This weekend I led a trip to
South Llano State Park with Jakub and Manuel. We had 11 participants on this trip, giving a total group of 14 people.
We decided at the pre-trip meeting to meet outside Gregory at 4pm on Friday and leave at 4:30pm. Hence, I arrived at the Outdoor Center (OC) at 3pm to finalize any last minute trip preparations. When I arrived, I slowly figured out that very little had already been done for the trip besides getting the box trailer from IM fields and doing the food buy. Since this was my first time guiding a weekend trip, I wasn't sure if this was normal. Once I realized how much was left to be done, I quickly started pulling kitchen and camp gear with an OC staff member while two other OC staff members went to pull the tubes, SUPs, and other gear from 1A (a further away storage room). I also found out that Emily was currently at Academy Sports buying sleeping bags, since the OC had accidentally rented out all of the sleeping bags (including the ones allocated for this trip). Once Jakub arrived, he helped tailor the supplies and remembered to add some additional necessary supplies. In the end, we did finish pulling gear and loading it just barely after our desired departure time of 4:30pm, but it felt like a very frantic effort.
We ended up pulling away from Gregory Gym around 4:45pm since people were still rushing around and using the bathroom. Jakub drove the Suburban with the box trailer, Manuel drove the other Suburban, and I rode with Manuel. We quickly realized that the box trailer had been hitched to the wrong Suburban (one Suburban has a higher hitch than the other, and the box trailer needs to be hitched to the lower one). However, since we would not be going off road, we decided to wait until reaching camp to make the switch.
We stopped at HEB near Ben White for quinoa (which somehow got forgotten on the food buy) before stopping for dinner in Fredericksburg. In Fredericksburg, Manuel and Jakub went to fuel up the vehicles while I went with all the participants to the
Auslander, which was able to seat all 14 of us together. Dinner took a while, but my Chickenschnitzel with potato soup, mashed potatoes, and potato pancakes was pretty good. We left the Auslander around 8:45pm. Jakub led us on a short walk around Fredericksburg before we returned to the vehicles, which were parked on a backstreet.
On the last part of the drive to South Llano State Park, we saw multiple deer and rabbits near the road. We arrived at the park around 10:15pm. The camp hosts were off-duty and we hadn't been assigned a specific camp site, so we took the first two sites we saw together - sites 3 and 5. These sites ended up being really great sites due to the wooded and spacious areas behind the picnic shelters.
We quickly set up 5 3-person tents, and then I set up the 1-person tent I had borrowed from the OC in the frantic gear pull. I figured this trip would be a good opportunity to try out a 1-person tent. Once all the participants had grabbed sleeping bags and pads, there was only 1 pad and 1 sleeping bag left (and 3 guides that still needed/wanted pads and sleeping bags). I claimed these, but later felt pretty guilty about claiming them instead of offering them to Manuel or Jakub.
Manuel offered to lead anyone who was interested on a night hike to an overlook. Everyone but Jakub opted to go, as he decided to stay and figure out where the missing pads and sleeping bags were. We took a short but somewhat steep walk up to a scenic overlook from which we could see Junction. Manuel led the group and I walked behind the group to be sure we didn't lose anyone in the dark. The entire hike was 2.23 miles and took us 65 minutes.
Once we returned to camp, we learned that Jakub had found an additional sleeping pad since two had been rolled together. However, this still left us 2 sleeping bags and 1 sleeping pad short. Jakub improvised a sleeping pad out of some life jackets. Both Jakub and Manuel put on most of the clothing they had brought, and I gave Manuel my sweatpants. Then we all finally went to bed around 12:45am. I enjoyed just laying in my little tent for a bit looking at the surrounding area and at the stars. The little 1-person tent had mostly mesh panelling, so it was very well ventilated. The mesh was indeed pretty close to your face and the area for your legs was narrow - but I actually really liked the
Mountain Hardware Sprite 1. The sleeping bags from Academy were pretty huge, so you had to gather a lot of the material around you if you wanted to keep the cool air from coming in.
