Alchemist2000

I just wanted to post a note to say how much we enjoyed our trip to Big Bend and to thank everyone here for all of your valuable advice. We would not have had the courage to overcome our initial worries about the summer heat and to make the trip in August without your encouragement. It was actually quite cool (high 50's near the south rim) at night and rarely out of the 70's during the day. All of the recent rain had resulted in lots and lots of wildflowers of all different types and colors. Even the desert was surprisingly green.

We went up the Laguna Meadows trail and ate lunch on the ridge looking back towards the Lodge. It was a beautiful location with wildflowers all around and the great view back into the Basin. Later, several deer got within ten yards or less of us while we were stopped in the trees further along in Laguna Meadows. We also saw lots of hummingbirds everywhere.

We stayed at SE1 the first night, which was very close to the rim and some beautiful views. We explored along the rim the next day, then moved on to our next camp site, NE4. This was more protected with fewer open vistas than I had hoped. It was fairly cloudy/foggy anyway, so it did not matter too much. We appreciated being protected in the trees when a rain storm came through that night. I don't know how much total precipitation there was, but it rained fairly steadily from about 11 pm - 12:30 am. Our new Rainshadow tarptent (thank you, lost_but_found for steering us towards the tarptents!) worked great in the rain. The only problem with the tarptent was the very slippery floor with our thermarests. I thought I had corrected that problem with the seam sealer, but I was wrong.

We made our way back down the Pinnacles trail the following day. We had originally planned to stay a third night at TM 1 camp site, but an equipment problem and one of my knees made us decide to come back early. We had carried in 13 liters of water between the two of us, which was just about right for the two days and our particular choice of food and cooking that required little water. We had only a little over a liter left when we got back down the mountain. We had planned to pick up more water at Boot Spring for the third night. Although we did not walk down to check Boot Spring, I suspect there would have been plenty of water available since there was lots and lots of water in the creek.

I agree with the other posts here that the Pinnacle Trail is definitely the more interesting trail of the two. However, we wanted to see both of them. Given our level of conditioning and our 50-something knees, I think going down Pinnacle Trail when our packs were lighter was probably the right choice for us.

Thanks again for everyone's help. It was a great time to go, with very very few people in the park.