BIG BEND NP

Chisos Basin Campground

We are hanging out in the motel in Carlsbad this AM, after a grueling desert drive up from Big Bend and a short stop in Guadalupe Mountains NP on the way.  We will go do the caves this afternoon and watch the famous bat emergence this PM. Meantime, though, this morning it is very pleasant to just sit in the AC in semi darkness. Outside the sun is white hot and we have the blinds closed except for a slit which lights up the room like a xenon lamp.

Big Bend did not disappoint! We arrived there in midafternoon at a spectacular campsite and successfully got our camping act together. For all those without faith who doubted my plan to camp (and Mary was one of them) we had a GREAT experience at Chisos Basin Campground.  I just checked with Mary and she claims she agrees with this assessment.

A pro: it is off-season, the campground was about only 10% occupied. A con: it’s off-season for a good reason: by May the sun is a hammer.  The campsites have shelters over the tables and you could not, I believe, make it without them.  In the shade it is pleasant and it is nice and cool at night, but in the sun it’s over 110.  Mary has NO cooling capacity, her face turns beet red and she gets dangerously hot.  This means she gets out of a lot of the work.

Our sleeping was just fine: tent has good ventilation   and  stood up under a lot of hard wind.  We slept on double foam mattresses and temperature at night was great.

The Park is a huge place with a green southern border where the Rio Grande makes its Big Bend.  The fantastic mountains (especially the Chisos Basin in the center of the park) ) are lonely 6000’ crags surrounded by the most forbidding desert you can imagine. Even for this place it is unusually dry now: everywhere you see bright red “Fire Danger: EXTREME” signs and one famous easy trail we hoped to take has been closed.  Still, on the one full day we had here I took three hikes totaling about 5 miles while Mary and Bella skulked under the trees. Each was just breathtaking (in both senses). I probably drank 2 gallons of water during the day and my pee was like motor oil.

Hike one: an early morning looking for birds.  Went to a small bog made by the campground water treatment plant outlet. Since there are very few water sources around this was birding heaven.  In about 30’ I saw: Say’s phoebe, painted bunting, blue-throated hummingbird (a big hummingbird!), summer tanager, acorn woodpecker, and Wilson’s and Audubon’s (western yellow-rumped) warblers. Also deer and a bear.  Back in camp before leaving to tour the park: Mary spotted a roadrunner and then up pops a Townsend’s warbler—on his way to the Pacific northwest.

Hike two: at Rio Grande Village campground on the southeast side of The Bend. Birds: a verdin and blue grosbeaks.  It was high noon, and anything with sense was not moving. I hiked a little nature train then took a wrong turn and did a loop up onto a little peak with—my God! A sudden extreme view down onto a loop of the Rio, looking both north to the Chisos, and south to the Sierra del Camren, an 8000’ range in Mexico. These mountains look so majestic because of the way they rise out of the desert. 

Looking south: the Rio Grande and the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico

Hike three: we then motored over to the southwestern side of the bend and there is Santa Elena Canyon: you come up to this massive black wall, a 1500’ barrier about 10 miles long and in the middle of it is a deep gap looking like it was sliced with a knife, out of which emerges the Rio Grande.  I hiked back into the gorge and (more painted buntings and a snowy egret!) spent a lot of time looking up with my mouth open at the vertical 1500’ walls.  Possibly the most spectacular 2 miles I have done in my life (but maybe Zion Canyon…). 

Santa Elena Canyon

Our dinner routine is: I cook, Mary washes dishes. That night we had Chef BOD ravioli, cheap white wine ice cold, chips and fig newtons. I cannot recall a finer meal.  Slept very well indeed.