My home for the weekend, taken Saturday morning :)
I awoke to pots being moved and other cooking noises around 6:30am. I assumed this was Jakub waking up and starting breakfast so I got up. However, when I walked through our camp, everyone was asleep and I realized the noises were from a group of boy scouts across the street. Hence, I walked to the bathroom and then got back in my tent. However, then it started to mist, so I debated for about 10 minutes whether to get up again and put on the rain fly. Around the time I decided to do so, it stopped misting. About 10 minutes after that, I heard Jakub setting up the stove, so I got up.
We set out breakfast materials (bagels, cream cheese, oatmeal, tea, hot chocolate), heated up water, made coffee and put it in a carafe, and I cut up some oranges. Then there wasn't much to do, so I got ready for the day and put the rain fly on my tent in case it rained during the day. Then I ate breakfast after walking up the participants and telling them breakfast would be in 10 minutes.
Some of the 3-person tents by the picnic area on Saturday morning
Breakfast on Saturday (as well as Jakub's makeshift sleeping pad on the left)
We ate breakfast around 8:30am, and told the participants to try to be ready to go hiking by 9:30am. Doing dishes was easy at this camp site since we had a water spigot by the road at our site. Jakub and I went to park headquarters around 8:45am to register our group using our Texas State Park Passes, pay for our site the night before, and determine if we could extend our reservation for one more night (since there was a mistake when the sites were originally booked that led to us only having reservations for one night). There was only one open site at that time, so we decided to book it and hope another one came available. Shortly after we returned to our site, the camp host came over and said park headquarters had just radioed that another site had come available. With this information, I hurried back to park headquarters to claim and pay for this site. With all this hustle, we didn't end up leaving camp until 10am.
I led a group of 5 participants along the Fawn trail for about 1.5 miles. We saw a wild turkey as we were walking on this trail. The turkey was right next to the trail and ran away right after we passed it, which drew our attention to it. If it had just remained still, we may have never noticed that it was there! I noticed that a participant had picked a purple flower, and tried to tell her individually that you really shouldn't pick flowers (both under LNT and so others can enjoy them), but I'm not sure she understood/cared. We waited for the other 8 people where the Fawn Trail intersected the Golden Checked Warbler trail. The participants opted to join the groups at this point, despite the fact that this would likely lead to seeing less wildlife. In the end, we usually walked in small groups that were reasonably spaced out, so it didn't feel too crowded. We only saw two other groups hiking the entire day, so at least our big group wasn't disturbing other visitors. We stopped for lunch at the primitive camp ground shortly after noon. I cut up some tomatoes, a block of Munster cheese, and a block of Swiss cheese. We had pitas with hummus, cheese, lettuce, deli meats, Pringles, and Oreos. Jakub ended up fitting all our trash (including the Oreo container) in the Pringles can!
As we were walking back to camp, we came across an old ranch with a windmill and a water tank. We looked into the water tank and studied the windmill (a few people climbed up). Then we attempted to find the caliche pit that was supposed to be nearby. Most of the group gave up and went back to camp with Manuel. I wandered up a trail and off a side trail with three participants and found a pit. However, this pit was not what we expected! It contained animals (at least boars and young deer) in various stages of decomposition. The smell of the pit was rancid, and there were bones scattered all around (likely from scavengers that had come to eat the meat). We were all originally disgusted, and then a bit interested. Eventually we decided we should find the rest of the group. Jakub was waiting patiently back at the ranch, so we followed behind him. He showed us a pretty cool bird blind on the way back. This blind had so many pretty birds eating and relaxing within its view. However, it also raised the question to me of why it is okay to 'feed the wildlife' when the wildlife is birds and the food is birdseed (despite all the signs all around the park about not feeding the wildlife). Is something like that LNT?
