Walking towards the Rio Grande river on the U.S.-Mexico border, I was greeted with a war zone.
There was a motley configuration of military alongside camouflaged doorless humvees with M-16s or similar assault rifles draped across their teflon chests. There was border patrol, Texas police and entities with badges and outfits I’d never seen before.
“I’m a tourist from Ohio, I’m guessing I can’t walk down to the river?” I asked the group of armed men staring at me, seemingly confused by my presence.
The man with the darkest glasses shook his head, “No.”
“Good deer in Ohio,” another man in fatigues said as I walked back towards downtown Eagle Pass, Texas.
It’s one of those full circle things – I was on a quest to conquer and climb to the top of the lower 48 states, with just Texas left, and it was ending how it all began – at a Ross Bros wedding.
Eleven years ago, I thought it would be fun to climb up Wheeler Peak in New Mexico the day before my friend Turner Ross’ wedding.
The obsession was then born.
Now his brother Bill was set to get hitched later that day in the only state I had left. So, I naturally had to make a summit attempt, post nuptials.
Nearing the flood of tequila blackout during the reception, I remembered trying to make an analogy with every climb and highpoint being like going to a wedding.
On one hand, prima facie, they are the same – someone is getting married and you attend this glorious occasion, and it’s the highest point in the state and thus significant no matter the route or Class.
But within that, the micro configurations reach infinity.
Every wedding dress is unique, the marriage venue, who leads the ceremony, the flowers, cake, reception, all individualized to the lovebirds that you are honoring.
It’s the same with climbing.
Each rock face was formed a different way – glaciers, volcanoes, tectonic plates. The mountain flowers, the locals, how harsh was harsh winter weather to them, the bugs, the routes, the glow of the east face at dawn, all slightly similar but extremely different and magnificent in their own regard.
It was a rough “wedding morning after,” when my climb team of Austin Blocksidge and San Diego Hauser pulled up to the recently renovated second floor rental on Adams St. in downtown Eagle Pass.
Looking at the concrete road reminded me of the night before, when police escorted and mariachis serenaded the entire wedding group, as we walked from the reception through one-storied heavy glass fronted downtown shops to the wedding, the dry heat melting suit jackets to bodies.
It was my favorite part of the ceremony and we were all given little vases with handles and ropes to drape around the neck. Happy hired employees poured chilled clear tequila into cups as we sauntered and I was thinking, I’ll just have a few sips and a couple nips and I’m both very good and very bad at drinking, so it didn’t end well.
By the curb we loaded up Blocksidge’s ‘07 gold Toyota 4Runner with my expedition gear and were set to to drive 6.5 hours to the area around Guadalupe Mountains National Park, through the true “No Country for Old Men” zone, the the treeless, waterless, yet not hopeless West Texas countryside.
I waived goodbye to my cellmate, who was heading back to Ohio via an Austin flight, and to Eagle Pass, which I loved as an extension of Mexico and I enjoyed the positive attention of being the only gringos around, being asked a lot by in Spanish by the locals, ‘Why are you here?’
Northwest along the Rio Grande river on highway 277, traveling up the left side of the sharks fin that makes up the bottom of the Texas.
“Really odd tiny fake gas station back there, Buc-ees, I think,” I offered to Blocksidge for further input, as he’d been living in Austin for years.
“Texas gas station chain and they are making fun of the Prada store,” Blocksidge said.
“Oh, I heard about that, there’s some not real Prada store in the middle of the desert,” Hauser said.
“I’m so confused,” I said.
“We’ll go through Marfa, little art community, it will all make sense,” Blocksidge said as he increased the volume on his endless surf rock and chill soundtrack, echoing off the cacti as we cruised, windows cracked.
Hauser brought up the Calhoun dorm phenomenon, the fact that we three were on the same 5th floor (nicknamed the 5th Ward) our freshman year at the University of Cincinnati in ‘99.
Bill Ross, the guy’s wedding I was just at, was in the same building that’s how we all knew each other.
Post graduation, chemical engineer Hauser and I moved to San Diego where he still lived and owned his own epoxy flooring company. Surfer body, fit, shorter, salt-n-pepper long hair and one-tone tanned skin.
