Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Seems Lajitas has been getting hit pretty hard. Almost 4" in the last 24 hrs.

coming from the east on 170 and going out west on RR you could be cut off within just a couple of hundred feet of Lajitas unless that switch road was made but then you would have miles of dangerous rocks falling from that much of rain. We have seen that several times even to a point where we COULD not hunt RR in the old days due to : #1...the river was actually over the road, #2...the road had so many rocks from coming down the cuts the road was blocked off, #3...if not closer in, several draws and arroyos were flooded and we have seen cars that swept down the flooding arroyos, #4...the BIG HILL had gravel/rock slides before the retaining wall was built, #5...even the flat area by the Easter Egg Valley Motel was flooded and lasted all night that we had to stay on 118 of the 10 mile stretch, #6...at times in old days you couldn't even travel 118 in places due to flooding in dips, #7...of even present we had a very hard time making it up to the upper cabins at Wildhorse after one of these monsoon events. Now for your info rak, yes there was a heck of monsoon down in around Lajitas and parts of Terlingua and the forecast is calling for more. The person said parts of RR is closed off NOW and is expected to be closed for expectation of rock slides later. This is scary as we had 2 experience with a quick monsoon coming in unknown to us while out on RR with trying to get back one night to Study Butte. The other one was on the gap on a moonless night where the water came from another place ( mountain ) and we dove into about 3 feet of water that expanded at least 100 feet across the road. I had my Isuzu Trooper with that huge clearance but for the fact we didn't even see the flooding, we were in it before I knew what was happening and I have never seen so much water going OVER my roof of vehicle before ! I kept the engine gunned and got through it but we were stuck out on the gap for 4 hours which really wasn't a bad thing since we were in and able to hunt the prime mileage. AND we did find multiple species that included some of those very beautiful subocs, a huge longnose, several very good looking small blacktails, a milk, and several glossys. No alterna though. Also I have never been able to repeat that night while in the gap. LOL !
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

Even after a small shower you will have issues with rocks and mud rolling out to the road. This year we watched as a rock the size of 20" television came down at the top of the big hill and rolled down the road for a while on the west side. Had we been up the road another 50 feet when it happened we would have been hit with that one. Once it came to a rest we heaved it to the shoulder so other cars would not hit it if they were not paying attention.

Rain out there is a mixed blessing.

I've seen rocks the size of volkswagens land right on RR. It's pretty dangerous when that's happening.

If there is any amount of rain, or when the ground is drying up again after the rains. You just need to take your time and pay attention.