September 22, 2023
Chris talks with Interpretive Ranger Charlie Ewing about Davis Mountains State Park and Indian Lodge, their beautiful mountain setting and a bit about their history, with structures built by the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps.
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Transcript for “Visiting Davis Mountains State Park”:
Intro
Welcome to the Heart of the Big Bend. It’s time to kick back, put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage or snack as we discussed, declare, proclaim, publicize and articulate about the wonders, magic, beauty, music and happenings here in the area known as the Big Bend of Texas.
Chris Ruggia
Hello, welcome, and thank you for joining us again for Heart of the Big Bend. This is a podcast and radio show coming to you every other week about visiting the beautiful Big Bend of Texas. Specifically, we will cover what’s happening in Alpine, an incredibly friendly, small town nestled in a desert mountain valley at the heart of the Big Bend region. With easy day trips from Alpine, you can take in everything this amazing region has to offer.
I’m Chris Ruggia, Director of Tourism for the City of Alpine, and today I’m joined by Charlie Ewing, interpretive Ranger for Davis Mountain State Park.
Charlie Ewing
Good afternoon, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Chris R
I’m so glad that you that you joined us and looking back at at our all our topics that we’ve covered over the last couple of years and I just was astounded that we had not yet talked about Davis Mountain State Park.
Charlie E
I know we’ve been waiting.
Chris R
Yeah, I want to let you know that. My wife and I, our relationship to this area is really tied to that State Park. We got married in ’92 and then our 2nd anniversary, we came out to Big Bend from Austin for the first time ever to the park and it was so hot down at Rio Grande Village that we fled and that was the first time we hit Davis Mountain State Park. But we kept coming back and one of the things was the the night sky, you know, the reputation that the region of the Davis Mountains specifically had from a journaled observatory about the night sky.
My my wife had heard about that and so all those things drew us out, and we’ve kept coming back. I am going to let you talk in a second, but one of the things that really struck us that first time we came, we were coming from Big Bend National Park which are these massive landscapes. It’s this majestic. The badlands around Terlingua, the Chisos Mountains, and Davis Mountain State Park, it’s cozier. It’s a much smaller footprint, but also it’s really like. Its scale kind of matches us as people, you know?
Charlie E
Yeah, it’s a little bit more tame or approachable.
Chris R
Yeah, not too tame, but.
Charlie E
No, no, no, no. But that’s a common story. You know, the thing that draws people out here, like myself and my partner, the park is what got us. That’s why we live in Fort Davis, because we never thought of any other place, because that’s next to the park. I know what you mean.
The Davis Mountains is a sky island, an elevated area of grasslands and mountains surrounded by desert. Davis Mountains State Park is on the east edge of that. Right as you’re entering the Davis Mountains, you get to experience the park.
Chris R
The journey from Alpine to Davis Mountains State Park really is a journey through the Davis Mountains because as I understand it, the Twin Sisters, which are the mountains of real recognizable mountains overlooking Alpine, that’s one edge, so to speak. I’ll probably be in a little inaccurate here of the Davis Mountain. The whole drive really is these passes through beautiful landscapes of the Davis Mountains. Part way through, then you go past the city of Fort Davis. You got a fork that you can take. You’re going to not go to Balmorhea.
Charlie E
You’re going to head to the left about 3 miles beyond the Fort of Fort Davis, you’ll find Davis Mountains State Park.
Chris R
Give or take half hour drive from Alpine. What can people expect when they make that drive?
Charlie E
Davis Mountains State Park is known for its camping and hiking, night skies, and bird watching. It’s a CCC park, as are about 1/3 of Texas State Parks. That stands out since this is the 100 year anniversary of the whole Texas State Parks system.
Chris R
Right. You guys have some of those original structures that were built by the civilian conservation.
Charlie E
Exactly, yeah. The CCC – Civilian Conservation Corps. It was a 1930s program initiated during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to get young men back to work during the Great Depression. Between 1933 and 1935, there was a company of men camped out at the park. They built the original structure of the Indian Lodge and also carved out Skyline Drive.
Chris R
Up at the top there’s that overlooked shelter. Is that also a CCC structure?
Charlie E
It sure is. It’s called the the CCC Overlook.
Chris R
That’s probably why I thought that.
Charlie E
Yeah, and it’s still there. There’s other picnic tables up there and an outdoor, you know. I guess BBQ pits that are still there, you know people marvel at the the concrete they used back then because it’s the real thing. It’s still standing and you don’t see that nowadays.
Chris R
Very true. You mentioned Indian Lodge. That’s another odd quality of this particular park, because you got two parks in one.
