notes on Big Bend

sitting in Uncle Billy's Brewery and Barbeque, Austin,TX
January 18, 2010
Big Bend National Park

Ohmygosh. The main entrance to BBNP is 50 miles from a town with a population of 862 people, Marathon, TX. The Visitor Center is another 30 miles from the main entrance. The campground is 23 miles from the Visitor Center. We passed 4 other vehicles during the trip south, but many miles of cattle fencing. No cattle. We can see for what feels like forever across the flats, and the Chiso Mountains south and to the east and west. And, I’m surprised to see private ranches here, in this remote place. Guess somebody owns all the land, no matter where it is.

This is the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert. Deserts and other geography don’t recognize arbitrary national boundaries, and this desert runs far into the Mexican state of Chiuauhua. There are four deserts in the US: the Mojave, Sonoran, Great Basin and Chihuahuan. We learn that people have been living here for thousands of years, subsisting with help from the river. The river is a very different living partner now from the river even 100 years ago. The dry Tornillo flats we drove across, were, in the past dependable creeks. The Rio Grande River was not only higher, but the flood plain was actually a flood plain. And, centuries before that, this whole area was a part of the sea. Now, this is totally desert, with the occasional oasis.

A quick stop at the Panther Visitor Center, to ask a few questions and get a Ranger Talk Guide, and we drove further to our home for a few nights. We arrived at our campground in the early afternoon. Because we like creature comforts, and the thermometer has been reading in the single digits at night, we are fortunate to find accommodations at the Rio Grande Village Campground, with full hook-ups. It’s nothing more than an asphalt parking lot, but I’ll be warm. The non-services campground, which I discovered later, is much prettier, but we don’t have a generator to run the heat. Besides, I hate the noise of a generator. The Rio Grande Village is at the far southeastern border of the Park. And, the far southern border of the US. We unhooked, had a quick lunch, and headed out to be tourists.

From the newspaper the Park Service gave us at the entrance, and reading the Trails Guide I bought at the camp store, we determined to stay in this area this afternoon. One of the good birding sites, and a wonderfully curious geologic site is the Ernst Tinaja (tin AH ha). Stuart says Ernst is a geologic formation, I thought it might be named for someone…either way, we can’t look it up because there is NO communication here of any kind. Will look into that later. Tinaja is the Spanish word for ‘jug’ or ‘vessel’. The ranger at the Visitor Center told us this is one of the dirt roads we can drive on with our truck, so we head out. Being east coast born and raised, a desert is a foreign to us. We’ve been to all the other deserts in the US, and in Mexico, but it’s still a shock to see such stark, dry earth. The dirt road we were told was passable was, but it was rough. It took 45 minutes to drive 4 miles, across rocks and gullies, down hills we wondered if we’d get back up, and across corrugated roadbeds that couldn’t possibly be maintained. It was great! We rocked and rolled slowly through some magnificent geography, so different from anything we live in. The distant views were surely postcard material, long vistas across the desert, then 50 miles away, a mountain abruptly rising from the desert. The Rio Grande River is at an elevation of 1800 feet, the Panther Visitor Center is above 3000 feet, and everything else is higher.

The parking area at the Ernst Tinaja trailhead will accommodate about 4 vehicles, and there has been not another human in sight for the past hour. We park, load our pockets with camera, binoculars, water and gloves and head out. Hard to picture it, but it’s cold here in the desert. The trail is level, across sandstone shears. Our destination is about 1.5 miles away. We begin by walking in an arroyo (wash) bed, and then guide ourselves to the arroyo rim, where the walking is easier. Pretty quickly, we are squeezed back into the arroyo by the canyon walls, on the hard sandstone floor. The cliffs around us are like steps that have been dislocated by an earthquake, and in a way, that’s exactly what happened. As we climb across the sandstone, it begins to show more color, and soon we’re looking at a rainbow of colors of rock. The sandstone changes very gradually to limestone. Then, we’re climbing up thigh-high steps, through a canyon, and suddenly there are the tinajas! The number of birds told us there is water close by, and the tinajas are full of water.

