[at-l] Lone Star Trail Trip Report (long)

[kborski@yahoo.com (Karen Borski)]

I haven't posted in awhile -- been out hiking.  This
is the only time of year I can get outdoors locally
without extreme heat, insects or poison ivy.  I
actually had time to write a trip report, so I'll pass
it on in hopes of entertaining those snow-bound and
pining for a hike, and possibly informing those
listers who live nearby and think you have to drive 10
hours to Big Bend to get in some good long hikes.
(There's also a medical adventure towards the end for
those Wilderness First Responder types.)

Nocona
AT98

A 3-day excursion on the little-known, little-hiked
Lone Star National Scenic Trail (LST)

Saturday January 19, 2002

At about 130 miles in total length, the LST has one
endpoint near Richards, Texas, and another near
Cleveland, Texas.  I had hiked the Richards section,
approximately 8 miles, last January.  Andy, Buddy (our
dog) and I were setting off for the other endpoint,
planning to hike 30 miles from Evergreen to the
eastern terminus at Cleveland.

It was 1:00 pm when we reached the trailhead at the
eastern terminus off of FM 1725.  We left the car, a
bit unsure of its security in the lonely dirt parking
area.  Dad drove us up to Evergreen past some lovely
forests and farms and on to the unstriped Texas
Highway 945.  
We found this parking area to be a much busier
location with several other cars parked.  Dad wouldn't
agree to walk a bit with us, even though the sun had
come out to shine.  The cold front had passed over,
and the weather was turning very nice by 1:30 pm when
we started hiking.  

We waved good-bye to Dad and turned on the trail. 
Ahhh...that lovely feeling of places unknown about to
be discovered.  That other nice feeling of being free,
FREE, FREE!!!  At least for 3 days.  The woods were
very nice -- huge magnolias, pines and oaks with a
clear stream running to our left.  We came upon a neat
primitive campsite situated under pine trees within a
few miles and stopped to eat a bit of lunch.  Buddy
stuck close to us and seemed very wide-eyed, not as
ecstatic as he had seemed in Arkansas on the OT.  Andy
was enjoying brand new Leki poles, his first pair.  He
seemed unconvinced at their magic, but I told him it
would take some hills and creek crossings before his
inevitable love for them would be fostered.

The weather continued to be very lovely all afternoon,
with a deep baby blue winter sky, the kind I really
love, hanging above the forest canopy.  We walked
through the continuous forests 8 miles to Double Lake
State Park.  Buddy jumped forward on his leash in
excitement as the lake came into view and the sounds
of children playing came into earshot.  The lake scene
with the mixed trees looked like fall in Maine.

We wandered around the grounds a bit, trying to find
some information about camping.  It was now dusk and
there was a slight allure to the thought of just
stopping here.  Several realistic Indian teepees were
set up as a demonstration around a main campfire.  It
appeared that folks were settling in for a nice,
chilly night around the fire.  We decided to move on,
though, after learning that it would cost $15 to put
our heads down there.  Frankly, I did not want to have
loud car campers bothering us all night.

So, we walked another half mile or so until we found a
spot away from the trail a bit.  Darkness descended
completely as the tarp was set up.  Buddy did not
hesitate to crawl inside as soon as the structure of
it took shape.  A healthy fatigue had settled in, and
we ate a soothing hot dinner cooked on our new Esbit
stove.  We found that it took 2 to 2.5 fuel tabs to
cook a 2-Lipton dinner in the big 2-person 2-Liter
stainless steel MSR pot.  Andy was muttering something
about white gas power under his breath, but I asked
him to withhold Esbit judgement until our next dinner.

The stars were big and bright over head, and all was
well until the spider appeared.  This was no ordinary
wolf spider, but one of the gargantuan, horror-movie
style, pointy legged, jumbo-sized walking nightmares. 
Andy decided that it was better to escape into sleep
than listen to my non-stop complaining about the
tarp's "unprotected lower perimeter."  Although he had
flicked the spider into the woods, I was sure it would
come back to cuddle up to a warm sleeping bag. 
However, my body knew better than my mind, and I had
no trouble sleeping comfortably in the arm's of nature
under the tarp.  After all, no tarantulas got to us on
the PCT.  

Buddy didn't stir much all night.  No trembling this
trip, despite cold temperatures.  I think having two
of us to lie between helped, as did his thicker coat.