Charlie E
That is true. So the Indian Lodge is its own park, even though it’s within Davis Mountain State Park. That’s because it’s a hotel and they have a restaurant. They’re the only two examples of that in the Texas State park system run by Texas Parks and Wildlife. They kind of require their own management because they’re so unique.
Chris R
There’s been a lot of work on the lodges. It’s the historic structure, and then there are some additions that are newer. What’s the status now? Can I go make a reservation?
Charlie E
Not yet. People come out and say, “Oh my God, the the lodge is closed again,” because it seems like every couple years it it gets closed for something or other. But that proposition that got passed a few years ago that promised some tax money from sporting goods sales funnels to Texas Parks and Wildlife. We are using that money and we are making crucial upgrades to the lodge. They’re redoing all of the water systems, all those water lines that are decades old under the pavement, all had to be dug up and redone. All of the rooms are going to have pergolas out front, so nice covering covered porch, new doors, new windows. They were all original landscaping, more ADA wheelchair accessible. The word on the street is that there should be at least a partial opening by mid to late spring.
Chris R
OK.
Charlie E
No promises. That’s what we’re hoping for.
Chris R
OK, well, and even if even if you can’t stay there, you can see the building because it’s really, it’s really striking. That white Adobe structure is almost like a ship, you know?
Charlie E
Oh yeah. It’s floating on the side of the mountain.
Chris R
Yes.
Charlie E
Right now it’s barricaded off, but if you go up to the scenic overlook on Skyline Drive, if you have some binoculars, that’s a great vantage point to look down on it.
Chris R
Now, is the trail behind the lodge accessible?
Charlie E
So the Indian Lodge Trail, you can access it from the Montezuma Quail Trail and head over about halfway, but you can’t come down all the way because then you’re back behind the construction zone.
Chris R
Which leads us to the hiking area. There is an excellent small network of trails is what I would describe it. You can kind of pick which side of the park road you’re going to hike on.
Charlie E
You can go civilized or primitive. We have about 25 miles of total trail. On the camping side of the highway, the main side of the park, you’ve got a handful of trails ranging from – we call them easy, but they’re really not easy because they’re all rocky.
Chris R
That’s the ground out there. You’re walking on it.
Charlie E
Yeah, wear good shoes. You’re gonna step over some rocks, yeah. Trekking poles. Everything out here can poke you or sting you or bite you. But we have a nice range of trails. Then if you want to hike on the primitive side, there are several trails there. You just have to check in at the front office and get permission.
Chris R
That’s actually across the highway.
Charlie E
That is true, yeah. There’s a neat side of the highway, that side of the park is almost equal inside to the other side. So about 2,000 total acres of park there.
Chris R
We’ve only actually been up there a couple of times.
Charlie E
It’s cool. As it gets cooler in the fall, things are greener, now is the best time to go. You can hike up to the top of the of the primitive side and there are about 9 to 10 campsites, so you can do some camping out up there.
Chris R
Within the main developed portion of the park, there’s the Indian Lodge Trail we talked about, which has quite a bit of elevation gains. That’s a pretty steep, steep walk, but you get great views once you’re up top of it. On the other side, I think of it being around the skyline, you can walk up the Skyline Rd. If you have any mobility concerns, you don’t want to trip on on the rocks and such. You could make that walk, which we sometimes will do that or you can hike up from the amphitheater area. And the backside to up the skyline.
Charlie E
Yeah, that’s Skyline Drive Trail.
Chris R
Now there was at one point the CCC trail from the Visitor Center area, but that one was closed at one point for work?
Charlie E
Yeah, it was closed a bit. The big rain of 2021 closed down part of the trail and well, it’s closed down the whole trail because of erosion. We reopened that in May.
Chris R
Oh, great.
Charlie E
Yeah. All of the trails are currently open.
Chris R
That one connects really, really cleanly to one of my favorite things that I talked with Dave Larson from Fort Davis National Historic Site 2 weeks ago, which is the trail that connects those two parks, so the CCC trail and also the Skyline Drive to also connect with that.
Charlie E
Right.
Chris R
That additional walk if you want to come up behind and look down on the Fort.
Charlie E
Yes, you can. And if you want to streamline that, you can drive up Skyline Drive, park at the end of the road at that CCC overlook, that stone structure, and you can start there. Hike over to the actual Fort, the National Historic Site, because we’re neighbors. That makes for a really fun time.
Chris R
That’s a little less an investment of time to get.
Charlie E
Yeah. A little quicker. So that’s pretty fun too.
