The Big Bend mosquitofish (_Gambusia gaigei_) has a miniscule

geographic range. Not only is it restricted to the park, as some other

species are, but it is also restricted to one pond. The fish was first

identified in 1928 in Boquillas Spring. Unfortunately, the spring soon

dried up and for some 20 years the fish was thought extinct. In 1954

more were found near Rio Grande Village. This group was later

threatened, and a pond was built especially for the fish. But people

dumped into the pond other fish that ate this tiny mosquitofish. At

one point the world’s only survivors were two males and a female, Rio

Grande Villagers that biologists had removed to a laboratory aquarium

at the University of Texas at Austin. A cold winter again killed

nearly the whole park population, and again the Austin-raised stock

replenished it. _Gambusia gaigei_ gives birth to live offspring and

has been around as a species since mastodons. They feed largely on

mosquito larvae.

[Illustration: Actual size]

Since the coming of the park, cottonwoods have returned to the

floodplain, especially at Castolon. A stately colonnade of eastern

cottonwoods lures ladderback woodpeckers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers

to Cottonwood Campground. More than 100 lanceleaf cottonwoods may be

seen along the road that leads to Santa Elena, Mexico. Standing as much

as 30-meters (100-feet) tall, refreshingly green in summer and gorgeous

gold in fall, cottonwoods seek water by spreading horizontal roots far

and wide, and by sending taproots deep down to the water table. They

propagate in early summer by shaking millions of cottony seeds upon the

wind. These fuzzy white parachutes may lie in windrows or cover the

ground downwind like new fallen snow.

Along the River Road from Castolon to Santa Elena Canyon, you get

another glimpse of what water means in the desert. The road winds along

the edge of an alluvial bench from 15 to 30 meters (50-100 feet) high.

Atop this terrace you have the widely spaced shrubs of the Chihuahuan

Desert, but peer over the edge and you find a dense green wilderness

crowded between the benchface and the river. All that separates lifeless

sand from green jungle is the vertical distance that stops the water.

Down there salt cedars have packed themselves thickly into the narrow

space.

Another water-loving plant prevalent along the river and dry washes is

honey mesquite, a feathery, thorned shrub- or tree-sized member of the

pea family. Its root system, with a deep tap root, is so extensive that

more wood lies underground than shows above ground, and natives say you

must “dig for wood” here. Mesquite trees multiply as persistently as

salt cedar, but are highly useful to man and to wildlife. Honey bees and

butterflies visit the yellow mesquite flowers, quail roost in the

branches, and wood rats collect mesquite beans in tremendous numbers.

Deer, horses, and cattle also relish the beans, while Indians and early

settlers made a nutritious bread from mesquite bean flour. Honey

mesquite carries the standard Kentucky-wonder type of bean. But the

screwbean mesquite or _tornillo_—for which Tornillo Creek was named—puts

out a curious cluster of corkscrew-shaped fruit pods. Mesquites often

mass together in thickets, and they do very well in the drier soils of

arroyos, often rubbing thorns with acacias, a family of sweet-smelling,

flowering trees and shrubs attractive to honey bees and hummingbirds.

The roots of these thickets provide apartments for scores of floodplain

pocket gophers, kangaroo rats, and hispid cotton rats.

[Illustration: A greenbelt along a wash contrasts sharply with

surrounding desert habitat.]

Despite the luxuriance and rapid growth of floodplain flora, life along

the greenbelt rests in precarious balance. The floodplain is the one

place in the park from which domestic cattle have never been

successfully removed. The problem is that Mexican cows, horses, and

burros do not recognize international boundaries.

There was a day when cows grazed grasslands at higher elevations, and

before the cows could be seen herds of pronghorns, golden, graceful,

large-eyed, with black horns and white rump patches. Imagine if you can

how Tornillo Flat must have looked at the turn of the century with fine

grasses bending under the wind and the pronghorns flashing their rump

patches in sudden semaphore. Depending on speedy flight for protection,

pronghorns seek wide-open places where they can see a long way off.

Today, Tornillo Flat is a bald shrub desert. The pronghorns vanished

long ago. The small band sometimes seen north of Tornillo Creek is the

remnant of a herd reintroduced in the 1940s.

The grass that flourished on Tornillo Flat in its heyday was a very good

clump-forming grass called tobosa. To the first settlers it looked as

though there was more grass along Tornillo Creek than could ever be

eaten off. Yet the tobosa soon disappeared, falling first to mowing

machines and finally to the domestic herds that cropped it out of

existence. Hay balers plied Tornillo Flat into the 1930s.

