Every trip is different, and this trip could be more aptly named “Cows and Climbing” Weekend! In late March, three six-year-old girls and their dads braved a chilly Texas spring to rough it and climb it. On Friday we pitched camp on former cotton field reverted to prairieland on private ranch to avoid the spring break crowds at the nearby State Parks. No bathrooms, just a hole in the ground! Then we went hiking and fishing at nearby Cleburne State Park. The views, as always, were amazing, with canyon walls and fossils underfoot. We returned to our campsite at dusk and fell asleep to the mellifluous sound of oil rig pumps in the distance providing white noise. Then, in the middle of the night, MOOO! MOOO! a herd of cows walked right through our campsite, lowing right next to the tents. Like, inches from the tent walls. They did this for about an eternity (half hour) before moving on.
Beside the truck you can see the spring flowers and behind them, our tents.
The next morning, we realized some cows and calves had been separated from the herd outside the fence, and a rancher came out and asked us to help chase them back in. Already cowgirls and cowboys, we added horses to the equation by driving over to the close-by Dinosaur Valley State park. There we had an hourlong horseback ride up the ridgeline overlooking the beautiful Paluxy River, home the first dinosaur trackway discovered in the United States. We also started changing our focus to climbing, with a steep scramble on all fours up a different ridge to an overlook above the river valley.
Taking in the views of the hills that form the Denio Creek watershed.
Then we drove over to Hico, Texas, to climb a trio of historic grain silos converted to an outdoor rock climbing gym. There we alternated between climbing the silos and challenging ourselves on the outdoor American Ninja Warrior set and zipline handcrafted by Dave Bradley, the owner of the silos, former shop teacher, and a ninja in his own right. Climbing the silos is part of the Texas Wild West’s “Introduction to Outdoor Climbing” course, which can be done as a single day trip from Dallas. We, however, we spreading the course out over the weekend. The silo walls are studded with the colorful handholds and jugs you would see in a traditional indoor climbing gym; however, they are outside. Being forty feet high, with the wind in your ears and birdseye perspective gained solely through self-powered ascent is a formative experience and soft introduction to climbing actual outdoor rock, planned for the next day. When we had had our fill ninjatime, we headed back to our campsites. On the way, we stopped for a picnic dinner at an overlook on Chalk Mountain where all of the Texas lowlands spread out beneath us in a patchwork whole.
The next day dawned cold and windy. Our girls braved it long enough to have a contest of collecting cow bones strewn all over the overgrazed ranch. From bleached skulls to femurs, they shouted and competed to find the most. The former bovine body parts did not seem not phase them at all. After we counted the winnings, we read the story of Ezekiel’s prophecy to the valley of the dry bones. It was a fitting end to winter and the beginning of flourishing spring. Then we bid farewell to our campsite, put sod over our toilet hole, and drove over to a steep river valley cut by the Nolan River. Here we put makeshift climbing helmets (bicycle helmets) on our girls and took them bouldering. After some truly picturesque panoramas from atop boulders we scaled in the river, we got sidetracked with hunting fossils which are in abundance along the river’s edge. Finally we climbed a pure rock climbing route (5.7) on the Chuck Norris wall and (if you’ll pardon the pun) ended our trip on a high note.
