Now that my kids were grown and I was no longer tied to the homestead and I finally had some extra money in my pocket, I wanted to get back into traveling out West and backpacking. I was looking for some place warm to go in the "off season". I didn't want to go to flat Florida, so the Southwest seemed to be the place. I thought about the Grand Canyon for a while, and then hit on Big Bend. The more I read about it the more I liked it. I had visited Big Bend once before--a couple of nights car camping during a whirlwind tour of the West in 1977--29 years ago! I didn't remember much about it except for one euphoric hour spent sitting on a rock in the middle of the Rio Grande in the spectacular Santa Elena Canyon. I always remembered that canyon as one of the most sacred and special places I had ever been to.
Next decision was when exactly to go. I wanted to go while it was still cold at home, but I wasn’t crazy about camping out with more than half the day in darkness such as I would get in January or February. I used a website that gives data on daylight hours for any day at any place in the country. Sun and Moon Data. I also read that you should avoid Spring Break and Easter week, as the Park gets very crowded then. I settled on the first week of April. Winter would be over, but it would be still cold enough to make going to a warm place enjoyable, and there would be a little more than 13 hours of daylight per day.
The weekend before starting this trip I came down with one of the worst colds I ever had. I rarely take a sick day, but this time I took off four days in a row. By the end of the week I was feeling a bit better and went back to work for one day, Friday, before flying to Texas. My original plan for this trip was to do a series of overnight backpack trips. Since it is a desert and I would have to carry all my water, I couldn’t do much more than an overnight trip. I wasn’t back to 100% healthy yet, so I decided to start off with some day hikes and see how I felt.
I woke up at 3:30 and got on a six A.M. flight out of Philly. I flew to Midland/Odessa, Texas airport (MAF), which is the closest airport to Big Bend—only 200 miles away. I rented a Chevy Aveo at Budget, which was the cheapest car they had.
What first struck me upon landing is that the land is so flat and barren. No trees. But it was sunny and a lot warmer than where I just came from. I drove into Odessa, stopped at a supermarket and bought 6 liters of bottled water, had a salad for lunch at a McDonalds, and finally got on the road around 12:30. The countryside outside of Odessa is covered with oil wells. There are pumps bobbing up and down everywhere. Why is it that one oil well in the Gulf of Mexico can suck up oil from miles around, but here they need a well every 100 feet?
I went west on I-20 to Monahans, and turned south on Texas 18. Strangely, the speed limit on this 2-lane road was 75 mph, whereas the limit on the Interstate was only 70. The road was straight as an arrow and flat. Almost no traffic. It would have been a great road for setting the cruise control and cranking up real loud one of the CD’s my son lent me. Unfortunately my cheap car didn’t have cruise control or even a CD player! Couldn’t find too much on the radio.
At Fort Stockton I got onto US 385 South. I started to see some hills and the road got a little curvier and more interesting. I could have counted the other cars I saw on one finger. 58 miles later I came to the little burg of Marathon. I figured this would be my last chance for gas before the Park, so I pulled into the first station I saw—a little 2-pump dirt-paved place. I paid $2.99/gallon. Things got more scenic heading south and off to the right there was a nice mountain range with one prominent high peak with a rounded top—Santiago Peak, el. 6500’. This mountain range actually runs from northwest to southeast and the road I was on eventually crossed over it at Persimmon Gap and the entrance to Big Bend National Park.I stopped at the entrance station and paid $15 for a one week pass. I pulled into the adjacent visitor center, talked to the volunteer ranger a little and got a permit to camp at Nine Point Draw primitive roadside campground.
The campground was a little ways further south down the main road and then about a mile east up a dirt/gravel road. Even though I was the only one “permitted” to camp here, there was already a guy and his dog parked there. But there was room for both of us. The campsite was essentially just a cleared flat spot in the desert. No water, no toilet, not even a picnic table. I set up my tent and then put some water and other stuff in my pack for a hike out to Dog Canyon. It was about 4:30 and the sun was to set at 7:15. I figured I would walk for one hour and then turn around and be back while it was still light.