Blocksidge, the tallest of our group with an inch on me at 6-foot-2, maniac black hair and forearms that could split tree trunks, went to the University of Texas for a Masters in architecture and that’s how he was familiar with Marfa and West Texas, working around there.
He claims he was also in Marfa one time “to play guitar in front of a projection of undersea scenes on the teepee at El Cosmico.” But that’s all too fascinating to process.
No water meant no trees. No forests meant only scavenger birds, not the normal chirping you constantly hear in Ohio. No real human settlement, lots of sand and pebbles and silver steel windmills, you all know that creaking sound they make when they turn in the movies, lots of those.
Surprisingly, I didn’t see tumbleweeds but did finally understand how mirages worked in the desert.
The two-lane highway with with white-not-yellow striped middle lines, speed limits of 80 and beyond, with vast flat views that you could seemingly see farther than the horizon, and out of nowhere an immense blackened oval would appear next to the staghorn shrubs and varying cacti fields, some 300 yards away.
It glimmered and absolutely had to be a dark pool, a welcoming liquid survival sight.
Twenty seconds later it would visually evaporate exposing the hard, un-rain-softened ground below.
With that hardpack, when it rained, the flash floods would engulf roads and create ever-flowing undertow-pulling mud-colored rivers.
In the desert, most people see the typical Saguaro cactus in their minds, tall green trunk with arms jutting out like a Mr. Potato Head. Those weren’t in West Texas.
Instead, the plants grew closer to the ground and were more bulb like, and had names like Horse Crippler, Scarlet Hedgehog and the classic Prickly Pear, which the leaves appeared like flat beaver tales sprouting from the center.
Three hours in we pulled over for gas, the (on this day only) shady sun broke through the clouds. We broke out the eclipse glasses Blocksidge brought.
The dark lenses turned the atmosphere black, and the usually brilliantly bright orb was hidden behind the moon, save for a fire ring that burned on the outside of the smaller crater-dented rock in front of it – a perfectly contoured flaming arc inside the sun’s sphere.
The older gas station attendant lady looked appalled when I suggested she check out the solar eclipse with our glasses, her little worn counter in the compact hut of a service station.
Outside there were a couple of non-functioning fuel pumps and a small “Uncle’s” sign above the single-paned door.
West Texas was so full of Mexican intricacies: the Virgin de Guadalupe statues and candles, the bright pink colors and desert survival-based architecture of one-story box structures surrounded by chain-link fences and lawn art figurines.
“Marfa is an interesting little town, known for minimalist art. Donald Judd had a studio there,” Blocksidge said as we approached the town.
Over four hours had lapsed since Eagle Pass.
All of this was foreign to me, but “No Country” and “There Will be Blood” had parts filmed there. There was a Simpson episode about the little village and it was labeled by 60 Minutes as the “capital of quirkiness.”
The fake Prada art installation on the outskirts was fascinating. The store more belonging in a bricked strip commerce section of Aspen or La Hoya, instead, the only structure for miles on a lone highway in Texas.
It’s possible that brand represented a capitalist-inspired certain desperation of needing to be viewed, accepted and admired. But maybe that’s what this “art piece” was saying?
Nah.
The Prada store’s location was fortuitous, as I just had nerve pain shoot up my leg, riding in the backseat and not being hydrated and doing a lot of sinning at a wedding.
What if the nerve pain increased and I had to stop halfway up the mountain?
Back surgery was in February and the nerve compression was still ever present. But I have legs and my tractor back home works well so I felt fortunate.
For a moment we were reminded, when we crossed under I-10 in Van Horn, of humanity, with jake breaks, chain stores, neon everywhere and endless signs with massive, child-inspired fonts. The American interstate.
We saw more vehicles and people in 10 minutes than the previous five hours.
The Sierra Diablo Mountains had probably the coolest name in the states, and they created the western wall of the valley we were in driving due north in from Van Horn. The valley or basin was actually an ancient seafloor, and before the trip Blocksidge sent us a Wiki link via text of that Delaware Basin.
