>From: "Jack Parsell"
>When you were at azbcso was there any water in
>the Colorado River? When we were there in Nov.
>1990, the objective was the low point of AZ.
>All of the water was flowing thru an irrigation
>channel parallel to the river leaving the wide
>river bed completely dry. We walked out to the
>lowest area in the river bed in line with the
>boundary fence on shore. The Mexican bridge in
>the background is just south of the border.
>Since we weren't chasing boundary points at that
>time, we didn't realize we had also been at azbcso.
>
>This wouldn't be a class a visit since there is no
>marker in the river bed, but wouldn't it qualify
>for a fairly high level of visit?
sanderson tx
thanx jack
so of course you have preceded me here at azbcso too
as well as trumped my class c visit
since i would call your visit class b
or the best possible for an unmarked point
assuming you walked along the low point of the dry river bed or thalweg past
the visible monument alignment just south of the wall end
which i couldnt do in such high water
but could only ogle it from the bridge
i also realized belatedly that david too has previously posted a birding
report from aznmso in guadalupe canyon
tho i am not sure whether there was an actual visit in that case
but in any case it is clear now that the mxus tristate points were not quite
as virgin as i had presumed
yet we are still having too much fun with mxus to care that we were not the
first nor the best
sleepiness & subzero windchill by the time we reached presidio on new years
eve thwarted our intention to welcome the new era from the rio grande
international hot spring in big bend
so we saw the last of the old era off at the confluence of the rio conchos &
sat there with the engine running into the daybreak to keep warm
til a vertical bolt of light appeared just above the impending sunrise
reading like the number 1
while a matching vertical rainbow stood up in the west like another number 1
just in case there was any doubt that this was day 1 of year 1 of the
palindromic millennium
first rainbow i have ever seen before sunrise too
but still no bath
anyway i then realized we had a shot at another mxus tristate point chcotx
or chihuahua coahuila texas within the big bend np even before we would
reach our hot tub so we were thus able to continue to prolong & expand our
magic moment of epochal transition & incorporate a try within it as well
but we hadnt done our research in time so we could only give it our best
shot based on the rather good but still inadequate national park map
which was later corroborated by an also rather good but still inadequate
national geographic map also
but i mean we had nothing official from mexico
nor had we any idea of what a mexican interstate terminal mark might look
like
& thus didnt find our point
but our class e visit did include an exray sighting of the presumed general
area of the tripoint from the left bluff thru the thick vegetation
as indicated by these maps
our binocular scan of the right bluff from the left bluff revealed no
visible witness monument
when we finally punched our way thru the palo verde & bamboo we did reach
the river at the point indicated by the maps & did walk along the bank for a
quarter of a mile or so
alongside a mexican island of that same length
which just might have been in both chihuahua & coahuila
so you could say we have a lottery ticket in the class c chcotx chase
because we just might have been visiting chcotx class c at that point
but the point is we saw no monument
& indeed no one has yet reported any mexican interstate marker anywhere
tho we still have 2 more chances to find one where nuevo leon & tamaulipas
kick in farther down the river
& will try these points next
in all we drove & walked a total of 70 miles off the pavement
before finding only the general location indicated
& our hot springing was delayed & our transition thus prolonged by about 36
hours
now this possibly only international hot spring in the world is in my
opinion really in mexico even tho it is generally agreed to be in the usa
because the bath construction projects out from the american bank past where
the thalweg would run by if it could
i mean the deepest & fastest part of the river washes right up against the
american manmade outcropping
all you have to do is jump out of the hot american enclosure into the cold
stream & you have bathed mxus not only as well as possible but in the
finnish or turkish hot & cold style to boot
this of course i did
tho i had to swim for all i was worth not to get blown away by the current
a third special mxus attraction in big bend in an unguarded border crossing
that seems more like a theme park joke than reality
first you get rowed across the 10 foot wide river in a skiff & then you ride
on a burro to the village of boquillas del carmen
no kidding
it is as real & lively & funky & noisy etc as anywhere else in mexico
just isolated & forgotten
finally at the visitor center we saw an interesting mxus book titled two
eagles or dos aguilas
which had a picture of the mxus monument at the continental divide
i think it was monument number 65 & appeared on page 45 if anyone can dish
it up
for tho the book doesnt say it this mon probably marks the chnmso or
chihuahua new mexico sonora tristate point
as this is the only mxus tristate point west of here that hadnt been
reported yet at all
my odd sighting of it in this book leaves only the 2 tristates east of here
conutx & nutatx totally incognita so far
& tho i see from maps that they look difficult
still if i can only glimpse them both
then collectively we will have something like a complete meld of mxus
almost overnight
must run as usual now
but nice going to both pepijn & peter in your concurrent tries
the possibility that the world could have a forgotten 6th condo is most
intriguing
so please keep these world class visits & reseraches coming
m
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