Dog Canyon was easily visible on the eastern horizon as a gap in the Santiago Mountain range, which I had just crossed over at Persimmon Gap. I learned later that even though geographically it is the same mountain range, to the south of Dog Canyon, they are called the Seirra del Caballo Muerto—Dead Horse Mountains. There wasn’t a trail to the canyon from the campsite, so I just bushwhacked straight to it. The land between here and there was essentially flat, and the growth was rather intermittent and short. If you look at the foreground in the picture, you can see that the ground here seemed to consist entirely of rocks, stones and stone chips. There didn’t appear to be any soil. Bushes and cactuses grew here and there, but there was more open ground than growth, so it was easy bushwhacking. After a couple hundred yards, I turned around and took a bearing on the hills behind the campground so I would know where to head on my way back.
Following a bee-line to the canyon, I had to climb down into and out of a dry creek bed (Bone Spring Draw) about 6 or 7 feet deep. After a while I hit upon a trail which I assumed to be the official Dog Canyon trail, which starts at the main park road about a mile north of where I was camped. A little further the trail literally “drops” into the Nine Point Draw wash—a dry creek bed or arroyo--and follows it downstream. The wash is about head-deep, so you can’t see the countryside, only the sides of the ditch you’re walking in. The ground is all loose rocks, stones and gravel, so the walking is tedious and hard to get traction—kind of like trudging on the soft, sandy beaches of the Jersey shore.
Just at my one-hour time limit, I arrived at the canyon. The drainage I was hiking in is the floor of the canyon. Rock walls of the mountain rose on either side maybe 10 to 20 yards apart. The sun was getting low and the canyon was totally in the shade already, so I snapped a couple pictures and headed back. I didn’t hike all the way through the canyon. I’ll save that for the next trip.
Back at camp, I wasn’t very hungry and just had a granola bar for dinner. When it got dark I gazed at the stars for a while. There were zillions more visible here than back home, and the constellations were clearly evident, unfortunately I only know the names of a few of them. I made a mental note to bring a star book along next time. I got into the tent and laid on top of my bag since it was pretty warm. Eventually it cooled down and got quite cold during the night.
Daylight Savings Time started today. I got up as soon as it was light, packed up camp and drove back to the visitor center and turned in my camping permit. I told the Volunteer that someone else was also camping there and he right away got on the phone to report it to the real Park Rangers to go and investigate. I was sorry I mentioned it. I told him I wanted to day-hike to Devil’s Den, and he told me where to park my car. Devil’s Den is not marked on the USGS topo map nor on the Nat’l Geo Trails Illustrated map. I read about it in the Hiking Big Bend Falcon Guide book. On the Dagger Flat quadrangle, it is the canyon between points 3470 and 3365, about a mile due south of Dog Canyon.
I parked on the shoulder of the road a little south of the Dog Canyon trailhead. There’s a very faint road leaving the highway with a rusty wire fence or gate about 50 feet downhill. The trail is the dry creek bed of Bone Spring Draw. The dry creek beds are like ready-made trails through the desert, in that the perennial rains and flash-floods keep them clear of growth. However, they are not fun to hike in. Like yesterday’s hike, this arroyo is depressed below the general grade of the surrounding land so you don’t see any vistas. And the loose gravel base is tough on the feet and legs and a real energy-waster. On this trail, I'm actually crisscrossing the route I took last night from the campground to Dog Canyon.
The guide book said to turn right where another wash enters the wash you’re already in. I must have missed it. Eventually I felt like I had gone too far, so I climbed up out of the wash and then scrambled up a hill to my right to get a visual bearing of where I was. I figured I missed the turn-off and headed back and found it. I trudged up that drainage for a while. It got kind of narrow and twisted about a lot. There were a lot of large boulders in this wash that you had to climb around. By the way, did I mention that it was extremely hot? I wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and was drinking a lot of water. I came to a place where the drainage widened out and there were several rock cairns lined up across the “trail” aiming me to the right and up out of the drainage onto the surround plateau.
