Climate Adaptation
The impetus for this ride came from a few directions. First, I am a lover of riding long distances, 100 miles or more. The amount of ground you cover, the many highs and lows you experience, the demons exorcized from your psyche, and the transcendental feeling of being on a bike during sunset and the subsequent sunrise can’t be replicated at shorter distances.
Second, it’s summer, which in Central Texas means it’s unwise and potentially unsafe to ride through the heat of the day. Only mad dogs and Englishmen are out at that time, as they say. So the ride would start at sundown and end, hopefully, before noon.
This summer was a particularly savage one, the hottest on record in fact. Over 70 days had been over 100 degrees in Austin, 45 of them in a row. Out of a sort of morbid curiosity I wanted to head into the worst of it and experience what will likely be a new normal down here. Climate change will not be kind to this part of the country. Llano had gotten less than half an inch of rain all summer, the stream gauges were bottomed out, and Lake Buchanan was at its lowest since the last record-setting drought in 2011. What does that mean for the landscape, the people who live in it, and the people like us who like to ride in it? If I was going to do a summer ride this year, I might as well lean into it.
And I wanted to ride in the Texas Outback, the scrubby country west of Llano, which holds the best gravel and most sublimely remote country in the state in my opinion. I rustled up two other nuts, Daphne and Annabelle, to join me on the ride. Daphne was a seasoned night and ultra endurance rider, while Annabelle was wanting to get experience in sleepless night riding. The ride would also be a good training run for the upcoming Central Texas Showdown that they were both racing in six weeks. A date was set a couple days after a blue supermoon on Labor Day weekend and plans were made.
Friday after work we loaded up and headed west from Austin fueled by iced coffee and tacos. The landscape became more and more desperate with dusty green woodlands interrupted by golden foliage, either drought-stressed or dead. The sprawl on highway 71, disturbingly optimistic or maybe nihilistic, reaches almost all the way to Marble Falls now. Texan drivers alone are responsible for 0.5% of all of civilization’s carbon emissions, and on drives like this full of trucks pulling boats to second homes I don’t doubt it. We got to little Llano, pulled into Grenwelge Park just before sunset and pointed our bikes south just as the sun dropped below the horizon, the mercury a few ticks below 100 degrees and mercifully dropping.
The peach horizon turned plum, then indigo, then pitch black as the stars came out. By 9pm we could clearly see the Milky Way without dimming our headlights. One reason I love this route, or this area of the Texas Outback in general, is how quickly you’re alone and remote when you leave Llano. The first 8 miles or so were on a ranch-to-market road where we were passed by a handful of cars, but once we turned left onto the county road we didn't see another truck for hours.
We hit a cattle guard and felt gravel for the first time and the fences disappeared. We passed through the plume of a recent wildfire, the sweet smell of burned grass a few days old. The gravel below us was feeling the drought as well. This first stretch was recently bladed, but without moisture to bind the sand it simply alternated between scalped hardpack and deep sand. We rode three abreast, but every few minutes one of us would yelp or groan and drop back after hitting a sand pit.
25 miles in we paused for a break at an intersection, admiring the rising moon behind us and the ceiling of stars. A long shriek interrupted us, a metallic wail in the pitch dark, distorted and doubled by the hills and canyons. Most likely a windmill or an unlatched gate somewhere. The scream would have informed some terrifying myths in another time and defined an area best avoided at night for an unnamed terror. We pedaled onward away from there, just a little unsettled.
Continuing on to House Mountain Road we moved west. The great haystack butte that gives the road its name loomed in the dark to our right in the moonlit haze. Dropping into a dry creek crossing, we nearly broadsided a full-grown cow, its great black flank blending into the shadows of the world past our headlights until it swung its great white head in the direction of our voices and squealing brakes. We stopped about 20 feet short of it. All four of us stared at each other for a bit. I gave it a clap and a shout and it turned and ambled on into the dark.
The night is when wildlife emerges, in greater abundance and variety than during the day. All the savanna dwellers take advantage of the cool dark and easy travel by road just as we were. The first wildlife we saw is less wild but a feral invader of southern thickets and draws: the hog. Two huge specimens, with bristled backs rising to our handlebars, appeared on the road ahead of us. They were only slightly interested in our presence and completely unhurried, trotting off down the road ahead of us before turning into the next arroyo all snorts and rustles in the whitebrush and agarita.
An hour or more later, shouts and swerves from my companions ahead alerted me to a football-sized boulder - no, an armadillo, frozen in terror in the middle of the road as we dodged it. No wonder they are mostly observed pancaked on the road. It's a remarkably oblivious animal. What must it be like for these creatures of the Outback, heretofore aware in only some small way of the existence of bikes and trucks on these few and untrafficked roads, to encounter a trio of bright lights and a chatter of freewheels carrying on through their home range? They no doubt have some stories to take back to their dens.
