Hill running under the Texas sun
I regret not having done some kind of spell or ritual, but I simply wasn’t prepared.
Last week E and I were lucky enough to enjoy a working vacation with our friends who live outside Austin, Texas. By happenstance, we were there during the annular1 solar eclipse, which was pretty remarkable. We weren’t in the strip of the globe where the entire moon covers the sun, forming a complete ‘ring of fire,’ but it got pretty darn close. I only forgot to look through my eclipse glasses a couple times and probably didn’t do permanent damage.
The sun made fun little crescent-shaped shadows through the leaves and made our shadow-fingers look like they had claws and the temperature noticeably dropped and the light was weird.
I regret not having done some kind of spell or ritual, but I simply wasn’t prepared.
My two priorities for the trip were swimming and fitting in a long run, preferably in the same outing, since we really just had the weekend to hang out and recreate. Unfortunately, while planning out our itinerary, I was informed that uh, actually it’s been an insanely dry year—dry several years really. My friend is really quite polite but if it had been me I would have added you idiot. I thought you wrote about this climate stuff.
Which led me to this 2022 Texas Monthly article about all the swimming holes that were closed or dry last year, and probably this year, too.2
I still ended up planning out a long run through the Barton Creek Greenbelt, even though the charmingly named swimming holes at Gus Fruh, Twin Falls, and Campbell’s Hole were dry and dusty. I love exploring green spaces in other cities and this is a really, really good one that clearly sees lots of use. We saw other trail runners, a couple (extremely polite and careful!) mountain bikers, some rock climbers, and lots of walkers. On the long, rocky descent from the Trail’s End trailhead we even passed a couple people who looked like they might have taken a dip (or tried to) in the creek, before the water disappears entirely underground, but from the trail it looked rather shallow and stagnant. (Here’s Sculpture Falls when the water is free flowing and here it was sometime last year, and it looked at least as dry as that to me last weekend, if not more so.)
Hoo boy do I still love trail running, even if I had to cut all but one of our Texas runs short because it’s just that much harder than regular running. I loved running under the dramatic limestone cliffs, and along all the narrow trails through the tall brush. E stopped to show me a lizard that had skittered across the path and up a tree, where it performed a set of pushups for us (perhaps in an attempt at intimidation).
The biggest twinge of regret came when we passed Barton Springs Pool midway through our run, and it looked really glorious and empty for such a beautiful Sunday. My initial plan had been to begin and end at the pool, and cap off our run with a swim, but our trip also coincided with a giant music festival in the adjacent park, and we heard parking around there would be an absolute nightmare, if not impossible. So we mosied on (cutting our run short by four miles because I was exhausted) to meet our friends at a brewery. Tough life!
But the sleeper hit was the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge just a short drive away from our friends’ house, which had four interlocking trails that could be easily strung together to make 3 - 5 mile running/hiking routes. We visited thrice in the early evenings to wind our way through trees and up and down along the ridgelines to the sound of my very heavy breathing and the chirping of birds unseen.
The refuge was established to protect the nesting grounds of the black-capped vireo and the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, and it could not be more needed. From the Vista Knoll trail we could see a giant swath of bare ground being prepared for a housing complex in the valley below, and it seemed from our brief trip that there is a ton of development in the area right now.3
Reading list
I’ve been sitting on some of these links for some time now, so some are less timely than others, but here we go:
Manhattan has a new public beach, but there’s no swimming allowed. [Ramsey Khalifeh for Gothamist]
We risk losing significant chunks of our coastal national parks to sea level rise. [Lori Sonken for National Parks Traveler]
On a related note, I was devastated to learn that National Parks Traveler will be shuttering at the end of the year due to insufficient funding. The publication covered essential stories often overlooked by other magazines and newspapers (like this one about the Appalachian Trail’s new superintendent’s record of fiscal misconduct). They are looking for another organization to pick up that mantle though, in case you know of any. [Kurt Repanshek for National Parks Traveler]
Iceland is increasing tourism taxes to alleviate the taxing impact of visitors on its wilderness. [Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir for Bloomberg]
From 2012 to 2022, New York state rangers found and rescued more than 5,400 people. [Emilie Munson for the Times Union]
Peru’s Pastoruri glacier was a destination for snow-loving adventurers. Then it began melting, and the country rebranded the trek as “La Ruta del Cambio Climático” — “The Route of Climate Change.” [Sarah Kaplan for the Washington Post]
The case for closing trails and parks to outdoor recreationists—temporarily, at least—to protect wildlife. [Christine Peterson for The Atlantic]
While I was in New Orleans for a wedding, I interviewed some folks about the saltwater wedge and what to do about it now. [Jessica McKenzie for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]
Another reason I was okay skipping a swim? Brain-eating amoebas. Appreciate the Pinch of Dirt reader who warned me about this before our trip.
I tried to find news articles about this but all I found was this story about an all-foam house.
Hey that’s me!