Here you follow the edge of the plateau with the drop-off to the drainage on your left. The trail was kind of faint and disappeared in places, but you can just follow the lay of the land, keeping the drainage on your left. At one place I had to walk through a field of knee-deep bushes that looked something like sagebrush. There were two almost identical bushes—one was benign, but the other had killer thorns. The land was climbing slowly and eventually you come to a place where the drainage is far enough below you to be called a canyon. The sides of the canyon are vertical cliffs of rock with distinct horizontal strata. This is the Devil’s Den. The heat was now oppressive and I felt like I was in the Devil’s home. Since a standing person is the tallest thing around, there is no shade. I sat down on a rock overlooking the Den, drank a lot of water, forced down some nuts and dried fruit and gathered my strength for the hike back to the car.
On the way back, high noon was approaching and it was getting hotter. The sun was intense. I finally found one advantage of hiking in the arroyos. I found a little shade along one of the high side walls where some bushes overhung the lip of the bank. I sat down there with my back against the wall. My head and shoulders where in the shade, but my legs were in the sun. Not far from the trailhead the arroyo passes beneath the ruins of an old concrete bridge. It was nice and cool in the shade under the bridge and I took another break there for a while. Four hours and five miles after starting, I finally got back to the car which was, of course, sitting in the sun. I felt dead. I cranked up the a/c and drove the 20 miles south to Panther Junction in a trance. I stopped at the little store there and got a cold soda, then proceeded further south to Rio Grande village--another 20 miles and seemingly all downhill. Just before getting to the village, the road makes a big curve to the left and goes onto a bridge or viaduct across the several-hundred-yard-wide drainage of Tornillo Creek. Of course, there’s not a drop of water in it. It only flows during the rare rainstorms. Amazingly though, it does look like a river. A river of rock.
I drove straight to the Rio Grande village campground. It was hot as hell here, but there were lots of big green cottonwood trees and I found a nice site with lots of shade. I laid down in the grass for a while. After I felt normal again, I got up, paid my $10 camping fee and went to the little store/gas station there and got a shower. I got 5 minutes of hard water for six quarters.
I cooked up one of my freeze-dried dinners for supper then took a walk down to the Rio Grande River on a short trail from the end of the campground. The trail ends by climbing a small hill where you get a good view over to Mexico.
I went to bed as soon as it got dark. There were lots of animal noises during the night—burros, birds, dogs, coyotes, frogs and cicadas. The burros were over in Mexico. I call them burros, but they might have been donkeys or mules. I don’t know the difference. I saw them along the river on my hike earlier. It got pretty cold during the night.
Woke up fully recovered from the day before. Per the Park recommendations, I flattened my tent, but left it staked to the ground. This is so the local band of javelinas doesn’t try to rip the tent open thinking there is something inside. I had originally planned to backpack overnight on the Marufo Vega trail, but in this heat I doubted the wisdom of that. I drove up to the nearby ranger station. It was manned by a husband and wife team of volunteers. They appeared to be retirees. I told them I was planning to day-hike on the Marufo Vega trail. They said that they had hiked there a few weeks earlier. The man mentioned a steep part as being not so bad. The wife rolled her eyes. They said to be sure to wear a hat and take water.
In the weeks leading up to the trip I would regularly check The Big Bend Daily Report to see what the weather was like. It always showed the high temperatures in the 80’s. Since winter had just ended and it was only in the 40’s back home, in my judgment the heat I felt yesterday could have been in the 80’s. I just knew it was hotter than what I was used to. I found out later, however, that the actual daytime temperatures were now in the low 100’s!.
I drove down the road towards Boquillas Canyon and parked on the right side in an unmarked area. Across the road is a rusty iron sign marking the trailhead with a dire warning on it. I planned to do a “lollipop route”, going north on the Strawhouse Trail to the saddle where the Marufo Vega trail turns off. The MV has two branches off the Strawhouse and they come together up on the plateau to the east, thus making the loop part of the lollipop. (USGS topo Rio Grande Village quadrangle.)
