It is a land of huge expanses. Of dusty, arid deserts bordered by dry mountain ranges. Of tans and browns and greens and blues. Of skies that make you feel smaller than you ever have felt, in a land that takes you in. Whose vast vistas leave you frozen in awe. It is a liberating and spiritual place that takes away all your stress and lets each singular thought flow freely through your consciousness. It is a land of deserts and mountains and forests too. It is a land of riparian ecosystems that thrive along the beautiful Rio Grande River and parallel each of its banks with a lush, thick, green border. It is also a land of a vast diversity of life that is well adapted to the challenges that very little rainfall brings. It is a birdwatchers paradise and a place to watch the desert explode in color during the rainy season when cacti, bushes, tree’s, and plants put forth an amazing display of flowers and seeds to take advantage of the water for the success of their next generation. It is home to hundreds of species of birds, and cacti, and plants, and insects. It is a land where mountain lions, Mexican Black Bears, Javalena’s, Road Runners, and Coyotes roam. Javalenas look like blackish/grey pigs but are actually members of the Peccary family. We had been hoping to see them but it didn’t happen until we were leaving the park and we spotted one crossing the road and trying to get through the cattle fence on the other side. They are nocturnal animals so it was unusual to see them during the day. It is the land and home of the Apaches and the Comanche’s, long before we farmed it, mined it, or made it a National Park. It is Big Bend National Park and in the lower 48, it is the most remote of the National Parks, but one, which is worth every effort to get to it.

Some of the mountains are bare, save for the rock, sand, and sediment they were formed from millions of years ago. Other mountains are dotted with a dispersed pattern of cacti, bunches of grasses, small bushes, and small trees, giving them an impressionistic appearance from a distance. The earth tones of tans, browns, and greens under a broad blue sky has a subtle and calming effect on you. It is also a land of contrasts. We have hiked in ninety-degree sunshine only to shiver in the morning to a twenty-two degree sunrise! And if you’re willing to put on your hiking shoes, you can hit a trail that starts in a lush, riparian ecosystem at the Rio Grande, then up to a desert ecosystem that morphs into a grassland and eventually turns into a forest of deciduous and evergreens as you pass up through the Chisos Mountains. What a transition! The Chisos Mountains by the way are the only complete mountain system contained in a national park. You can’t help but appreciate the many different cacti and plants that live in the Chihuahuan Desert here. They are all magnificently adapted to the scarcity of water and are masters at absorbing it, protecting it from evaporating, and, protecting themselves from all other living things that would eat it for the water they contain.

We spent 5 days in the park, which is woefully inadequate to take in all that it has to offer. We used our time well though and were rewarded with so many memorable experiences. We did canyon hikes in both Santa Elena and Boquillos Canyons through which the Rio Grande passes. The Boquillos Canyon is where the Rio Grande takes a 90 degree turn which gives the park its name. It is a very short hike. Santa Elena was also relatively short at just under two miles but was also the more beautiful of the two with 1500 foot cliffs along the canyon trail as well as broad vistas of the river, canyon, and desert. We did mountain hikes in the Chisos Mountains that included a 6 mile hike on the Lost Mine Trail as well as a 10 mile hike to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park. It rewarded us with breath taking 360 degree vistas of the mountains and the desert below from the summit as well as the hike up and back. We regret not having the time to do the South Rim Trail based on reports from other hikers but its on our bucket list. It was a busy weekend in the park and the Chisos Basin Campground in which we were staying was full. As we relaxed one afternoon after a hike, we watched a pickup truck full of five college students look frustratingly for a site, of which there were none. We’ve done it before so we offered them to put up their tents in our site as we had the space and could accommodate them. They jumped at the offer. They were really a great bunch of “kids” and appreciated our hospitality. They cranked out hikes as fast as they could to take advantage of their weekend in the park. They were smart, engaging, humorous, and really added to our enjoyment at this stop in the park. After leaving the Chisos, we moved to the Rio Grande Campground and did a true desert hike of 6 miles from Edwards Ranch to the Hot Springs and back. It was hot and sunny and though a relatively easy trail, there was very little traffic on it. It provided beautiful view points of the Rio Grande which flowed below the many cliffs the trail took us along as well as views of the desert leading up to the distant mountains. We drove to the Hot Springs the day before and it was extremely crowded as it was the Martin Luther King Day long weekend. The crowds were a turn off so we decided to not come back to soak in it. When we hiked out there on the other hand, it was hardly crowded at all and I wished we had brought our bathing suits for a mid hike soak. Oh well.

The Chisos Mountains represent volcanoes that formed and erupted, creating that mountain geology portion of the middle of the park while the land to the west was covered with an inland sea before it evaporated. Its sedimentary rock is rich with fossils and Laurie found several on our hike to the Hot Springs. The history of the park, the boom and bust of farming using irrigation from the Rio Grande, the mining of mercury, and ranching, is fascinating and I wish we had spent more time visiting some of the ranches along the Max Ross Scenic Highway. We were so mesmorized by the amazing scenery along this road that we didn’t bother stopping to do any of the side trips. We could easily have spent two weeks here. On our last day, one of our neighbors recommended a 14 mile hike to us that they had just completed and they said it was the best hike of their life. It was the Marufo Vegas Loop Trail. We might have done it the next day but the weather report was for freezing temps, high winds, and snow. That night, the winds started at about 8PM and I have never experienced winds like these. Even up on 4 pneumatic jacks, the RV was moving and jerking back and forth all night as fierce winds literally pounded it. The winds came in like the rising sound of a jet engine and the slamming and creaking of the RV was at times deafening. We were sure that the slide out in which we were sleeping was going to be damaged in some way but it made it through the night. We woke in the morning to temps in the twenties and winds that had still not let up and dropped the temps even lower. Filling up our water tank and emptying our waste tanks in the morning left me with hands that were stiff and numb from the wind chill. It was time to leave Big Bend but not before it gave us another BIG reason to join the chorus of those extolling the virtues of our National Parks that call the desert their home. Add us to the list! We have no regrets about the things we didn’t do because our experience here was so memorable. It does give us reason to come back again though. A visit to this park will never be regretted.