Grasses spread through seed germination, and in some cases by

underground and aboveground stems. As a general rule, root depth equals

the height of the grass, but half of the root system dies back each

year. This is natural and even desirable since the dead roots create new

soil and you still have a sound root system if the grass isn’t topped

too much. But heavy overgrazing causes grass roots to die back even more

and creates an abnormally shallow root system. This is doubly dangerous

in desert country where heat and the need to search out water pose

crucial problems for all plants. Nor is this all, because other good

things come—and other good things go—with a healthy ground cover. As

each year’s grasses die back they fertilize the soil and insulate

seedlings and roots from the sun’s killing heat, but when this cover is

reduced, good grasses disappear and poorer grasses take over. Surface

conditions are finally so changed that neither grasses nor grassland

forbs and shrubs can grow. Seedlings may burst into brief life with a

rain but when the sun bears down again day after day the unprotected

plants perish. With nothing to hold it the soft topsoil blows and washes

away. Desert downpours soon gully the ground, changing drainage patterns

and lowering the water table beyond the reach of short grass roots.

Longer rooted desert shrubs move in, first the shortlived tarbush, and

finally creosotebush. The result is seen on Tornillo Flat today: typical

Chihuahuan shrub desert with sparsely scattered creosotebush and

cactuses.

What happened at Tornillo Flat also happened to other park grasslands.

Chino grama, ignored by cattle and goats, but relished by sheep and

horses, is and was the dominant grass of the Big Bend foothills. By

1944, overuse had so stripped the grasslands near Government Spring that

you could hardly find a bunch of chino on the bare beige hills. Even in

the mountains proper the grasses had all but disappeared, and biologists

conducting an ecological survey found that the South Rim looked and

smelled like a goat paddock.

Once the park was established and domestic animals were removed, native

grasses got the chance to reestablish themselves. At first nature itself

blocked recovery. For seven long years drought ruled all life in Texas.

When the rains finally did come, grasses improved at different rates in

different places. They had the most difficult time at lower elevations

where heat and aridity are greatest. Several attempts to seed Tornillo

Flat have been made, but it may take decades for these once bountiful

bottomlands to green again. Grasses in the grassland belt surrounding

the Chisos have made a remarkable comeback, however. In ten short years

ground cover increased 30 percent. Grasses at the higher elevations are

now probably as rich as ever.

The Fur Trade

Furs were an active commodity in the Big Bend until about 1940. Beaver

once abounded along the river and its tributaries. Both fur bearers

and predators were taken. The bighorn sheep was largely extirpated,

selling for a time as “Mexican goat.” Wolves were extirpated before

the park could provide refuge. Not all species were trapped. The

javelina was hunted during World War I, for use in gloves, coats, and

suitcases. The bristles went into brushes. Elmo Johnson (photo) bought

furs from trappers at his trading post. Good profits required a good

eye for raw furs, which Johnson possessed. Furs not trapped during the

animal’s winter prime were nearly worthless, and values depended on

their condition generally. No fur market existed in Mexico, so furs

trapped there were sold at Texas trading posts, destined for the fur

houses in St. Louis, Missouri. Only a portion of Johnson’s fur stocks

shows in this 1929 photograph. Furs were a good business for him,

because trappers took their value in goods, his first profit in the

transaction. He then sold the furs for his second profit. Later,

salaried government trappers worked this area to control predators.

Today, all wildlife in the park is protected.

[Illustration: Gray fox]

[Illustration: Mule Deer]

[Illustration: Bobcat]

[Illustration: Kit fox]

[Illustration: Coyote]

[Illustration: Badger]

[Illustration: Elmo Johnson and furs.]

Different kinds of grasses have adapted themselves to different soils

and altitudes and grow in company with different co-dominant plants. In

colorful sequence the grasses create a three-dimensional mosaic that

begins on the edges of the shrub desert, covering the foothills and

running up through the woodlands out onto mountaintop meadows. You can

see these differences quite easily.

[Illustration: The U.S. Boundary Survey trekking the Big Bend

country in 1852 encountered this Lipan Apache warrior. His portrait

came to adorn the survey report.]

Let’s say it’s ten o’clock on a fine fall morning, and you are driving

from Rio Grande Village up to the Basin. You find shrub desert all

around you at first, with the usual creosotebush, ocotillo, and

pricklypear. The only grass you see grows in a buff-colored strip on

either side of the road, where runoff from infrequent rains creates a

habitat moist enough for grasses to germinate and reach maturity. But

after you pass 900 meters (3,000 feet) of elevation you begin to see the

first sparse bunches of chino grama spotted here and there across the

desert. Somewhere just below the Dugout Wells turnoff you find quite a

bit of bunch grass among the bushes. Almost imperceptibly the chino

thickens until at 1,000 meters (3,500 feet) the hillsides appear cobbled

over with lumps the color of gray rock. It appears that you couldn’t

step down without stubbing your toe against a clump of gray-green grass

or lechuguilla. Soon all the slopes are patterned yellow and gray-green

as solid stands of lechuguilla crowd into the chino grama. The grass is

so thick now that scaled quail hunt seeds along the roadside and

cottontail rabbits bounce jauntily across in the mid-morning sunlight.