It was 9 AM. The sun was still low and there was some shade cast by the high mountain to the east of the trail. It was a nice hard-packed dirt trail and I thought “great!” But after only a couple hundred yards, it dropped down into a dry wash. Once again I’m plodding through loose gravel trying to get traction. The Strawhouse Trail runs 14 miles straight north, almost all of it in this wash. Occasionally solid bedrock poked above the surface which gave a good firm footing. After a while though there were some boulders lined across the wash directing me up the right bank out of the wash and back on to a nice dirt path. I passed a couple ruins of the old ore tramway, which were just a pile of old 10x10 timbers and a couple of long, thick, rusty steel cables. The Ore Terminal Trail branched off to the left here following the route of the old tramway.
The trail started heading steadily uphill toward a prominent saddle in the mountains. In the picture, the trail goes to the saddle on the right. The gap on the left is formed by the wash that the trail originally followed. If you’re hiking up the Strawhouse, you can stay in the wash, instead of hiking up and over the pass. On the topo map, the Strawhouse is shown going up and over the saddle. No trail is shown following the wash. At the top of the saddle, the trail was in the shade, so I stopped for a break. At this point on the pass, the Marufo Vega trail branches off to the right and goes straight up the side of the mountain. This was the steep part the ranger spoke about. It looked steep enough to require using feet and hands, so I decided to make the loop in the clockwise direction and continue north on the Strawhouse to what the guidebook referred to as “the horse route” (i.e., less steep) up to the Marufo Vega plateau.
I left the shade of the saddle and headed north and downhill. The trail here was very rocky. In about three-quarters of a mile was the junction for the Marufo Vega. There’s no shade at all now and the temp is rising. The trail was steep but not as steep as the previous trail, but I couldn’t imagine taking a horse up here. The trail turned right (south) and contoured along a ledge atop some cliffs on the side of the mountain for a while. There were nice views from here across the Ernst Valley and back towards the saddle where I rested a little while ago. The trail turned left, away from the cliffs, onto a rolling plateau. But still always uphill. The sun was hot and relentless, but there was a nice breeze up here. Thank goodness I had the foresight to string a shoelace through my straw hat, so I could tie it under my chin and keep it from blowing away. Not having a hat in this sun could be life-threatening.
I finally got to the junction with the main Marufo Vega trail. There was a large rock cairn here about 2 foot high. I laid down on the ground and put my head in the little bit of shade cast by the cairn and rested for a while. I never noticed any insects while hiking, but whenever I stopped for a drink or a rest, there was always one fly pestering me. Maybe he was following me.
I was heading south now, but still up a gradual hill. I finally topped-out. I was very tired and overheated, but it’s all downhill now. I lengthened my trekking poles and started down. The trail was very steep and treacherous. It was a combination of solid rock and loose fist-sized rocks. The trail got steeper as it went. I went very slowly and used the poles to save my knees. I have an old injury on my right knee. It usually feels fine but I can easily overstress it on a downhill if I'm not careful. So on a hill like this I pick my way very slowly, usually trying to lead with my right foot so I don't have to bend my right knee behind me with all my weight on it. I finally reached the saddle at the bottom of the hill, but there was no shade here now. I lay down on the ground for another rest and put my hat over my face. The sign here said 1.5 miles to the trailhead, but I knew it would be tough going since I was dead tired and overheated.
I forced myself to eat some salty nuts. I had plenty of water, but it tasted bad. On the way in, I drank a liter of the bottled water I bought in Odessa, but the other two liters I had in my pack were filled with water I got from the spigot at the ranger station. It really tasted awful and was hard to drink. The sun was killing me and I thought the only shade between here and my car might be at the ruins of the old tramway. I got up and made a non-stop push to it. There was some shade there. When I now show friends that picture, I say, “This is the shade that saved my life.” I laid down on my pack with my body and head in the shade and put my hat over my face. My legs were in some bushes and there was a timber poking me in the back but I didn’t care. It was shade. I was feeling sick in my stomach from the water. The heat was unbearable. I was so tired, I felt like I could fall right asleep, but I didn’t. I thought to myself: If a rattlesnake comes and bites me, so be it. After about a half hour, I sat up and took another five minutes to convince myself to stand up, get back in the sun and continue on.
