That afternoon, the skies opened up. We needed an activity break, anyway, so we headed out of the park to do the scenic drive through the Davis Mountains. It took us about 2 hours with stops. The highway meanders around past the McDonald Observatory, Mt Livermore, and my favorite ranch land, the Prude Ranch. Mt Livermore, which is the highest peak in the Davis Mountains, reaches over 8,000 ft. In contrast, the peak elevation in the park itself is only around 5,600 ft. Making the scenic drive particularly eventful, the storm held some intense microbursts. As I was driving, every so often we’d encounter a few hundred feet of downpour so hard it sounded like hail, and then it would let up again. During one of our stops, we could see a line of microbursts off in the distance.
Our other substantive hiking excursion in the Davis Mountains was the Limpia Creek Trail in the backcountry section of the park. We headed out on a cloudy morning before breakfast and signed the log at the vistor's center. My daughter got to hop out and open the gate to the parking lot. She was pretty excited to take a trail with padlock entry.
We lucked out and the weather stayed cool for the rest of the morning, ranging from sunny to misty. This seemed to be just the right weather to tempt many critters to visit us on the trail. Hundreds of black beetles were out in the sandy low-lands. They’d flip over and play dead when we put our shoe up next to them. As we headed into the switchback ascent, we spotted a desert millipede. We also saw a garter snake and a million species of grasshoppers (precise count). I learned from this experience that if you are under 5 feet, grasshoppers are particularly nerve wracking. For me, they were mostly a below-the-waist thing. But for my daughter, they were constantly zooming through her field of vision.
A garter snake isn't actually a concern, but I take umbrage with it because it went against my “kids are their own best defense against snakes” motto. I have still never had a close encounter with a snake while out with more than one child. Children are simply too noisy and vibrate-y together. But even though I was on this hike with only one kid, I had music playing because my daughter was a bit under the weather and tired (parent hack). I would have thought that would be enough to scare away all but the most determined wildlife. As a result, I was super startled by the snake and hadn’t really even processed its existence until it was mostly across the path in front of me. Just after I stopped for the snake, a mac-daddy of a grasshopper hit my ankle, and my daughter, who was behind me, got to see me jump very high. Snake species identification occurred mid-jump.
After we made it up to the Sheep Pen Canyon trail, which loops around the mountain top, the weather turned misty again. We didn’t end up going much farther because the kiddo was a little low on energy. This capped us at about a 5-mile out and back. It was a beautiful hike, though. And we didn’t see anyone else until we were almost back to the car.
Get out and take a misty day hike.
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