“****! How are we going to get around this? Will the guns help?” Hauser asked in response to the featured image of the Basin.
“The bridge of time, homie. We’ll be hiking on what was once the coral reef of an ancient inland sea,” Blocksidge responded.
“[more expletives] Didn’t the congress strike fix this?” Hauser responded.
The gigantic Delaware Basin in West Texas was once a prehistoric ocean, when all the continents were connected, and the existing mountains were the walls.
We could see through the windshield how it all fit together, going north on Rt. 54, under an hour from the top mountain range we were after.
“Hiking on a reef. Hiking on a skeleton of a living creature,” Blocksidge said.
In the months prior, we’d reserved a primitive drive-up spot that had four-to-five sites over 10 acres, so ideally we wouldn’t have to see another person.
“If I’m sleeping in a tent, I don’t want to see any humans, that would ruin it for me,” I said as we drove deep into the site to secure the furthest spot back, along dirt and rocky trail that was kind of a road.
“Ruin it for them as well. Remember that the observer is also the observed,” Blocksidge said.
We were using overhead photos to match where we were on All Trails satellite map. All the dried-out landscaped plants looked identical and made it difficult.
After camp was fully set up in the squint-inducing sun and tent pole-pushing wind, we realized we picked the one spot someone else had already claimed as a water jug and a few other things had been left.
Imagine the “great mountaineer,” on his way to claim the continental United States, and he’s seen carrying a giant cabin tent with two other guys across the dusty open terrain, too lazy to break it down and set it up again.
Almost all the sky was in sunset pinks and as the dodge-ball red sun set, we remembered looking at the eclipse ring from earlier.
We built a fire in our new spot, car camping but in desolation. One could see indistinct zodiac signs in the heavens due to the intense flood of sparkle everywhere, the elliptical line of the Milky Way looking like a line of soot highlighted across the sky.
We wanted to continue star gazing, so we left the rain cover off and with the enormous gray fabric with scarlet trim (by coincidence only) cabin tent (that was its own checked bag) all body heat escaped through the netted top.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been warm camping after 11 years and never bringing the right bag.
Guadalupe National Park, much like last month’s adventure in North Dakota’s Badlands, rested between central and mountain time and phones oscillated between realities.
Piled smaller pale desert rocks into a wind barrier inside the half moon doorway flap of the Buckeye tent as the gusts were significant, then jet boiled dehydrated lasagna and broccoli cheddar rice.
The gearlist had headlamps, but in the next morning dark Blocksidge I went with a mini flashlight in the mouth and Hauser with his always-dying cell phone light from his extended arm.
We boiled water in the dim corner of the tent as they prepped the cups – Blocksidge sprinkling in the brown crystals that would transfers caffeine to our bloodstream and will.
It was a 30-minute commute to the trailhead that was just inside the park line, to use the restroom facilities and final prep.
Sunscreen was applied in the dark so we didn’t have to carry the bottle and apply later, hiking poles, compass/whistle, 1.5 liters of water (Blocksidge took 4 liters because he enjoys suffering.
Hauser took like some weird metal water bottle he dropped a lot), couple of energy bars, power gel, PB&J, pretty straightforward on this Class 1 trail.
“There’s a photo in my head that I’ve seen for a long, long time. It’s not of the summit marker, that metal triangle thing, but before you get to the summit, the top of El Capitan, the neighboring peak. Every highpointer posts a picture of that view and I know when I see it I’ll be at 48.5,” I said.
Three thousand feet of elevation gain over four miles is significant, no matter the route or class, there would be huffing and puffing. Sunrise illuminated the parking lot that kept getting smaller until it vanished under the reef as we ascended.
Luckily, fatigue is all we had to battle on the rocky yet well established trail.
Our pace was efficient and under three hours we had to be near the top when we climbed up a little boulder section. But as we went around the side, it revealed the last set of switchbacks, waiting for us.
Hilarious. The finality of the contiguous U.S. and I was struggling and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“You guys good?” I asked more trying to catch my breath than of true concern.
“Yes! Go!” Blocksidge said.