The trail descended back into the wash where the going was very tough. Plus the white stone in the wash seemed to intensify the heat. I stopped for another rest against the bank of the wash where a tall yucca plant gave a little bit of shade. I laid down and only my head was in the shade. My legs were baking in the sun. A passerby would think I was dead.
I eventually got up and made a last push. I saw a car going up the road about 200 yards distant and gave a little cheer. I finally got to my car, threw the pack and poles in and drove in a stupor back to the campground. I stopped at the little store and bought a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of Dasani water. I went to my campsite and lay down on the mat in the shade for a long time, but couldn’t fall asleep.
There was a good breeze blowing, so after I while I got up and washed out my shirt and socks and hung them on a line. The wind and dry air dried them out in no time. I drove back to the store and bought an ice-cream sandwich and got a shower. Luckily there was a little seat in the shower because I was too beat to stand up. I put another 6 quarters in for another 5 minutes of water and just sat there and let it pour over me. After the shower I bought an ice-cold navel orange for $1. It was delicious. I also bought a small bag of potato chips, thinking I could use the salt. But I had no appetite for them. I didn’t eat any supper either.
Back at the campground, the wind was blowing like crazy now. I sat in the car and read, waiting for dark. Just around sundown a group of about 8 javelinas came strolling through the campground. They sniffed around a couple campsites but kept moving and disappeared into the brush. I'm sorry the picture is blurry. My digital camera isn't that good with moving subjects. I finally went to bed. It was warmer than the night before, but the wind didn’t relent. I wrote in my journal: "A very bad day.”
I got up at first light—7:30. Drank an Instant Breakfast and packed up the tent. I headed north to The Basin where I hoped some real food at the restaurant there would re-energize me. I filled the gas tank at the station at Panther Junction for $3.03 per gallon. Another car pulled up and I heard a radio playing in it. I asked the driver for the number of the station. The “seek and scan” button on my car radio couldn’t find anything after I got south of Fort Stockton. I tuned to the number the fellow gave me. It was a public radio station with eclectic music that faded in and out depending on how high up in the mountains you were. Went west for 2 or 3 miles then turned left onto the Basin road. The road is one long uphill climbing into the Chisos Mountains. The scenery was spectacular.
I drove over the pass and down into the Basin. I went straight to the campground to look for a site. It was slim pickings. There were a lot of campers. The sites were closely packed together and some but not all had verandas for shade. I found a site with a veranda that backed up to the desert, plus it had a long “driveway”, so I had a bit of privacy. I set up my tent and paid the $10 fee then drove up the hill to the restaurant. To my dismay, they didn’t open for lunch for another 45 minutes. So I went to the store there and bought one of their navel oranges and sat outside on a bench and ate it and watched the tourists come and go against the backdrop of the awesome Chisos Mountains.
At 11:00 I was first in line at the dining room. I got the soup & salad bar and a coke and an ice water for $10+$2 tip. The soup was like melted Cheez Whiz with specs of ham in it. But it was hot and good. The salad was good too, but I had to struggle to eat it. I was really feeling out of sorts after my brush with heat exhaustion yesterday. I bought a bottle of water (they only sell Dasani at the Park), and went out for a ride. I headed back out of the Basin, and made a left on the main park road, also known as Texas 118. After about 10 miles made another left and headed south on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.
This road sure was scenic. Geologists must be ecstatic here. Everywhere you look is a different type of terrain. I stopped at the Homer Wilson Ranch overlook. This is a trailhead for the Dodson Trail, one of the trails I had hoped to do an overnight on. It was so hot when I stepped out of the car and the trail was so wide open and exposed, I couldn’t imagine hiking there now. Back in the car, the radio reception came in long enough for me to hear an old song from my college days, “Illegal Smile”, by John Prine. I sang along with it and drove further south to Tuff Canyon. In the parking area, I was tempted to leave the engine running so the air-conditioning would keep the car cool, but being a city boy, I’m paranoid about having my car stolen, so I shut it off and locked it up. I walked a hundred yards or so out to a couple of the overlooks. Another altogether different type of geology here. The walls of the canyon are composed of tuff—volcanic ash that has turned to rock. There’s also a trail down to the bottom of the canyon, but I left that for a cooler day.