Chris R
Absolutely, yeah. One of our favorite things my wife and I do is we have lunch at the park. We’ll drive into Fort Davis from Alpine, stop at Stone Village grocers and get to do that. Get a sandwich. Then we go and we’ll picnic in the picnic area, and then we walk up part of that Skyline Trail and as much as we want sometimes. That doesn’t take long, it’s a great break getting outdoors.
Charlie E
Great day, high afternoon and again the the temperatures are cooling off. I think next week the highs are going to be in the 70s. We’ve had a little rain. We had a lot, we had two inches of rain this past weekend and so things are going to be greening up. October, late September/October is a great time to be at the park.
Chris R
For sure, yeah. The campgrounds, too, are really shaded. They’re forested, almost. All those little oak trees. They’re really – cozy is really the word. You know, there’s a little bit of privacy with the trees and you got shade during the day when the sun’s out. That’s all wonderful.
Also adjacent to the campgrounds, you mentioned birding as a great thing to do. Well, it’s great for our whole area. The Sky Islands often have a lot of diversity of bird species, but you guys also have have that bird blind.
Charlie E
We do. We have two wonderful bird viewing areas. One is at the Interpretive Center where where I work. The other is the Emory Oak Bird Blind, and that was built before I got to the park, maybe 10 years ago by volunteers and staff. That is a huge draw. People come from all over. They’re wanting to see their lifetime birds. These birders who were really on a mission, they’re coming to see Montezuma Quail. Their range in Texas is very, very small and Davis Mountains is one of them. This summer we had a lot of sightings.
Chris R
One of the great things about I think it must be the Emory. Oakland is not attached to the interpretive center. It’s along the Main Park Rd. that we see most frequently. The experienced birders who are coming out to see a specific bird that’s only in the Davis Mountains, they get that great experience, but there’s also the sign right out front. Where somebody who’s never even tried – one, you’ve got this blind. You’ve got the wall to stand behind so you’re not disturbing the birds and then you can watch them at your leisure. But you’ve also got a sign right next to you to say, here’s half a dozen frequently seen birds, so you can kind of match what you’re looking at if you’ve never done it before.
Charlie E
Yeah, that’s totally helpful. I’m just a budding birder, but if you just commit some time and effort, you can get ten birds on your memory banks that, “Oh yeah, I’m seeing those all the time.” It’s exciting.
Chris R
Yeah, and one things if folks haven’t tried it – when you have Wi-Fi before you get right into the middle of the park, you might download the Merlin app from the Cornell Birding people.
Charlie E
That is crucial.
Chris R
Oh, and the sound part is just amazing. You can record sound on your phone. It tells you, “here’s all the different birds you can hear at this moment,” so that might be fun to play with at the Davis Mountain State Park.
Charlie E
Birding apps are great for sure.
Chris R
You’re dealing with interpretation. What kind of programs are you working on?
Charlie E
Yeah, my role is, I’m the Interpretive Ranger and the Volunteer Coordinator. Interpreter, Ranger, a lot of people wonder if that means I speak a lot of different languages. I don’t. That merely means I get to tell the story of the park and help people experience the park. I get to come up with our programs, our walks, our talks. I do outreach. I work with volunteers.
So some fun things I’ve been working on lately. I’m always trying to think of new programming I’ve done. I do a history talk, we do a critter talk. My colleague has developed a program on the geology of the park. We call that the rock stars of Davis Mountains.
I’ve also reached out to our community and so I’m going once a month to our local library to help with their story time, which is catering to the homeschool kids. I do that once a month and then on on another day of the month, I’ve started up a homeschool program at the park. I just had my first one last week and we had 33 kids and 20 adults. Most people I’ve never seen in the interpretive center. There’s a real need for things for homeschool kids to do, you know, field trips. People came from Fort Davis, Alpine, Marfa. I even had two families from Kent, Texas, and Van Horn. So that’s exciting. I have a whole year’s worth of things going for that, and it’ll be the second Tuesday of the month Excellent at Davis Mountain State Park.
Chris R
Could they stop in and take advantage of that? Or is it really more of a school…
Charlie E
It’s really kind of reserved for the homeschool kids.
Chris R
What else?
Charlie E
Oh, you know, we’ve had different. Typically, our park hosts have helped us with birding walks at the park, but one of my other colleagues is working on building her birding skills so we can get that going again. There’s always different things happening at the park. If folks want to know what programs are coming up for their trip or once they’re here, I post the schedule.
Chris R
At the park, is there any other ways people can find out about what’s coming up?
Charlie E
The best way would probably be to go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department page. Well, really, I guess go to the Davis Mountain State Park web page and there’s a tab for events. There you can see that the calendar of events. That’s the best way to do it.