Climbing the windmill (photo by Jenna)
The 'Pig Pit'
My small group stopped by the park headquarters office on the way back to camp to inquire about what a caliche pit was (Jakub was right, it is a pit with white powder), and ask why we instead stumbled across a pit of dead animals. The lady in the office said "Oh, that's the pig pit" and explained that whenever animals are killed by cars or otherwise found dead in the park, they move the dead bodies to the pig pit. Our entire hike was 7.72 miles and took us 4.5 hours (including lunch and other stops).
Once we returned to camp, most of the participants laid down to relax or played games. Manuel and I used the time to determine how to best inflate the tubes and SUPs for the afternoon time on the river. Manuel found no electric outlet at the put-in point on the river, and I found the outlet in the car didn't support the voltage of the electric pump, so we decided to partially inflate the SUPs and fully inflate the tubes
using the electric pump (which could be powered using the outlet at our
camp site). Then we bent the partially inflated SUPs so they would fit in the box trailer and decided to hold the fully inflated tubes out the Suburban windows (since they wouldn't fit anywhere else and we didn't bring extra straps to tie things down on the roof racks). After changing into river clothing, we headed to the river. We finished inflating the SUPs by hand near the river and gave helmets and life jackets to those riding on the SUPs. Then Manuel and Jakub ran a shuttle to the parking lot nearest the take-out point.
We got on the river around 5pm. We only had 8 SUPs, so Jakub, Pratik, and I rode in tubes and Manuel walked along the river. The SUPs were able to move much quicker than the tubes, so all the SUPs quickly passed the tubes. The last SUP had two girls who nicknamed themselves 'the grandmas' - and they offered to tow me down the river. I felt somewhat bad about this - especially since I felt it would look bad for the participants to be towing a guide - but I also knew that all three guides shouldn't be stuck really far behind the group. Hence, I accepted and it was a pretty fun ride. My tube often pulled the SUP in strange directions since we were not using the large fins on the SUPs since the water was really shallow in parts, but I was also able to add extra stability by holding the board flat with my hands (and I was also able to adjust the heading pretty easily). I used my flip line to connect my tube to their board so that we wouldn't get separated in rapids. We certainly crashed into many vegetated banks and rocks though. One time when we had crashed into a bank I noticed what I originally thought was a turtle head right next to my tube. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the tongue was certainly a snake tongue and it was indeed a green patterned snake in the water right next to my tube. I couldn't see the body, so I have no clue how big or long the snake actually was (or what type it was). I mentioned to the 'grandmas' that there was a snake right next to me. They froze at first, and then asked what to do. I suggested that we paddle away from the shore, which they quickly did. Fun times.
Being towed down the river (photo by Manuel)
When I reached the sign saying 'Tube take-out', I noticed that all the other SUPs were pretty far downstream. I blew my whistle and motioned for them to come back and get out at the tube take-out. Manuel took a SUP out for a bit in the meantime.
We carried the SUPs and tubes a long 0.3 miles to the parking lot. However, upon getting there, we realized that Jakub had the keys to the Suburban and trailer that were parked there. Manuel had the keys to the car at the put-in, but it didn't seem that running the 1.5 miles back there in wet clothing and sandals was a good solution. We sorted the gear, but some of the participants were getting pretty cold and wanted dry clothing. I went back to the take-out to wait for Jakub and Pratik, but was soon told that they actually exited early and were attempting to climb up a bank. They made it up with little trouble, and we all walked back to the parking lot. I loaded all the gear into the box trailer in an efficient manner. Then we drove back to camp so we could get dinner started and everyone warmed up as soon as possible.
Jakub started dinner and Manuel and I went to get the other vehicle from the put-in point. On the drive over, we saw a herd of about 50 deer crossing the road and jumping over a fence! Many still had their spots, meaning they were still young. Once I returned to camp, I washed my hands and then helped cut up mushrooms for dinner. Some of the participants were also helping Jakub get dinner started, although most were playing cards at the other site. This is completely fine, as the participants are only encouraged, not expected, to help.