A lone dog bayed in the near distance, but I heard no
other sound all night.


Sunday January 20, 2002

Morning brought a restful waking and condensation on
the ceiling of our Mountain Hardware Bat Ray tarp-tent
hybrid.  We ate breakfast leisurely, then packed up.  

I was amazed at the small size and light weight of my
new Dana Racer X pack.  It's very compact and my load
was only about 20 - 25 lbs, which seems to be a
reasonable expectation of my new and improved
beginning thru-hike load when sharing gear with Andy. 
Disadvantages include more packing time to get it
properly balanced in the morning and lack of extra
organizational pockets.  Both are not going to hinder
me much, and I consider them worth the 3 pounds lost. 
It also looks awkward and funny, not sleek and
technical.  This would cause great concern, except
that I was wearing ugly clashing green Coolmax clothes
that trumped any of the backpack’s stylistic
shortcomings.    

We passed a dirt road and boy scout camp.  We hadn't
seen anyone on the trail yesterday in the Magnolia
section, so other than road crossings, we opted to
leave Buddy off his leash.  This turned into a bad
decision as we came upon a man and two older boys, one
of whom decided to run away from Buddy who was
approaching him for a greeting.  Of course, Buddy gave
chase with no harm intended, but I know he frightened
the boy.  We felt very, very bad about that and
decided to keep Bud between us and leash him as soon
as we saw others approaching.  This worked really well
the rest of the day, and we had him on a leash for all
other hiker meetings and road crossings that day. 
I'll definitely always keep him leashed on busy
trails.

A nice creekside walk turned towards the wilderness of
Big Creek Scenic Area, a collection of immense pines,
oaks, American Holly trees, elm, River Birch, beech,
magnolia, cypress, Eastern Red Cedar, Dogwood, Redbud,
rhododendron, laurel, Yaupon, Palmetto, Yucca (a sign
that one is on the western edge of the great Eastern
Forest), and a myriad of other trees and shrubs that I
could not identify.  The water in Big Creek was clear
and fast-flowing, there were some rolling hills to
cross and some very quaint scenic spots with mini
waterfalls and beautiful boy scout-built bridges.  I
was quite surprised at how the LST continued to be
well-blazed, free of burdening deadfall, wide and
without a lot of undergrowth.  We took several photos
of us standing beside huge Longleaf pines and
magnolias, the kind of trees that must have graced all
of this land just a few hundred years ago.  I saw a
few large white oaks and some really dark thickets of
Loblolly pines.

Also surprising to me was that we walked all morning
and into the afternoon without once crossing a road. 
Eight miles in East Texas, and no sign of human
beings.  I didn't think it possible.  We were in the
heart of the Sam Houston National Forest, just one of
several large forests in the region. There were
several open areas in the forest, where signs of ice
storms, pine bark beetles or tornadoes was evident,
but no logging roads or clear cuts in sight.  

There were other people out hiking, though.  We met
two other backpackers that hailed from near our home. 
They were hiking in the opposite direction and one was
a fairly loud, entertaining guy who decided to unleash
his hiking know-how on us.  As he stood before us in
his cotton sweat pants beside his jean-clad friend, he
wanted us to talk gear with him.  We had no interest,
having burnt out gear talk long, long ago in far away
lands.  I'm sure that the strange sight of my little
ultralight pack with an old garbage bag over it for a
rain cover and Andy’s stinking dirt-encrusted
thru-hiker’s pack made him think we didn't know what
we were doing and fueled his gear mania.  The funniest
comment he made was that he had "hiked the Appalachian
Trail," which brought forth a story about how "over
there" he had stayed in "shelters."  Andy asked him
what part of the trail he had hiked, sensing it hadn't
been all of it, and he replied that he had hiked a bit
in the Smokies.  I don’t think the conversation was
condescending, but it was definitely one-sided.  It
was both good and bad that they weren't going our
direction.  We (he) would have found plenty to talk
about, but I was happy when we all turned and headed
separate directions.  The solitude of this trail was
very magnetic, and I wanted to get back to it.

