Desert & Mountains Adventure 2002 - Highlights Page 2

Descending the Tejas Trail from The Bowl to Pine Springs

A fantastic rock outcropping points to Guadalupe Peak.

Mule deer

 

Mile Marker 5 - Base campsite on BLM land in the desert just north of the New Mexico border

 

Hiking McKittrick Canyon

McKittrick Creek emerges from running underground.

Pratt Lodge

End of the line at the Hunter Line Cabin

The Grotto.  It's almost like seeing a cave...outdoors!

Pratt Lodge again

Beautiful and fragile travertine walls have built up in McKittrick Creek.

 

Guadalupe Farewell

El Capitan

 

Balmorhea State Park

"C'mon Pat, I'll jump in if you will!"

 

Fort Davis National Historic Site

Around 1905 (at about age 15), my grandmother, Virginia Gulley née Luce, lived with her family in one of these abandoned officer's quarters that the private owner of the property--to whom Fort Davis had reverted--leased to renters. Her family had moved there from their original home state of Mississippi in an attempt to get her mother into a better climate to try to recover from chronic respiratory illness.  When I was a little boy and my grandmother was in her mid-70's, we took her to visit this site and enjoyed listening to her reminisce about it.  The fort's buildings have been substantively restored since the time of my childhood visit with my grandmother.

 

McDonald Observatory

McDonald Observatory is 15 miles west of Fort Davis.  It is operated by the University of Texas At Austin.

YEE...

...HAW!!

This is a rather sophisticated sundial.

This is the size of the lens (2.1 meter diameter) of the original main Otto Struve Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

This is the size of the lens (2.7 meter diameter) of the second main telescope at the observatory (the Harlan J. Smith Telescope).

And the huge hexagonal area which is itself comprised of hexagonal shapes is the size (9.2 meter diameter) of the new Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory.

This building houses the new Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

 

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