Somewhere around 50 miles in we came across the first flowing water of the ride on Threadgill Creek. Maybe it was the presence of limestone here at the edge of the granitic Llano Uplift, since that bedrock is full of fissures, seams, and voids that hold Central Texas’ groundwater. Maybe it’s the lack of ranchettes and golf courses overdrafting the aquifers as they’re doing closer to I-35 and the Austin and San Antonio sprawl. Either way, Threadgill Creek was a few inches deep on the road, deep enough to dip my feet as I coasted through the scrim. We crossed the creek, spooking a pair of grey foxes that leaped and bounded into the woods, and stopped on the other side for a break.
We reported on our water supplies and took a reckoning of our situation. None of us were thrilled with how much water we had left. 30 miles were left to go to Dos Rios Campground where we could sneak a refill. Doable but not ideal. The trickle of water nearby made us thirstier. We made the call to take a 4-mile detour to Doss, a crossroads boasting a district fire station and probably a spigot.
Daphne’s GPS heat map showed that she had taken that exact detour some years before, so we turned our bikes around, took a right on Jack Rabbit Road, and headed south to Doss. After a few miles she turned off the one-lane asphalt onto what looked to me to be a driveway. I was doubtful that this was any kind of public easement. But she was confident and I couldn’t argue with her prior experience and GPS. Plus it was near midnight, and while dogs were barking in the distance, it seemed doubtful that any property rights defenders would intercept us out here in the juniper and mesquite scrub. So onward we went.
The road immediately degraded into a doubletrack maintained only by the tires of side-by-sides, endearingly rough but slow-going. We passed a dozen game feeders and blinds. I anxiously hoped nobody was posted up that night. We crossed Threadgill Creek again on a natural limestone dam before correcting course and doubling back to the estimated route. Finally the road grew into something maintained before a 10-foot game fence appeared out of the dark in front of us. We’d ridden through a hunting ranch. Lange Mill Road lay on the other side. I felt around and thankfully found the dummy lock on the gate, opened it gingerly to avoid rousing more dogs, and closed it behind us. We were through. We hit the paved road and passed the stone Lange Mill, squatting above the creek and surrounded by towering bald cypress trees. It felt like something out of old Europe, which it in some way was being built by German immigrants in 1849 to grind corn and wheat in the time before these settlements were safe from Comanche raids.
Doss appeared as a fluorescent oasis in the dark. The anticipated fire station did not disappoint. While some spigots clearly were labeled “do not drink,” others were not, so we drank our fill from those and topped up for the next leg of the ride.
Onwards across the caliche we rode towards the James River. Soon we began dropping into the James’ canyon. Despite the dark I couldn’t help myself and let off the brakes on this broad pipeline road, letting the air rush past me, getting cooler in increments as I lost elevation. A shaggy mass ahead interrupted my thrilling descent. A porcupine, bigger than you’d think, or perhaps the shadows’ cast and my 3 am brain were confusing my interpretation of the creature. I skidded to a stop, Daphne and Annabelle right behind me, the porcupine unbothered under its quills, shambling off into the prickly pear.
We hit the James and crossed it twice, passing high-fenced pens for exotic game waiting their turn and a small bat cave preserve, also well-fenced. We paused for a minute in silence at the second crossing. A cacophony of frogs and a soft gurgle of water was echoing through the broad canyon. The James River was running low but it was still running to the appreciation of innumerable creatures in the dark. It was the most remote point on the route, in terms of distance from our starting point and distance from anything familiar. We drank in that feeling before wading the ankle-deep river and remounting our bikes.
At this point the moon was overhead casting its greyblue light across the landscape and bright enough to ride without lights. We passed herds of sleeping cows, big dark shapes difficult to distinguish from the juniper until they started moving. We passed a truck parked in the middle of the road, the driver passed out across the bench seat and a single cowboy boot sticking out the window. We crossed the stagnant and silent Llano River and turned into the refuge of Dos Rios Campground, got some cold sodas from their vending machine, made friends with a gregarious kitten, and drank our fill.
Eight blessedly paved miles later was our halfway point: the town of Mason. Home to a 5am Stripes convenience store and Laredo Taco. Large men and women in full camo were coming and going, Duramax and Cummins engines left idling outside, all gearing up for a holiday weekend hunt, all delivering a single nod and a greeting to this trio of dusty peregrines. We took measure of our spirits and stamina and decided to lop off a few miles but otherwise finish the ride as intended. The sun would be up soon.
