wrong turn, and then took some bad advice, and found myself way off course on a trail I did not mean to be on.

There is a place called the Window, where two mountain ranges form a frame that looks like a window. I could see it from the trailhead, and continued to see it as I hiked the trail.

I got to an intersection and the signage was not exactly clear, but I thought it was clear enough so I pushed onward. I started to think something was not right when I could no longer see the window. I had also been going downhill for a long time.

I passed by someone and asked them if this was the right trail. I did not say the name correctly, and they told me it was the right one, so I kept going. By then it was getting to be around noon and getting hotter by the minute. I looked at my step counter and I was at 3.3 miles and did not seem to be close to the end of the trail at all.

I was going back uphill though, and I took that as a positive sign.

I was running low on water and dreading the thought of having to backtrack. I thought I would feel bad if I was almost there and went all the way back. I ran into a man and a woman who were checking their map.

After talking with them and looking at their map, I saw that I was very far off track. I would indeed have to backtrack. By this time it was 1 p.m. very hot and I was out of water. They gave me some water which helped me recover to some degree.

They were headed back down the trail towards where I had started so we hiked together.

I was also having some heavy-duty allergies, which is ironic in the desert, but there are things blooming everywhere. There must be some pollen I am not used to because I have not had an allergy attack like this in many years.

So I was hiking along, very hot and tired and having some bad allergies — sneezing, eyes burning and itching, and general misery.

By the time I got back to the trailhead, I had been gone for almost five hours and hiked eight miles. My wife had gotten tired of waiting and went off exploring. She was upset, thinking I had changed my hiking plans without telling her. At least she felt some sympathy after realizing I had been through a pretty tough day.

There was no phone service available, so there was no way to contact each other.

I was worn out after that long hike. We drove around some more and got back to our room a little after dark.

The allergies are still hitting me hard, but I am recovered from the long hike as far as I can tell.