The bounty of remote Big Bend

Chisos Basin Drive, Big Bend National Park

Three roadrunners ushered us out of Davis Mountains State Parks, trotting on the road before springing into roadside shrubs. With a picnic of sandwiches, tea and cold salads from the Stone Village Market, we said goodbye to Fort Davis. We ate below a series of giant cottonwoods, buzzing bees heard but not seen through our entire lunch. Later we determined they built the hive within one of the giant wobbly branches.

Texas 118 somewhere south of Alpine

We had 20 miles to Alpine where we retraced our steps. The previous afternoon’s herd of horses loitered off Camp Mitre Peak Road. The elk and javelinas were nowhere to be found. Back into Alpine, we stocked up, buying another 24-pack of spring water and some other food for our two-night stay in the Chisos Lodge. In a few turns, we left Alpine behind.

Green hills and ranches slowly drifted into grooved mesas and crumbling buttes. Fewer ranches broke up the scenery. The eroded mountains reminded us of the geology around Guadalupe Peak. Cathedral Mountain even looked like a smaller version of Guadalupe’s jutting El Capitan formation.

A shallow ocean covered the flatlands between the mountains 135 million years. With the desert vegetation waving in the breeze. The limestone created in those seas would even form the imposing canyons and mountain walls along the Mexican border in Big Bend.

Near the entrance to Study Butte

The miles toward Study Butte clicked off – and they clicked fast at 80-plus mph. Ocotillo grew more populous. Not a true cactus, ocotillo flourished in this desert. Few plants are more deceptive – thin green branches rise from a stout base. In dry months, ocotillo look dead and spiny. During monsoon season – this August brought seven inches of rain across Big Bend country - the lush green leaves hide dense rows of thorns covering the entire branch.

Green, green Ocotillo

On its course to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande (or Rio Bravo, as it’s known in Mexico) takes a large southern bend, hence the name. For 118 miles, the Rio Grande forms the southern boundary of Big Bend National Park and the United States. That span includes two of the most spectacular canyons anywhere.

Study Butte includes the Terlingua Ghost Town, home to a surprising number of cool restaurants and campus spots.

The road from Alpine bears straight into the national park, past a large 1950s-looking NPS sign and a guard shack. Then the desert again unfolds. In the heat, we applied suntan lotion and stopped frequently to absorb this desert from every intoxicating angle.

As we drove, neither of us could look away from the intimidating mountain range at the park’s core. The Chisos Mountains resembled a series of stone fortresses. At certain angles, they could have passed for the lair of a comic-book supervillain or a James Bond foe. Along Chisos Basin Drive, the air cooled considerably in the first mile. After the initial straightaway, we wound precariously around the switchbacks in miles 4-6, cloud cover and recent rain dropped us into the low 70s, weather unthinkable to us this far south.

 For the first-time visitor, the Chisos Mountains hid a major secret- the park lodge and the best easy views in all of Big Bend. We loitered around the basin and had a picnic beneath the peaks with the second half of our Fort Davis sandwiches while waiting for our room to open up.

The beauty of the Chisos Basin is you don’t even have to leave to enjoy a humbling chunk of Big Bend. All the park’s high peaks surround the basin. Any number of hikes leave from here. But the development does not feel overdone. It fits with the surroundings, mostly single-story buildings (the lodge is built into a rolling hillside, roads built around craggy formations.

Chisos Basin picnic view

Once we had room keys, we unloaded and set off along the 30-mile Ross Maxwell Scenic Dive dropping through the desert to the Rio Grande and the stunning Santa Elena Canyon, one of Big Bend’s signature features. Had we known better, we would have rented a high-clearance vehicle.

Any future Big Bend travelers should heed that recommendation – the park has hundreds of miles of paved roads, but deeper adventure lies in the unpaved roads that visit pictographs, desert springs and other sites far from the main roads. A ranger told us that a week after the rains, even a high-clearance vehicle might struggle with on unmaintained paths.

The main park roads boast spectacular views and no crowds, but the allure of true wilderness deeper in Big Bend runs strong. This is not to denigrate the roads – Chisos Basin Drive and the Maxwell Scenic Drive rank among the best national park routes I’ve traveled. Regularly tarantulas and millipedes crossed the park roads, as did the occasional snakes.