This moment in the last hour of darkness had us meditating on the nature of night riding. There’s some magic to it in the way it transforms the familiar into something strange on a visual level. But there’s another feeling of sneaking through the country in the dark, being the only one awake and aware of that place in that moment in time. And on rides of this length, there’s not necessarily a dilation or compression of time but a detachment from it entirely. By sunrise, moments shared at 2 am would feel like they were from another lifetime. Events hours apart would be inverted or blended in a swirl of headlight. Did I imagine a stoic 8-point buck watch us pass from the other side of a barbed-wire fence? Did we really see that boot, presumably at the end of a man’s leg, hanging from a truck’s window parked in the middle of the road? It’s a surreal and transcendental experience that can only be felt by doing.
A few miles after Mason the horizon acquired a purple glow, and Venus, hanging brilliantly above the horizon, guided our path east back to Llano. We started climbing again up the north side of the Llano River basin, winding through post oak savannas and past granite outcrops. These roads are old enough to be graded to follow the contours of the landscape. The surface is a perfect native rock and sand. This is rolling and flowy road you can carry momentum on. Each gentle curve unfolded the landscape as we rode through it, making climbing a delight and descending sublime. The sun rose and set several times as we climbed and descended, each time sending new shafts of golden light through the trees and the land’s creases.
We started seeing vehicles again as the ranchers woke up. I tried to give them comically big waves hello; we’re ambassadors for this sport and guests on their roads after all, there’s no reason not to leave a great impression as jubilant and respectful, if crazy, tourists. It’ll come in handy some night when we’re scavenging water from one of their cattle tanks.
At Pontotoc we pulled into the VFW for another water break. It was past morning and full daylight now and the sky was a very pale, cloudless blue. Annabelle and Daphne split an RC Cola, all they had in the soda machine, and we put on sunscreen for the first time, rubbing it in over the layers of salt and dust. We left that sleepy crossroads headed south towards Castell.
From here we could see across the Llano River basin to House Mountain 20 miles south from the night prior as well as other outcrops and buttes and the deepest crease of the Llano River itself in the middle distance, all layered in the late summer haze. Hickory Grove Road carried us down to Castell, a road that never fails to be a slog, maybe because of the deep sand and tall washboards, or maybe because it’s technically downhill but it doesn’t feel like it. Frequent signs apparently directed at cyclists declared “No Water Here,” which felt especially cruel and misanthropic even for Texas.
We finally hit the flats above the Llano River for a final stretch into Castell. The low water crossing in daylight was a shock: this river was dying. What was a flowing river with eddies and swimming holes last year was reduced to a few pools between muddy flats and sand bars. An intrepid family wasn’t letting that spoil their holiday plans and were prepping their inflatables on the rocks. A stone’s throw downstream the river disappeared into the sand. We spent a long break drinking and snacking in the Castell General Store as the sun and temperatures rose outside. College football was on the TV. Our long reverie was coming to an end.
The last 20 miles were sort of a caustic re-entry into civilization. Conversation stopped as we tried to cover these last asphalt miles efficiently. The nighttime had hidden the desperation in the trees, but in the light of day the dieback and desiccated leaves confronted us. The cows were retreating into the deeper shade of the juniper. An ancient great pyrenees, eyes drooping and fur dreaded, lounged in the shade of an oak and lazily watched us pass, its days as a guard dog over but still faithfully fulfilling his mission. We passed the golf course at the outskirts of Llano, men in crisp polos willfully blind to the dead willows and cottonwoods above them as they allocated what water was left in the river to their turf.
We hit town, bustling with Labor Day energy and the tail end of a craft market at the courthouse square. We got back to the car and changed and unloaded in the exposed parking lot. These little towns are woefully unprepared for the future, the centuries-old oaks withering in their parks and expanses of pavement amplifying the effects of heat and drought in a lazy exchange for easy driving and parking. Every further attempt to tame and soften this land is now proving to do the opposite. What will they do when summers like these are commonplace? Will they adapt, tear up the asphalt and let the overgrazed ranches rest? Or become climate refugees following the next drought, flood, or fire? The future, unknown but for the fact that it will be worse, is so intimidating that managed retreat feels like the only reasonable option.
Scientists say this is an extreme El Nino year. But it is also a preview of what a typical summer will be in Texas in a few decades. Much of this state, especially the western Edwards Plateau and Llano Uplift where we rode, will likely turn to desert. More extreme droughts will kill off the prairie grasses, already stressed from overgrazing, while more intense rains will accelerate the flushing of topsoil from the plateaus. Fire-adapted trees might persist in dwarfed form. When colonizers first arrived in the Hill Country from the east with axes and cattle they reported springs drying up left and right as they changed the landscape. We may be entering the era when even the most reliable springs and rivers no longer flow continuously. But this place retains an incredible beauty even in summers like this. People will keep riding here, through our ever-briefer springs and mild winters, though I’m not sure how many will tolerate our summers much longer.