We’re in an ancient river bed, the canyon walls on either side of us have been polished round and smooth by eons of water flow. The walls are as high as a three story building. The tinajas are at the floor of the river bed, giant bowls washed by the force of the water. Javelinas, bear and deer have been found dead in these tinajas, unable to climb up the slick sides of the limestone.

This is a good birding location, the birds are attracted by the water. We try to memorize the markings on the birds, to look them up in our book later. Otherwise, there is little sign of life. It is awesome geography, and after spending time admiring the colors of the sandstone and watching the little birds, we begin the walk back. The sandstone is red, yellow, pink and purple. It looks brittle, but when we pound on the tormented rock ledges, nothing moves. This erosion has been working for more years than I can comprehend.

As we headed out, in awe of what we just saw, we passed a young couple just arrived for the night. With a special permit, they’re camping in this back country place, and even with the cold, I’m jealous of their experience.

The drive back to the paved road took another 45 minutes, and the west-facing white sandstone cliffs on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River were positively glowing in the sunset. Sierra del Carmen. Earlier, they were a non-descript gray and darker gray horizontal stripes, then began to glow white, and after the sun went behind the Chisos Mountains, they turned a color OB Battle calls whorehouse orange. Remember the color of our bedroom at the river house, the second time we built that house? OB called the bedroom color whorehouse orange. Shelby asked how he knew what color a whorehouse was….Well, it was stunning. A perfect end to a perfect day. We had gingered shrimp, rice and vegetables for dinner, before going to bed in our parking lot campground, which was totally quiet.

Before getting in bed, we bundled up in coats, gloves and hats, and in our pajamas, drove about 4 miles back up the park road to a turn out we’d seen earlier. Look at a national map: there are NO cities anywhere close, not even any small towns. So, the night sky is like nothing most people have ever seen. We parked, and climbed onto the hood of our truck, to lay back and look at a sky that was covered with stars! Stuart and I have been in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, in some of the large, open places in the west, and in the prairies of the mid-west, but nothing compares to the sky we see here. There are not words to describe the sky here, with no light clutter for hundreds of miles. Wow.

Tuesday morning, 20 degrees again. Glad Stuart brought the water hose inside, again. We set the alarm clock, to be at Dugout Wells for the Ranger talk, “The Desert Superstore”. We hope there is a good turn out, for the ranger’s sake, and we hope no one shows up, for our selfish reasons. It’s cold, there are 4 other people, that’s good.

I learned a lot about food, medicine, construction, domestic items and health care, and we only talked about 6 plants! Ranger Gayle Abend was well-read, and presented very well, and Stuart and I were fascinated with what we learned. The creosote plant, no source of it’s name sake, was the most unfamiliar to me. She also talked about the leatherwood shrub, two cactus (blind-eye and purple-leaf), cholla, mesquite, cenzia and a false willow. I made notes while she spoke, but won’t reproduce those notes here. She talked about a book she uses, by Michael Moore (not the film producer), which I found later in the bookstore at the Visitor Center. I’ll try to find it on line, used, when I get home. After the talk, we spend some time visiting with the ranger, and enjoyed our time with her.

Then, we hiked the rest of the Dugout Well area…this was the social and practical center of the Big Bend area more than 100 years ago. There were several houses here, a store, a small library and school. The natural spring and windmill-driven well are still here, but I saw no evidence of any buildings. A community in this dry, unforgiving area is hard to comprehend, but there were several roads that were used by traders in this area. Natural, with a navigable river so close by. And, this is a wax producing area. Yep, wax. The candelilla is a low-growing shrub that lives only in this area, and is used for wax production. There was a wax factory not far from the Dugout Well. This lowly shrub was the source of income for many Mexicans. Today, there is still some wax production, but it is not the same. Mexicans in the remote northern area of Chihuahua make wax, but I don’t think there is much production in the US. I have to look into that. The US can import it free, but Mexicans have to pay to export it. It is only exported through the Mexican bank system, which charges an export tax. So, the business has gone underground. It is smuggled across the border, sold to a buyer in south Texas, and the Mexican farmer disappears back into the southern desert. The major buyers in the US are JohnsonWax and Wrigley’s gum. You’ll find it listed in cosmetics, too, like lip balm and body lotions. I don’t know how the wax is collected from the plant, but will look it up, when I get the resources. Now I know one of the ingredients in the lotion I use.