Further down the road I stopped at Castolon village. In the store there I bought an ice-cream sandwich and sat outside on the porch in the shade and ate it. It was about 100 degrees again, and it made a big difference whether you were in the sun or the shade. I talked to a guy sitting there who reminded me a little of Captain Call. He said he was from Ft. Stockton and drives down here occasionally to sit and enjoy the view. He told me about some infamous drug-lord who was killed in the Mexican town just across the Rio Grande from here.
Back on the road, I drove through the Park’s Cottonwood Campground to see what it was like. A few trees, a dusty dirt road and outhouses. It looked like a miserable place to camp in this heat. There was only one large group of campers there—looked like maybe college kids on a field trip. I stopped at the Santa Elena Canyon parking area. While changing into my hiking socks and shoes, I noticed that the fourth toe on my left foot was badly blistered, in the same exact spot I got a blister on the AT last year, so I skipped the hike and made a mental note to, in the future, wrap that toe with duct tape before I get a blister. I drove back north on the Old Maverick Road. It was 14 miles of rocky washboard.
I got back to the Basin in time for the 5:00 dinner bell. I was second in line. I ordered salmon, mashed potatoes and the same soup and salad bar I had at lunch. The food was good, but I only ate half of it. The fish could have been cooked more. It was covered with diced apples, oranges and grapefruit. The mashed potatoes were garnished with bacon bits, grated cheese and chives. I also had 3 refills of ice-cold Coke. $20 + tip. Back at the campsite, I called home and told my wife of my travails. I used a phone booth since cell phone service is non-existent in Big Bend.
Not a bad day. I was still fatigued and my appetite was lacking. I realized now that I wasn’t going to be doing any backpacking on this trip and I would have to be satisfied with car touring and short day hikes. I was in bed at 9:00. There were lots of clouds and no stars. I took the fly off the tent because it was windy again. My tent is all screen except for the floor, so the wind can blow right through it.
Tough night sleeping. I brought two sleeping bags on the trip—one 40 degree and one 25 degree. I would lay them on top of each other for more padding. I would usually start the night lying on top of them and then as it cooled down, move into one or the other depending on how cold it was. Because of the wind, I didn’t put up the fly, since the flapping would keep me awake. But later in the night when the moon came up it was like a spotlight shining on me through the netting. Eventually the moon moved behind the veranda. I moved into the warm bag. I woke up about 3:30. The wind was gone, and without the “wind chill” I was too warm, so I moved into the light bag. But it then it got colder, so I slipped into my silk bag liner. I woke up around 7:30, still feeling very tired. There were no showers available at the Basin, so I washed the upper half of my body as best as I could in the sink at the campground bathroom.
I went up to the lodge for the $10 breakfast buffet. Big glass of cold orange juice, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, grits, hash browns, sausage, bacon, pancakes—all good. They also had a fruit salad, but it had a sour taste. After eating my stomach still felt weird.
I got in the car and drove west. I exited the Park and went through the “towns” of Study Butte and Terlingua—not much there. Then went through Lajitas—a brand new, fancy town with vacation home sites for sale in the most god-awful location—hot, hot rocky desert. They even had a golf course. I like golf, but a golf course in the desert is just a waste of precious water. I continued west on Texas 170 paralleling the Rio Grande through Big Bend Ranch State Park. It was a nice curvy and hilly road with spectacular scenery. Note the road in the far upper left corner of the picture.
I stopped and hiked into Closed Canyon. I had to hike a couple hundred yards in the hot sun to get to the start of the canyon. The canyon was all in the shade but the ground was covered with loose black cinder-like gravel. It was like walking in soft sand. It was very spectacular though and worth seeing. Kind of like a slot canyon about 10-20 feet wide with sheer vertical walls. There were lots of singing birds flying about. I hiked for about a half hour then came to an 8-foot drop-off that I wasn’t confident of being able to get back up. So I turned around there. If you continue on you eventually come to the Rio Grande.