Dinner, which was quinoa with salmon, tuna, chicken, mushrooms, peppers, and onion, was really good. Then Jakub made his 'secret' dessert. You'll just have to come on a trip if you want to know what it is. :)
After dinner I helped with dishes, and then we all opted to go on a night hike to Buck Lake and to walk along the river. I opted to go on the hike despite my right knee being pretty tender, mainly because I didn't want to miss out on anything. Perhaps not the most responsible idea. My knee was generally fine when I was walking, but whenever we would stop and take a break it would be really sore once we started walking again. Jakub walked in the back, Manuel led, and I walked in the middle. We lost Jakub and the back of the group a few times, but they always caught up once we stopped. We tried to walk mainly by the moon (ie, without our lights), which made it hard to see where everyone was at points. One participant claimed he would have been scared to death if he had been out there alone. The entire hike was 2.15 miles, and took us 74 minutes.
Once we got back to camp, most of us went to our tents quickly. A few people stayed up playing cards somewhat loudly, but I guess I was so tired I could tune them out pretty easily and fall asleep (my tent was also farther in the woods than our other tents). I opted to leave my rain fly on overnight, as it was predicted to rain.
I awoke a few times overnight to light rain, and when I heard pots and cooking sounds in the morning (again from the boy scout group) it was lightly misting. Jakub awoke around the same time it seems, so we put out the leftover bagels and cream cheese, he started water boiling for drinks, and I cut up two oranges. He didn't want to start the breakfast tacos yet since he thought people would be slow to get up due to the rain. Hence, I opted to take down my little tent before the rain got worse (and then I'd be able to help others more later) and then got ready for the day. I eventually pulled out my rain jacket and rain pants so I could keep my shorts and hiking shirt somewhat dry. In hindsight, this was a great decision that should have been made even earlier.
Then Manuel started scrambling eggs and I started cooking bacon while Jakub helped us both. Another frying pan would have been nice for cooking the bacon, as while cooking the bacon in a pot decreased splatter, it was certainly more difficult. My first batch of bacon was a bit unevenly cooked, while the two subsequent batches were really good. Both the eggs and bacon were indeed delicious. I put some cheese on my eggs and ate it out of my bowl (instead of eating a taco). Once we ran out of scrambled eggs, I cooked a second set of eggs that were mixed with some of the quinoa leftovers from dinner. This was probably my favorite meal despite the rain because it was delicious and I was proud of my bacon and eggs+quinoa leftovers mixture.
After breakfast the participants packed up their gear while we did the dishes and packed up the kitchen (making sure to put everything needed for lunch in one place). Then we helped the participants take down their tents (which were pretty wet and muddy). At this point, the participants decided as a group they would like to hike during the time before lunch. After taking down the tents, I opted to hop into the box trailer and play Tetris with all the equipment. Jakub thought we would need to deflate the SUPs more, but I felt confident we could make everything fit as is. In the end, I made it happen!
Then I quickly changed to hiking shoes and filled my camelbak, and we were off on another hike. This time we hiked on the River trail and the Buck Lake trails. Many of these trails were the same trails we had hiked the previous night in the dark. My right knee was incredibly sore at points (mainly the outside) and completely fine at others. Really strange. I hung in the back of the pack with Jakub for a decent bit of the hike. We shortly chatted about comments for the guide evaluation form (the form the guides are supposed to fill out post-trip about how they thought the trip went), which led me to think more about that throughout the hike. As we got closer to the river, some participants climbed down a river bank and found bones from a dead animal. They brought them up for us all to see, and then one took one of the vertebrate bones. I'm really not sure what to do in these situations. Manuel and I discussed it later in the day when we returned the box trailer to Intramural fields, and decided it might be best to give an LNT talk before each hike reminding people to leave what they find and dispose of trash properly.
As we were walking along the river, we found lots of pecans. Some of the participants opened the shells and ate the nuts. One participant carried lots of pecans home with him, which I felt a bit uneasy about. I'm not sure if that is something we should actively discourage or not.