We ate a nice lunch and hiked on, crossing a big fork
of the San Jacinto River, and entering a more jungly,
muddy section.  As the day wound down, we found
ourselves walking along Tarkington Bayou and without
much choice of dry campsites.  The upper reaches of
the bayou provided good, tannin-free drinking water. 
A few sluggish tiger mosquitoes landed on me, but I
was too quick for them and they didn't survive long. 
Buddy was tired as we searched out a site to stay for
the night, and I was getting aggravated by fatigue at
the ten-mile marker.  On one hand, it is good to know
that I can still backpack ten miles without a problem.
 On the other, I will always compare mileage to the
big hikes and think of myself as a wimp for being
tired after "only" ten miles.  I try to think of the
lethargic people at my office who have to ride the
elevator to the second floor every day, but it doesn't
really appease me in any way.

The big rains never came, though they threatened.  It
was another very quiet night with only minor animal
noises and the sound of cars on a dirt road somewhere
a mile or so away.  The weather, different here from
day-to-day, was markedly warmer.  Last night I was
bundled tightly in my 20-degree down bag, but tonight
I had to use it as a blanket.

I heard coyotes yipping crazily as I shifted between
dreams at some dark hour.


Monday, January 21, 2002

Dawn brought me awake in a good mood to find all
perimeters secured against spiders.  Buddy got up and
stretched and sweetly greeted me with face kisses,
ears folded down and a slowly wagging tail.  He drank
a bunch and ate all of his puppy food breakfast, which
I feed him while hiking for the extra calories.  The
humidity made his long, silky coat puff out in all
directions.  Andy and I petted on him and smelled his
aromatic (good-smelling, really) deep warm fur…our own
miniature Lassie.

Cereal on milk was breakfast, which reminded Andy of
one of his newbie AT funny stories.  He had heard
other people saying that gorp with powdered milk was a
good snack, so he added powdered milk, in powder form,
to his trail mix.  He said he was picked on for it,
but it actually tasted good despite the messiness.  We
packed and were out of camp early, wanting to reach
the car before 2 or 3 pm.  It would allow to us to get
home before traffic in downtown Houston.  Hard to
believe we were 5 miles from a road, but only 1 hour
from that road to the big city, concrete, high-rises
and all.  Sort of reminded me of hiking around Bear
Mountain in New York state.

Shafts of sun came down through the thick forest.  The
trail path was more overgrown here.  Obviously, this
section wasn't walked on nearly as much as the others
we've passed over.  Tarkington Bayou was our neighbor
for the first mile; here it's waters were wider and
silty.  Buddy was off leash in this section, to his
delight.  He was madly racing through the trees and
jumping to grand heights over deadfall and brush
despite his full pack.  Frequently, he came bouncing
up to me, tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth
and whole sections of briars tangled in his thick
white ruff and bushy tail.  I hiked along half-way
looking at the forest through my own eyes and half-way
seeing his world, imagining the view he had as he
raced effortlessly through thickets and knowing
exactly where the interesting scents were located (on
stumps and tree ends).  I've never known that hiking
with another species could be so enlivening to the
spirit.  The dog was joyous in the woods this morning,
and it was catching.

Hitting occasional long stretches of mud reminded me
of the Smokies.  There were several large creeks to
ford, and we stopped hiking completely at one because
Andy's low hiking shoes were not designed to be
waterproof.  Whereas I could walk right through shin
deep water and my Asolo boots and knee-high gaiters
made short, dry work of it, Andy would most certainly
have a soaked boot interior.  This slowed him down at
crossings; he had to find a way across if he wanted to
keep his feet dry.  

I crossed and went to find a bathroom spot down the
trail.  Buddy was busily running full-speed between us
in an attempt to herd us back together -- the
sheltie's nightmare is having the "sheep" separated. 
Suddenly, I heard Andy yell out in pain, and I
immediately called to him.  He responded slowly that
he was OK.  I thought that he had twisted an ankle
slipping off a log that lay across the creek, but when
I returned to the site, he was holding his eye and
moaning severely.  A very small tree branch, just a
twig really, had poked his eye as he was busy trying
to cross on the log over the creek.  There were lots
of small trees, hawthorns, bayberry, dogwoods and
yaupon along the drainage.  

We washed out the eye, and I looked for anything in
it, but I couldn't see anything wrong.  I thought that
he had only scratched it, and it still might feel like
there was an object in it.  Andy was adamant that
there was something large still in the eye, and all I
could do was try to calm him, rinse it out with water
and look.  After 15 minutes, he managed to start
hiking, but his eye was intensely red and swelling. 
We hiked about a mile more when he stopped, miserably
proclaiming that he was absolutely sure that there was
something in his eye.  