At the top, before the summit pic, we made our way to a flat spot and dropped our bags. I looked over the edge, saw the floor of the Pangean Ocean.
Blocksidge carried up a can of sparkling white wine, but if any like park rangers are reading this, that part is a lie. We toasted to 49 and to the success of the climb team that Hauser named, “Eclipse Punchers, P.I.”
Always with the pranks, so I wasn’t sure to trust Ocean Beach-living and always-surfing Hauser when told me to put on his Ray Ban digitally advanced sunglasses.
He’d been taking pictures with them, Bond-like, by clicking a button on the arm of the glasses. Maybe he was a secret agent, or a secret pervert, I dunno?
I slid the glasses over my ears and music played, and of course it was Turnstile’s “Real Thing,” lol. I did some hardcore dances and sipped the sparkles and sauntered over to the metal triangle thing for my summit post pic.
“Summit pic or obit” has been my tagline through the decade plus of work, and glad the joke never turned into dark comedy.
A lady on the summit overheard us talking about state highpoints and asked if I was a highpointer.
“Yep, and this is 49 for me. How about you?” I said.
“I’m at 39,” Julie Smith said. “But I just got back from Denali.
Did you read “An Experience on Denali” in the latest Apex [to Zenith, the climbing magazine]?” she asked.
“Yes, wow, that was you? Awesome story!” I said.
We were about to start down from the summit when I heard someone yell, “Where’s the 49er at?”
I raised my hand.
“Get over here, now!” the man I somewhat recognized said.
It was 50 completer and the Highpointers Foundation President Dave Covill, who asked in his last published report, “Have you named the Foundation in your WILL yet?”
Another group that made it to the top was real curious about Hauser, felt they knew him.
“Hauser, eh? You know Hauser’s in Colorado or Arizona? My name is Smith, you know any Smiths?” he asked.
“Bruce Smith, he was great, hell of a tackler,” Hauser said.
On the descent our legs were burning but worldly contemplation was high.
“There’s all these signs that nicotine is so bad for you. There’s gotta be some good there, too. I’ve been researching the good side of nicotine and I’m going to make it work for me,” Hauser said.
Near the bottom we got passed by two Texans, they were talking about losing their hair and how they were gym rats now, because “you can’t be fat and bald.”
“Are you the 49 guy?” one man asked. “Congrats, that’s a hell of an accomplishment.”
An eight-hour too-long-with-weak-legs-and-minds cruise back to Austin awaited, as we slowly left the desolation and the true meaning of vast, so we meandered towards Balmorhea Lake where we would stop for the night.
Perfect car camp spot on Balmorhea Lake with smaller but significant mountain views in the background.
We pounded pretty much everything: wine, cookies, local beer, Takis, Woodford Reserve whiskey, pad thai dehydrated meal, cigars, and wouldn’t you know it, little Hauser got real tired, and found himself a sleepy, sleepy guy.
I probably went to bed two minutes after him but I wasn’t first!
Back on the Interstate the next morning, every hour of the six returning to Austin there were more trees and green and horseless carriages and I was getting nauseous in the backseat and needed some hip-hop or metal or something that would aggravate the frontal lobe and I finally forced Blocksidge to pull over.
That’s what I’ve been working on a lot, is noticing the signs before the meltdown, trying to see the germs on my hands before I shove my fingers in my mouth.
But my main climbing goal had been completed, and I couldn’t anticipate what was next.
Wading waist-deep in the naturally fed pool of Barton Springs in Austin hours later a tremendous fear of the future overcame me, of what to do next. How do I justify my inevitable upcoming endless escape, but having no idea what that would be?
“For me, the story needs to end on yelling over beers [Lone Star lagers at the Back Lot bar, U of Texas north campus] during James Brown, then sneaking onto a plane in the dark morning,” Blocksidge texted me after reading this draft. “Just needs a lil better ending.”
If only we got to choose all our own endings … but beginnings, hell you can make those happen at any time.
For example, who knows if I just texted San Jose Ryan (Gannett Peak/Granite Peak) and Dr. Chris Freeman (Mt. Rainier) and asked, “Denali 2025, you in?”
