Big Bend National Park

Big Bend NP is a collection of three distinct ecosystems - river (Rio Grande), desert, and mountains.  We did our best to experience all three.

It had rained early on Sunday and during the afternoon there was a thick fog pretty much everywhere, but we drove into the main visitors center for information.  We learned that some trails were closed because of recent mountain lion sightings.  Wellll, those were mountainous trails and we were not interested anyway, thank you.

Monday

As part of Matthew's Junior Ranger program we participated in a Ranger-lead program about the importance of water in the desert and also some interesting history of some hot springs close to the Rio Grande.  In the early 1900's a person built a small hotel and multiple baths for the hot springs.  There are some remains of the structures and the hot water is still there.  Matthew checked it and it's a steady 105 degrees!  Unfortunately we had not brought our bathing suits.  If you look closely over the cowboy hat you can see some bare legs sticking out of the brick holding wall for the hot spring.

This was an area next to the Rio Grande, although the river was not so grand-looking at this point.  There were stone paintings and carvings along the trail.  There were made by early Indian tribes perhaps 1,000 years ago.

During our picnic lunch we saw one of the characteristic animals of the park, a roadrunner.  It was in the parking lot!

That afternoon we drove to the eastern-edge of the park, a place called Boquillas Canyon where the Rio Grande carved a canyon through a line of stone/mountain 1,500 feet high.

Tuesday
This was our "desert" day.  We drove through miles and miles of desert, trying to identify the plants, see animals, and where there were mountains, identify the stones - Igneous, Metamorphic, and Stradivarius, or something like that.  It was interesting to learn that just over 100 years ago this area was covered with thick grass.  Early ranchers had thousands of cattle and sheep.  Well, the animals over-grazed and the ranchers pumped lots of water out of the aquifer and now it's a huge dessert.

Here are some desert plants.  The tall one is called a century plant.  It is said that they live 100 years, bloom and die.

We came across something called a lava dike - these were formed when lava was pushed up through cracks in the limestone rock layer.  The lava would harden and over thousands (millions?) of years, the soft rock would erode, leaving the hard rock in a line.

We drove to eastern part of the park to Santa Elena Canyon.  This is another place where the Rio Grande carved a 1,500 canyon.  This was a magnificent place.  It felt like a cathedral and the pictures are not really able to capture it.

On the way off the trail we came across a family of Javelinas - an animal that looks like a pig.

Are are some parting images of the desert.  We had to leave Big Bend to push on to future sites!