Livin' the Dream 2: Lost Mine Trail at Big Bend

15 Mar 2012--Been going a lot the past 2 days, so I will post a couple different blogs on the days' travels...just trying to separate them in my head cause it seemed like we saw so much.

So Wednesday, after being told by our camp host that the Lost Mine Trailhead was best seen as the sun rises in the morning, we headed out to Big Bend early, leaving the RV park about 7:15 (about the time I am usually getting up!). Here comes the sun as we are heading to the trailhead.

Of course I post this for Ellen...haha. I thought this metal case was interesting cause it made me ask myself if my lunch was safe in the cooler in the car while we hiked? And love the "bear crossing" sign...haven't seen one of those in our travels before. Deer, Elf, Moose...but no bear!

So we started out as the sun was casting some nice shadows/colors onto the mountain face above us. We don't know why this trail is called "Lost Mine", nothing we saw told the story of it's naming, but it is a 4.8 mile round trip hike up to the top of the mountain and back...pretty steady ascent; more than the other day but not really bad at all. We took so many pictures it took us 2 1/2 to get to the top, but only 1 hour to get down.

We didn't see any animals, but several bluebirds. They are really difficult to catch on camera because they don't seem to sit on any branch long. By the time you see them in your view finder and focus the camera they are gone again. This 2nd pic shows the top from about a 1/4 way up...pretty far! And without anything to compare it to for scale, you can't tell, but this perfectly formed little tree is actually only a bout maybe 2 feet tall growing out of this huge rock.

Some shots as we advance.

If you blow up the last picture in this group, you can see the "switchbacks" that allow us to go up the side of the mountain. They laid them out really well so they don't kill you in the process.