After the ranger talk, we did a little birding at the oasis, and had picnic lunch in our warm truck, overlooking the Chisos Mountains. Then, we drove to the middle of the park to the Grapevine Trail. Another dirt road, this one longer than the Ernst Tinaja road, but in better shape. It curves through the flats, around the Grapevine Hills. This one is recommended for regular cars to drive, which means there might be more people at this trail head. An hour later, we find one truck in the trailhead lot. Most folks, even in this remote park, are still windshield tourists, sticking to the main roads, or trails that take 10 minutes or less.

The Grapevine Trail is all about the volcanic lava that never made it to the surface millions of years ago. Now, hardened rock has been pushed up with more volcanic activity, and the overlying layer of rock has eroded. The result is granite monoliths that look like giant mushrooms, and rocks that are unbelievable shaped. The color, again, is stunning, this time mostly orange. We walk through the canyon on an easy hike, and then begin to climb a little way through a rock hill. Our goal is a rock called the Balanced Rock, which creates a window overlooking the valley beyond this ridge. Well worth the hike! This is a little reminiscent of Moab, UT, with some of the same balanced rock curiosities, but not on the same scale as Moab. The rocks are different, and very curious to us easterners.

I’ve seen a couple of birds that I can’t identify with my eastern US bird book. Sparrow, probably. We did see a flock of ravens today, either the Chihuahuan Raven of the Common Raven. Very similar, one is 4 inches smaller than the other, making an ID difficult. Saw two other birds that aren’t in my eastern book, tomorrow I’ll look through the books at the visitor center. All together, though, I’ve id’d about 25 new (new for me) birds on this trip!

We’re tired tonight. How often, though, do we get a chance like this? We can rest later!

Another cold night, and cold morning. The sky is sunny, and today our goal is to see the paved route in the park: from this southeastern corner, up to the center, and back down the western side of the Chisos Mountains, and to the Santa Elena Canyon at the southwestern corner of the park. I had picked out several trails that I’d like to hike. Picnic in hand, plans to get back to the Lodge at the Chisos Basin for the 6:30pm ranger talk about the night sky, we head out.

The best laid plans can just not happen! The distances are so vast, I had totally underestimated the time. We drove, stopped at all the overlooks, short roads to views, and even hiked the short loop at the Sam Nail Ranch (no ranch here anymore), but serious hiking and seeing the Santa Elena Canyon all in one day is far too much to expect.

We arrived at the Sta. Elena Canyon, on the Rio Grande River in midafternoon. This is the dry season, so the Terlingua Creek is dry, which meant we could hike across the creek bed to climb the cliffs beside the river, a little way up into the Canyon. This canyon was not seen by humans until about 1892, when a USGS party came through. The last attempt to navigate the canyon was made 20 years earlier, when an empty boat was sent down the river. Only a few boards showed up at the other end of the canyon. It’s only rafted by the most expert waterman today.

We stopped at the southwestern Visitor Center, at Castolon, to find some answers about the sociology of this place. It was ranched by Mexicans until about 1900, when a few Anglos bought land along the river. Cattle, cotton and corn were tended here, with help from mechanical conveniences that pumped water from the river. It took a freight wagon, mule-drawn, 10-14 days to get to the railroad at Marathon, through the desert. Dugout was a stopping point, since there was a dependable water source there, making it a crossroads in the desert. The Harmonia Company operated a small store and bought, ginned and sold the cotton. They also ran a small postoffice, a fire department, and was generally the glue that held together both the Mexicans and the Anglos for several decades. The US government began in the mid-1930’s buying land for a proposed National Park, and the Park was created in 1944. The Harmonia Company held out for another 20 years, saying the government didn’t offer the true value of the land. The Visitor Center, closed in the terribly hot summer months, and the small store, run for the tourists, is housed in the old company store building.