I drove as far west as the town of Redford. There was no restaurant or gas station there, so I turned around. Back in Study Butte I stopped in a gas station/restaurant/grocery store. Filled up for $2.97/gallon and got lunch—cheeseburger, real hand-cut French fries and a large lemonade for $8+tip.
Back at the Basin it was cooler with a nice breeze. I took an afternoon nap then went up to the store for an ice-cream and soda and water. It was very cloudy this afternoon, so the sun isn’t beating down. I took a few short walks around the campground area and watched a small group of mule deer for a while. I skipped dinner since I had a late lunch. The Basin is a cheesy campground, but it’s in a spectacular setting, surrounded by high rock cliffs and mountains. I treated the blister on my toe and wrote in my journal while waiting for darkness to come. There were lots of wispy clouds and a beautiful red sunset.
It was a calm, warm night. I slept right through to 5:00 and finally got out of the bag around 7. I packed up the campsite and went up to the breakfast buffet. I tried a poached egg and liked it. This was my last full day in Big Bend, so I decided to do the two most popular day hikes in the Park. I bought a couple Dasani waters at the store and headed out in the car to Santa Elena Canyon. Along the way I stopped and took the trail to Burro Mesa pouroff. It was a nice trail with shade along the second half where it entered a canyon downstream of the pouroff. A pouroff is a waterfall that is dry except when it rains. It took about 45 minutes round trip.
I drove to the Santa Elena parking lot, grabbed a bottle of water and my camera and headed down the trail. The Santa Elena Canyon is one of the highlights if not THE highlight of Big Bend. The Rio Grande cuts through the Mesa de Anquila and forms a canyon with sheer vertical cliffs on either side. On the Mexican side the cliffs come right down into the river. On the American side there’s a little bit of flat land where the trail is, but upstream, the cliff squeezes out the trail. From far off, it looks like the Mesa was neatly sliced with a sharp knife.
First I had to cross over the wide Terlingua Creek bed. There was actually some water flowing in it. It was only a few inches deep but I saw some tiny minnows swimming in it. You could easily walk across it without getting your feet wet. It wasn’t clear where the trail picked up on the far bank, but I spied some red plastic ribbon tied to a bush a little ways upstream, so I headed there. I climbed up the bank and found a path. It led to tunnel-like trail through a grove of very bright green trees (maybe tamarack?) which ended at a rock cliff which marked the start of the Canyon. A set of concrete-paved switchbacks climbed steeply up to the top of the cliff. The hot sun made it a tough slog. At the top the trail made a gradual descent down to the canyon floor. Down at the bottom the trail was dusty dirt churned up by lots of footsteps. I passed one couple on their way out and amazingly, I had the whole canyon to myself. I walked up to the end of the trail where the rock cliffs come right down into the river. Then I went back downstream a little and climbed out on a large rock in the river and sat there for a while enjoying the tranquility and solitude. The Mexican side seemed close enough to reach out and touch. You could look straight up and see a ribbon of blue sky between the Mexican and American cliffs. When I heard some other hikers coming into the canyon, I headed out. I must have just beat the rush because I passed many people coming in. I couldn’t believe how many people I saw who weren’t carrying any water! Even though the water in my bottle was warm as pee, my mouth and lips were continually drying out, and I was glad to have a drink, no matter how warm.
On the drive back, I stopped at the Castolon store for the obligatory ice cream bar. There was a sign on the door saying closed for 15 minutes, so I went next door to the visitor center. It was manned by the usual senior-citizen volunteer. It was rather tiny inside—2 small rooms crammed with displays, books and souvenirs. It was also crammed with tourists. I guess everyone was soaking up the free air-conditioning while waiting for the grocery store to open.