Chris R
Good deal.
Charlie E
Oh, and I’ve also started doing my version of the McDonald Observatory Star Party, but you know, copyright issues. I call it the Dark Sky Tour. I’ve been doing that.
Chris R
How frequently do you do those?
Charlie E
Typically twice a month, on Wednesdays when the the moon is pretty minimal.
Chris R
Excellent. One thing we often tell people about the star parties at McDonald Observatory, which are great experiences, boy, you need to reserve ahead of time. So if your trip’s kind of last minute or whatever and you don’t have that reservation…
Charlie E
Look us up. We’re kind of filling in that little void there.
Chris R
That’s great! There’s a lot of dark sky to go around.
Charlie E
There is. There’s a lot to share.
Chris R
There are a lot of nights that we can look up and we need some help to know what we’re looking at.
Charlie E
Yeah, it’s super exciting. I’ve got about 15 constellations under my belt now that I can point at. I’m learning.
Chris R
Excellent. Thanks for doing that.
Charlie E
It’s fun.
Chris R
So anything else going on at the park these days? Anything new?
Charlie E
Well, we do have a new Superintendent coming in October. I won’t give away his name, but he’ll start in October. So that’ll be exciting. Of course we’re waiting for the Indian Lodge and the Black Bear to reopen in the springtime.
Chris R
Absolutely. The Black Bear being the restaurant in the lodge?
Charlie E
Correct. The Black Bear restaurant. If you haven’t eaten there, they have great, great food. Hopefully we’ll get back to having breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. If you’re out there looking for a career, definitely check out the job postings on Texas Parks and Wildlife Department website. We’ll have a lot of openings.
Chris R
That’s good to know. A lot of people want to live in the Big Bend.
Charlie E
Yeah, great benefits, good schedule. A great mission, great place to to work.
Chris R
Absolutely, yeah. I’m thinking about the Black Bear restaurant and what a luxury it is. Even if you’re not staying in the lodge, you’re camping to get up and get out of your tent and then go have breakfast that somebody else made, and just walk up there, it’s pretty amazing.
Charlie E
It’s kind of great, yeah. We’re under a burn ban about 10 out of 12 months a year. Yeah, just cuz things are so dry. You can typically use charcoal or propane.
Chris R
Yeah, just bring a little stove.
Charlie E
A little stove. Something to heat up, some oatmeal and maybe yeah.
Chris R
Cool. Well, anything else that folks should know at the moment?
Charlie E
Yeah, let me see. I’m trying to think, yeah, well I think we mentioned it earlier, but 2023 is the 100 year anniversary of Texas State Parks and so we already had our big event in May.
Chris R
I know that Big Bend Ranch State Park is having some things.
Charlie E
Yeah, they’re having one every month – October, November, December.
Chris R
If folks are wondering what those are, go to our podcast feed Heart of the Big Bend, and just the episode previous to this one.
Charlie E
We’re in the early stages at Davis Mountains of planning our next community event, which we’re thinking will be Saturday, November 11th.
Chris R
Cool.
Charlie E
But that’s still in the works. Just check the the website calendar if you’re interested in that all.
Chris R
Well, Charlie, thanks so much.
Charlie E
You’re so welcome.
Chris R
It’s about Davis Mountain State Park and when you decide what that event is, or anything. Maybe when the Indian Lodge is about to open, you know, feel free to come back and talk to us again.
Charlie E
Oh, that would be fun. Totally, totally.
Chris R
In fact, let’s talk about the history of the lodge when that happens. In detail.
Charlie E
Well, if you’re listening, come out to the park. Texas State parks are open for all. We want all people to feel welcome. You don’t have to be an expert and you don’t have to have all the right gear. You just got to have a curiosity and and we’ll take care of the rest.
Chris R
Davis Mountain State Park, as we said, it’s so approachable. You don’t have to be the outdoors person, the expert. You can really have a great time just showing up.
Charlie E
Totally, totally. Bring good shoes, walking shoes. And a hat.
Chris R
Always. Don’t have the Big Bend Area without good shoes, a hat, some sunscreen.
Chris R
Well, anyway, thanks so much again, Charlie, and thank all of you for joining us for Heart of the Big Bend. You can get more information about Heart of the Big Bend at visitalpinetx.com/podcast or search for Heart of the Big Bend on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast apps. And for all of you guys, listening to us on KALP/KVLF radio in Alpine, we’ll see you in two Fridays.
Outro
You’ve been listening to the heart of the Big Bend. Hope you liked what you heard and that you’ll find the time to experience all that the Big Ben has to offer. See you soon, partner.