The light is getting better by the minute, late in the day. We drove back towards the current population area, the Chisos Mountain Basin. The view on the road up the mountain is very different from the desert roads. There are six different trees here, one that only grows in this mountain range in the US. The views get more dramatic and more beautiful by the minute, and we are beginning to feel a little claustrophobic after several days in the no-view-blocking desert. We had dinner at the lodge, surrounded by a well-behaved group of 9th graders from Houston. Obviously, we just couldn’t cram in the ranger talk tonight, there aren’t enough hours in the day. On the drive down the mountain, no one else on the road, we caught 2 panther cubs crossing the road. Mama must have been just ahead of them, we didn’t see her. Thank goodness the road was so curvy we were driving slowly. Remember my distance comment? Well, it took a hour to get ‘home’ from the Chisos Lodge! The Panther Junction Visitor Center is 2000 feet higher than the Rio Grande Village, where we’re staying, and we coasted for 25 miles, braking occasionally to control the speed. The sky is amazingly crowded with stars. We’re both a little overwhelmed with the beauty and enormousness of what we’ve seen today.

Our last full day in the park, and we’re going to hike from the campground, over a small ridge, to the Daniels Ranch Hot Springs. It’s a hike along a trail that sometimes is hard to see, but rock cairns keep us moving in the correct direction. Along the way, I saw a ladder-backed woodpecker, and some wrens and warblers. We’re pretty close to the river, even though we can’t see it over the ridges. Two hours later, I know we’re close to the river. I see a couple of man-made walking sticks and some wire birds. The walking sticks are made from the very tall flower shoot of the sotol agave, sanded and painted. They are leaning against a sotol by the path, with a cardboard sign listing the prices. No one around. A normal sales location; we’re just yards from the river. The men from Boquilas, Coahuilla, Mexico come across to sell a few things to the tourists. Of course it’s illegal to cross, illegal to sell and illegal for us to buy. I looked around, no sign of life, no footprints, nothing. I said aloud, “…on our way back…”, and moved on. We walked across a series of small tinajas, all dry, and suddenly we were on a low cliff above the Rio Grande. The hot spring was used by Mr. Daniel, who was in poor health. He believed that the spring water would cure his ailments. Visitors have been soaking in the hot springs for more than 100 years, and today there is a couple enjoying warm water. We sat on the cliff, trying to identify the flycatcher birds swooping, and talking with a few hikers who took the short-cut from a parking lot close by. After a snack, we began our trip back across the desert ridge.

The hike is rocky, up and down, and through lots of desert life. To the casual observer, there is nothing here, but there really is! I see at least 5 different kinds of cactus, 3 or more agave and some annuals that look like agave, creosote bush, leatherwood, and at least 10 other plants I can’t name. There are rocks of all kinds and ages and births. And, birds. Lots of birds, because we’re so close to the river. And, the biggest surprise of all: RAIN! We got rained on, in the desert! This place gets less than 15 inches a year, less than half an inch this month, and we felt it. Not enough to put on my raincoat. The rocks didn’t get completely wet, the individual drops were clearly defined. How remarkable, to be here right now!

Just before we got back to the campground, on the road between the ranch house and the campground, we watched one of the resident adult panthers saunter along the road.

After lunch, we drove to the Boquillas Canyon trailhead, about 6 miles away. This is the narrowest little wedge of a canyon, the river has just barely cut it’s width through here over the millions of years. We hiked up and over the ridge, and down to the sandy and rocky river beach. The canyon walls are 1500 feet high here, and seeing this huge wall so closely is to distort it. We can clearly see the layers of sediment, volcanic ash, sand, lava and sandstone that make up the wall, and the diagonal line where one side slipped 750 feet below the other side. We watched a pair of ravens soaring in circles and listened to the river sounds on the rocks.