Back at the Basin, I got lunch and bought a couple more waters and drove up to the Lost Mine Trail trailhead. This is a nice dirt trail—not a dry wash—that goes continuously uphill into the Chisos Mountains. I walked for an hour and fifteen minutes and didn’t reach the top, which is 2.4 miles from the start. It was late in the day and I wanted to make sure I got back to my car before the sun set. The views from the trail are terrific. You hit a divide about halfway up where you can see for miles westward through the opening in the Chisos Mountains known as The Window or to the southeast down Juniper Canyon. All the time the gigantic rock promontory of Casa Grande towers over you. The views are probably even better from the end of the trail at the top, but I’ll have to wait for the next trip for that. On the way down, I passed a mule deer well-camouflaged in the trees next to the trail. I was probably only five feet from her as she watched me walk by.
I rented a room at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the Basin for my last night. I wanted to get a shower and be able to make a quick getaway in the morning. I checked in—pretty steep at $93—got a shower, put on clean clothes and walked up to the dining room. There was a long line of people waiting to be seated, which was unusual. It turned out that a busload of school kids got in there ahead of us. I wrote in my journal, “I had delicious vegetable beef soup, delicious garden salad w/ blue cheese, delicious corn-on-the-cob, delicious loaded mashed potatoes and delicious almond-encrusted trout and a Coke. $20+4 tip.” I guess my appetite was back.
I went back to the room and packed up my suitcase and duffle bag. There was no TV, so I went to bed. Some idiot in another room was playing an acoustic guitar. He sounded pretty bad and fortunately he quit after 15 minutes.
I got up early. Took another shower—trying to get my money’s worth. Let’s see, that’s only $46.50 per shower. Loaded up the car and drove off just as it was getting light. I stopped and took some pictures on my descent out of the Chisos Mountains then began the long drive back to Odessa. Somewhere north of the Park, I had to stop at a border patrol station. The officer looked at me and asked, “Are you a citizen?” “Yeah.” “OK, so long.”
I took a slightly different route on the way back, turning east at Fort Stockton and following US 385 to Odessa, this route took me past some mesas covered with dozens of giant electric-generating windmills.
I got to Odessa and ate a hurried lunch at a Burger King, and rushed to the airport only to find that my flight was cancelled. Fortunately, American Airlines put me on a Continental flight, which was leaving in a half hour. Unfortunately, since I made a “last minute booking” on this flight, the TSA treats you like a terrorist and has to do a complete search of you and your carry-on bag. I finally got home to New Jersey around midnight.
Don’t underestimate the heat. All the literature I read said, “Don’t hike in the summer.” So I went the second week of Spring. It was still way too hot. I guess, ideally, winter is the best time, but then you have more than 12 hours of darkness to contend with. Next trip I’ll try going a month earlier and see how it is.
Wear a wide brim hat—not just a baseball cap—and make sure it has a chin strap or you’ll lose it in the wind. Wear light long pants and long-sleeved shirts.
Outside of Alaska, this might be our remotest National Park. No cell phone service (yet) and almost no radio reception. Over 200 miles to the nearest airport.
Use bottled water. The local water—at least at Rio Grande village—tastes awful. The water at the restaurant was good.
I had no trouble with insects, except for that one pesky fly.
If you’re hiking in the desert, be careful, some of the bushes have very nasty thorns on them. And be prepared for the drudgery of hiking in the gravel washes.
I recommend the restaurant at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, even if it is expensive. The food is decent, the wait staff is friendly and there's a great view out the big windows.
The four little grocery stores have a good selection of stuff and the prices aren’t bad.
At the Rio Grande campground they water the grass by opening sluice gates on an irrigation ditch and flooding different section of the camp on different days. Check with the campground host to make sure they’re not going to flood your site while you’re there.
I don’t recommend camping at the lowest end of the Basin campground. The septic system overflowed while I was there and it all flowed downhill….
If you have a four-wheel-drive, there are plenty of unpaved roads in the park for exploring. If you’re renting a vehicle and using your gold MasterCard or Visa for insurance coverage, be aware that it may not cover you for damage when driving on “unsealed” roads.
While writing this web page many months later and planning my next trip to BB, I came across a great web site written by a bunch of people who really care a lot about the park. Check it out…Big Bend Chat.com.
Stay in the shade.