We eventually walked back to camp after hiking 2.86 miles in just under 2 hours, and the participants opted to have lunch at camp (as opposed to driving for a bit and then stopping at a park somewhere). I cut up Munster cheese and tomatoes. We also had some sandwich bread, pitas, lettuce, avocados, hummus, deli meat, Pringles, Cutie oranges, and Oreos.
After quickly doing dishes, we loaded into the Suburbans and headed back home. I rode in Manuel's car, and got that car to fill out the post-trip evaluations. Between the park and Junction, we had to stop in the middle of the road to let an armadillo cross. Pretty awesome. Then, I started working on the guide post-trip evaluation. In Fredericksburg we stopped for gas, and I switched with Jakub to drive the other car (so he could rest and add his comments to the post-trip evaluation). I finished filling up Manuel's car. The OC originally could not find the gas receipt, but found it about a week later after having given up. Apparently I put it in the trip card envelope in the trip binder instead of in the receipt pocket in the trip binder. Live and learn, but at least I did not actually lose the receipt! I drove Jakub's vehicle the remainder of the way to Austin. The new Suburbans have XM satellite radio, which is awesome since you can usually find a station that everyone can agree with.
Our entire group (photo by Manuel)
Once back at Gregory gym, we took all the gear out of the cars and moved it into the OC. Then we let the participants go. Overall, their evaluations were good. One person noted that they would have liked peanut butter, which we had and just never got out. I wish they would have asked! Two people noted the missing sleeping bags and the need to be sure we had enough gear for everyone. Two people marked that they would have liked a campfire. We try to avoid doing campfires because it isn't LNT. But is it really not LNT if we use a provided fire pit and follow fire safety guidelines?
Jakub and Pratik (who nicely offered to stay and help) hung up the tents and unpacked lots of gear while Manuel and I returned the box trailer to its home at Intramural fields. Then I finished unpacking the food and took some water gear back to its home in 1A. Jakub and I returned one of the Suburbans back to its home in Jester Circle (since I hadn't done this before, and wasn't sure how to get there), and then we did a final review of the participant evaluations and our guide evaluation while Manuel was going to get his car (since we couldn't leave since he'd be locked out). Jakub made his notes in black and I made mine in red so Chris/Emily/whoever actually reads the form could tell who had which comments.
Overall, it was another great trip. Despite the various organizational and planning issues, the participants mainly didn't know about these issues and were not affected by most of them. As guides, we did a pretty good job of isolating the participants from as many of the issues as we could so I'm proud of us for that. I'm also thankful to Jakub and Manuel for letting me have a sleeping bag and pad - it made my nights much more pleasant.
I feel like I'm learning and growing as a guide. I'm getting much more confident, and growing as a person so much through this experience. It's forcing me to become more social, and learn to balance being an introvert with leading a group and trying to make everyone feel involved. It's pretty cool to watch myself mentally and emotionally grow like this.
Of course, there are still many things I need to work on. In terms of anticipation, I'm doing much better. Guide school, and then
having Grand Canyon as my first trip, really taught me how to think
ahead of the group and figure out what needs to be done before it needs
to be done. I still have a ways to go (the shuttle issue on this trip
is one example of that), but I think I'm learning quickly. One thing Jakub noticed during this trip that I could do better is using the empty time between activities. One example was when Jakub and Manuel ran the shuttle before we got on the river. I got the group to carry their equipment down to the river and gave a paddling talk, but then failed to get them to do anything useful after that. They ended up chatting and playing games themselves, but I could have done something better. I tend to naturally be a quiet, organizational leader - trying to be a louder leader who commands attention is less natural but I'm working on it. I'm also actively trying - especially when guiding - to avoid talking over people. Spending time with people in my research group has taught me to speak over people, since that is often the only way to get your opinions heard with that group. But its unnecessary with most groups, and can come off as rude. After Emily pointed this out to me during the Grand Canyon trip, I've been actively working on improving this.
I'm loving being a guide. I'm actually pretty sad that my next trip is over a month away. However, it will be an epic trip - I'm so excited to go back to Big Bend and Santa Elena canyon!
