Davy Jones is our guest writer and he is also my dad! He still calls Texas “home” but has been living in an RV traveling for the last year. We share a love for the outdoors and he has been lucky enough to go to some places that I have not visited. So I asked him to get out of his comfort zone and write a few posts for the blog. Enjoy his tales from Big Bend National Park in Texas!
I’ll be honest, Emily had to convince me via phone to even do this hike! I had hiked the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, so why should I not tackle the second highest, Emory Peak. This day started out early, the hike to Emory Peak is about a 5.1 miler one way so 10.2 miles total. BUT and I do mean BUT, the elevation changes rapidly with 2,500 feet of elevation gain total. And the last 75’ to 100’ up was more like something out of that rock climbing movie… Free Solo?! But I am getting ahead of myself a bit. A spoiler, I did make it to the top, and I am so glad I did.
Hiking Emory Peak
First things first, we drove up to the Chisos Basin Visitors Center and Chisos Mountain Lodge Area to the trailhead. This area is at 5400 feet level, with the summit if Emory Peak being at 7825 feet elevation. We got lucky with the weather! While it was not necessarily the best with light rain on the way to the trail, this kept the day cloudy and cool vs. the alternative sunny and hot that is typical for the area.
The Pinnacles Trail
The first 0.1 mile of the hike started on a Laguna Meadows trail. This goes through some grassy fields and switch backs that are gradually winding up along the edge of a serious incline wall where the fun begins on the Pinnacles Trail. Once we turned onto Pinnacles Trail the trail then heads UP UP & UP. It follows along the wall of the mountains and provided several gorgeous views along the way and even a deer. The switchbacks had a steady vertical climb the whole way up to the saddle. Along the way we had some spectacular views back through the windows to the valley and desert you left behind. There were also amazing views of Toll mountain.
This is one of those trail when you think your close to the top… spoiler alert you are NOT! At the saddle there is a split in the trail to go over to Boot Canyon or another 1.5 miles up to Emory Peak. At this point 1.5 miles seems like a long way. Big plus – there is a bathroom up here! After a short break to gather myself, I continued up the trail to Emory Peak. Gotta keep going!
Emory Peak Trail
The trail from here goes along the south side of the mountain. The views to the south are awesome. The trail initially isn’t quite as steep but then it reminds you that the top is 7825 feet.
The best part was yet to come, summitting Emory Peak. Unfortunately I was more concerned about the mental aspect of getting over my fear of heights than taking pictures. My initial trek to the peak was halted as I climbed out to the edge of the cliff to follow the trail and made the mistake of looking down. I quickly turned back thinking nope, no way is that the right way.
I saw some other hikers come from a peak just to the south and asked if they made it up to the top where I was going initially or did they come from Emory Peak? Well they said they did the peak to the south and it was not Emory Peak. They had decided not to climb out over the edge to make it to the top of Emory Peak. I was about 2 seconds from taking their advice when another group, who had gone up to Emory Peak told me there was a park volunteer working on the radio installations on Emory Peak.
I turned myself around and went back to the edge, looked up and went for it. The last 100’ climb is definitely not for the faint of heart. But once I got up there the view was really awesome, it was super windy, and the feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming. The park volunteer was servicing the radio tower and removing and documenting the graffiti left by hikers. Apparently putting stickers on equipment is a cool thing to do…NOT! I spent about 20 minutes at the top taking pictures and talking with the park volunteer.
Hiking Back to Chisos Basin
Once the photo ops were done I had to make the climb back down, which initially looked more dangerous than the climb up. As luck would have it, the volunteer was heading down too. He suggested a slightly different route that didn’t look as difficult but still puts you out there on the edge for a bit. The hike back to the Saddle was a lot quicker than the hike up of course. Once we started down the Pinnacle Trail, we took our time to explore a few out cropping that we missed going up.
Overall the hike is certainly worth it, but there is so much more to this part of the park, and lots of people were backpacking on the South Rim Trail. I am certainly going to be back here in the future. The park is a popular destination in Februrary, which is understandable given the cool weather. In total the hike up to Emory Peak took me just over 7 hours. Needless to say I was very happy to see my truck Ruby patiently waiting in the parking lot.
~ Davy Jones
Check out Davy Jones’ other posts on the blog!
Before you go
Before you start planning your trip to Big Bend National Park, make sure to do your research! The park is BUSY during the summer even though it is so remotely located. Campsites inside the park will book 6 months in advance. Unlike the national parks in Utah, there are no BLM lands in Texas to utilize around the park for primitive camping. I also always recommend getting a National Parks Pass if you plan to visit more than one National Park in a year, which you can get from any National Park entry station or at the visitors centers as well as online.
Another consideration, the park is HUGE. There are so many sections of the park and they are fairly spread out and offer such different experiences. Not the type of hiker that can tackle a 10 mile hike with 2500 feet of elevation, there are a TON of other options for you within Big Bend National Park. Check out all the trails on the NPS website.
Check out some more tales from Davy Jones on his dedicated page. Also see all the placed Emily has been traveling on the archives page.
Emory Peak isn’t the second highest peak in Texas.
You are correct John, the 2nd highest peak in Texas is Bush Mountain in the Guadalupe Mountain range. Thank you for the correction, Emory Peak was “MY” 2nd highest peak, PR, to climb in Texas, which will be corrected.