Even scenic drives in this country came with inescapable truths. Border agents conducted some operations on the Maxwell Scenic Drive, warning us to drive slowly through the area they surveyed. Given the soaring cliffs of Santa Elena upon the horizon and mountain ranges beyond, I had doubts that Big Bend was a hotbed of illegal border crossings. Still, I could not discount the possibility that someone undertook such a dangerous journey.

Mule Ears Overlook view

 After a few flat early miles, the Maxwell Scenic Drive swings through this rugged country of crumbling mountains worn to their rocky innards. They don’t always resemble domes or cones. First we stopped at the Mule Ears Overlook, the trailhead to Mule Ears Springs and the best place for a quick look at the eroded prongs of Mule Ears Peak. We divided our time between the ruddy peaks and the curious lizard at our feet.

Colorful visitor at the Mule Ears Overlook

 The Sam Nail Ranch and the Homer Wilson Ranch, structures from Big Bend’s homesteading past, sit along the Maxwell Scenic Drive. The people are long gone, their homes still stand in this arid country.

Through Tuff Canyon, we came to Castolon Historic District, which preserves an old settlement and U.S. Army outpost the Army never used much. Beyond Castolon, the ribbon of green, topped by cottonwoods and other river trees, revealed the Rio Grande and the border.

But we were looking up. At this point on the drive, Santa Elena Canyon occupied much of the horizon. I mockingly chanted “Build the wall! Build the wall!” as those ominous, 1,000-foot-tall cliffs rose above the Rio Grande. If you give the Rio Grande a few million years, it will be the most formidable wall imaginable.

Castolon Peak

Nature can build its own spectacular walls. While the canyon covers 20 miles in the park, the rusty-brown rock walls, that rise up to 1,500 feet above the river, rise much longer on the Mexican bank. I couldn’t tell you how much geologic time those rock walls cover, but the Rio Grande’s fast-flowing waters often erode the ground rapidly (in geographic terms, not human lifespan terms).

Captured by a stranger at the Santa Elena Overlook

We reached the canyon overlook a few minutes too soon, the sun blinding us before it slowly dropped behind the canyon walls. Only at the canyon overlook did we encounter anyone not with the Border Patrol. Otherwise, we would have lacked a picture of us at the canyon.

I cannot overstate the solitude – roadrunners, hawks and lizards are the only other interruptions. The quiet landscape enveloped us.

For closer views of the canyon mouth, we drove to the Santa Elena trailhead, where the Rio Grande hike that crossed into the canyon. A tropical storm and Mexican dam releases a week earlier turned the narrow ribbon into a chocolate-colored flow with choppy currents. We didn’t even consider stepping into those currents.

For the canyon hike, one must cross the Terlingua Creek, which joins the Rio Grande at the edge of the canyon. Usually a trickle, Terlingua Creek’s flowed strongly enough to deter us from crossing the floodplain to the Santa Elena Trail. I put my foot on the bank next to the Rio Grande and the mud clamped down.

One could do worse than the Maxwell drive during the golden hour. The fading daylight drenched Castolon Peak in amazing colors. Driving back as the sunset neared, red-orange light bathed Big Bend’s peaks. Neither of us wanted to end the ride.

Looking into Mexico

Slowing coming up the Chisos Basin Drive, a stopped vehicle blocked the road, a sure alert for nearby wildlife. As the car drove off, we saw the spectacle. A black bear, likely a young male, fed a few yards from the Lost Mine Trailhead. He would reappear in the same area the next night. Foraging his lone focus, he paid no attention to cars of gawkers. Here our cameras failed us, snapping the blurriest pictures of the entire trip.

Chisos Basin at the golden hour, Maxwell Scenic Drive

The final light of day cast strange beams into the Chisos Basin, washing us in soft blue rays before night crept in. The hotel and nearby areas never felt crowded. Little pockets of people mingled around overlooks and hotel porches.

While a certified dark-sky location, only two things can foil would-be stargazers – clouds and the moon. The clouds crept into the Chisos Basin late at night, but the nearly full moon blotted out the Milky Way, rendering Big Bend’s skies no darker than our Nashville backyard. Nancy packed her telescope and we found a quiet corner of the Basin to attempt some stargazing. Stars were hard to see, although finer details of the moon, mostly crater rims, became visible.

Eventually we moon won; we sat on the porch, watched what stars we could see with a glass of Texas red then retired, another full days of Big Bend only a sunrise away.

Day-end light show, Chisos Basin