The Mexican on the horse, checking the goods for sale along the path over the ridge did not startle us, we’d seen him crossing the river earlier. Now, though, we began to see the other men on the other side. And, the herd of goats on the hillside. We are very close to the village of Boquillas, which is very far from any other Mexican town. Before 9/11, Big Bend Tourists would, for fifty cents, catch a canoe ride across the river, have lunch at a Mexican restaurant, buy a few trinkets, and come back to the Park. When Washington got wind of that, they clamped down on the ‘soft border’ here, plugging the hole on the meager income of the few folks in this little village. So, each day, one man rides across the river on his horse, puts out a few walking sticks and wire sculptures and a cardboard sign under a can for the money, and someone checks on the cans several times a day. We buy a walking stick on our way out, feeling bad that we aren’t buying the entire inventory.

The sunset is not very colorful tonight, too many clouds to the west, but it’s still a dramatic view of the Sierra del Carmen ridge, the one we just walked through.

Friday, on our way out of the Park, we make one last stop at the Visitor Center at Panther Junction, to check on a few birds I can’t id, to see the big topo map one more time, and to report the cub sighting. The sky is cloudy, and there is water on the road. We drive north, stopping in Marathon to buy gas ($3.26), and head on towards Fort Stockton.

The view has changed gradually, from flatflatflat with plants at the northern park, to flatflatflat with no plants between the park and Marathon. Did the cows just over-graze what little life there was here? We laughed when we finally saw four cows, after driving for all these miles of fencing. North of Marathon, the hills began again, gradually, and more brush behind the fences. No trees. Then, we’re in fog! Fog very thick, and getting thicker. Luckily, there is almost no traffic, and the road is chalk-line straight. We had lunch on the side of the road, sitting in the truck because it’s too cold to move to the kitchen table. In Fort Stockton, we stop long enough to take a picture of the huge Paisono (road-runner) statue by the railroad, and move on to Ozona for the night. Rainy, cold, muddy, we’re tired. We didn’t even unhook the Cottage from the truck, just plugged into the electricity and water. With a coin toss, Stuart gets laundry detail, and I get the house-cleaning job. A couple of hours later, when I go looking for Stuart, he’s pretty disgusted with the facilities here in the Big Oil Country campground: the washer took forever to fill, and one of the dryers never got hot. So, I loaded up the wet laundry (the spin cycle didn’t work real well, either), and hung shirts, towels and underwear from everything I could inside the Cottage. Even strung a line from one overhead cabinet to another. The local radio station, our first signal in five nights, was broadcasting the high school basketball game. Chicken for dinner, no leftovers tonight, and we almost fall asleep with our faces in our plates.

Saturday, we drive out, looking for the sky to clear. It’s a little warmer, that’s good. We’re driving through Hill Country today, and pass a few small towns, that might qualify as ghost towns in a couple more years, if it weren’t for the ranches in the area. For days, we’ve seen the big entrance gates, and a few mailboxes, but no sign of a house anywhere. Not even a barn. But, the closer we get to Fredricksburg, the closer the gates to the ranches are to each other, and soon we see a house.

Fredricksburg is a town of Germans, and the food is very heavily German influenced. It’s a tourist town, almost 300 buildings have been renovated and are now little retail shops, restaurants and B&B’s. The tourist section is one street wide, and there is no place to park on this main street. One of the first places we see, on the edge of town, is a barbeque joint, and two doors down the famous Chocolat shop. Braking quickly, I turn down a side road, park, and we have brisket and sausage for lunch, followed by a stroll down the street to Chocolat. We are in heaven here! The California couple we met in New Orleans, the folks traveling in their mini-van, told us about this place, they did not steer us wrong. We didn’t spend as much as I thought we might, but, they’re open tomorrow!