This time I was getting scared and decided to
completely pull the eyelid off the eyeball and look at
the entire thing whether it hurt him or not.  First we
irrigated the eye for a full minute using a Platypus
hose.  I was horrified when I pulled the upper lid off
the eye and a half-inch-long stick slowly rolled out
of the socket toward me.  I gently pulled it out; how
Andy maintained composure, I do not know.  It was an
awful sight, and I couldn't believe that anyone could
have something that huge in their eye.  Feeling guilty
for not having seen it before, I tried to comfort him.
 He felt better, but was still convinced it wasn't 
all out.  Whatever the case, we needed to get to a
hospital soon.  A steady stream of tears was falling
down his cheek, and the whole side of his face was
enflamed.

We took a steady pace back to the car.  The earlier
free-spirited romping was over; even Buddy knew
something was wrong.  The forest was muddier. 
Sections of young pines, thick and impenetrable, were
interspersed with sections of old oaks, cottonwoods
and hickories.  We waded through old leaves.  I even
saw a black walnut at one point.  The day was near 75
or 80 degrees, causing a mild sweat.

At the highway, I left Andy and decided to slackpack
the remaining 5 miles to the car.  I wasn't sure about
hitchhiking here where hikers never hitched.  The
first mile past the road was very beautiful: large
hills covered in mature pines, a thick rhododendron
carpet underneath, and a clear, pebble-lined creek. 
It didn't look anything like the flat San Jacinto
River bottomland that followed it.  

As I descended into this bottomland, all the world
seemed to turn against me.  My 3.5 mph pace was halted
to a 1 mph slog through deep, boot-sucking mud.  The
trail twisted and turned with no treadway to follow. 
Blazes became less and less easy to spot.  The place
was all drooping, moss-choked oaks whose branches
twisted strangely downward with a spooky feel, making
me nervous.  At times, I would completely lose the
trail.  I was afraid to go far from one blaze in
search of the next, because when I turned around, I
saw the same scene in every direction: the same trees,
a watery surface over grey mud and no landmarks to go
from.  It was like looking in a mirrored room at a
carnival.  I strained forward and backward, tripping
and slipping.  Buddy’s leash tangled in my legs, and
we were now filthy.  The air was thick and stagnant. 
This was hell.

Finally, I found what I thought was the trail again
after being lost a.  I had never walked a full mile in
foot-deep mud since the spring of 1998 on the AT, and
I assure you that it is not fun.  The blazes suddenly
reappeared in front of me to me utter delight, and my
guidebook seemed to confirm that the "very muddy
section" was coming to an end past milepost 92.  It
did end; I walked up on an old railroad bed.  It was
high and dry, but familiar.  I looked around
carefully.  I never forgot a notable place:  this was
most definitely the fair and beautiful forest nearer
the highway.  I stood there jaw agape, incensed!  I
had hiked a complete circle -- something I had never
done before. I kicked at the mud, fell on my butt, and
Buddy came up to console me sweetly.  I decided to
give up and return to the highway where Andy was
resting.  We would simply hitch out.  Today was not my
day to cross the bottomlands of the LST.  I had to get
Andy out to a doctor -- that was most important.

When Buddy and I returned to the road, it turned out
to be an easy, safe hitch back to my car with old,
country people in a 1970s era pickup truck.  The
hospital and home were a 2-hour drive back,
supplemented with a hamburger, fries and a Coke.  It
felt good to be on our way to help.  Andy couldn't
even open his eye, and mucus was building up at the
corners of it.

We spent the evening in the ER getting help.  The next
week I drove Andy to several doctors who watched his
eye with concern.  The scratch on his iris was very
large and did not heal as fast as expected.  He only
had to wear a patch for one day, but he missed several
days of work.  It healed back to normal after 7 days. 
Just goes to show you that you never know what might
happen out on a hike, and it's good to take any eye
injuries seriously.  I'm glad that I turned back and
got him to a hospital that day.

The trip was really nice other than the eye poking. 
Any concerns that I had about finding a poorly
maintained, brush-choked ugly Lone Star Trail were
unfounded.  Despite the incident with the bottomlands
(which may have been heightened by my stress over
Andy's eye), the trail was in tip-top shape, and we
enjoyed every mile of it.

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