The colors you see owe much to the angle of the sun, but at about 1,200

meters (4,000 feet), near Panther Junction, the plants themselves add a

soft new hue, the beautiful silver-blue of ceniza shrubs. Bunches of

vivid green grass crop up amid the tawny three-awns by the roadside, and

the tops of the tarbush are brushed with yellow. Rock, gravel, grass,

and shrub blend together in shades of tan, gray, green, and blue

pinpointed by Christmas-red fruits on the guayacan, with once again vast

gardens of chartreuse lechuguilla and skeleton-leaf goldeneye shrubs.

These rolling grasslands have much less pricklypear and creosotebush,

and they have a lower profile than the shrub desert. Here and there the

Torrey yucca lifts its shaggy head high, but the whole land surface

looks somehow smoother, less hob-nailed than before.

When you start the 11-kilometer (7-mile) climb toward the Basin, chino

grama gives way to a variety of grasses, blue, black, hairy, and side

oats grama, and the straw-colored grass aptly named tanglehead. The

whole color scheme changes with the grass from shades of gray to reddish

brown and yellow, and the tops of these good grasses have the heavy

headed look of grain. The lechuguilla becomes less obvious. Gradually

the moisture-loving mountain shrubs push the grasses back from the

roadside, but the golden gramas grow with wonderful abundance on the

drier slopes beyond. Still higher, the still good grasslands are studded

now with century plant, basket grass, and sotol.

[Illustration: Ancient rock art known as petroglyphs (top) decorate

rock faces. The arid climate protects them.]

[Illustration: Mortar holes deepened imperceptibly each time the

Indians ground seeds or grains in them.]

Earlier in this century sotol abounded between Green Gulch and

Government Spring, but in the severe drought during World War I,

ranchers chopped it out for cattle feed. Today you will find a perfect

forest of sotol growing at Sotol Vista on the western flank of the

Chisos. As you can see from the overlook, this narrow-bladed plant

favors the cooler north-facing exposures. Sotol leaves grow at ground

level from a short trunk, and nearly every spring the plant thrusts up a

brush-like bloomstalk, 4 to 6 meters (15-20 feet) tall, covered half its

length by greenish-white flowers. Prehistoric Indians had many uses for

sotol, and later the Chisos Apaches often located their rancherias at

solid stands of “desert candle.” They used the fibrous leaves in making

mats and ropes, fermented a potent drink from the pineapple-like heart,

or roasted it in rock-lined pits as we roast beef. Several crumbling

sotol pits are found throughout the Chisos, and sotol still serves as an

all-purpose plant along the border.

Sotol is one of those Big Bend plants that has its very own grasshopper.

If you look closely, you may find a little fellow feeding high on the

bloomstalk and looking for all the world like a bud. He lives his whole

life on the sotol plant and knows just how to use it to advantage. If

you annoy him he will probably play possum, drawing in his legs and

dropping like a stone right down into the thick of the sotol leaves. Few

predators come away unscathed from a close encounter with those

saw-edged blades.

Indians of the Big Bend

Evidence of Paleo-Indian culture dates back to about 9000 B.C. here.

The Archaic and Neo-American culture sites date from about 6000 B.C.

These occur near today’s water sources, so climate conditions then

were probably similar to now. The Archaic people used the atl-atl, a

dart-pointed throwing stick, to hunt game animals. The Neo-Americans

used the bow and arrow. Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca encountered their

descendants in his 1535 expedition through the area. In the 1640s the

major Indians here were the Tobosas, Salineros, Chisos, and

Tepehuanes, who fought Spanish encroachment and enslavement. Spanish

horses enabled the Mescalero Apaches to expand their range and

dominate the area by the 1740s. They became the Chisos Apaches. By the

1840s, the Comanches, also with Spanish horses, dominated an enormous

range focused on the Big Bend. When Texas was annexed by the United

States in 1845, the U.S. military became the Indians’ antagonist.

Forts strung along the route to California goldfields after 1849

sliced the Indian territory in half.

Retreating far into the mountains, the last Apaches, under Chief

Victorio, were defeated by Col. Benjamin H. Grierson and scattered

into Mexico. There Victorio was soon killed by Mexican troops. Col.

William H. Shafter continued the Army’s Indian pacification after

March 1881. Not all Indians were hostile. The painting, by Capt.

Arthur Lee, shows West Texas Indians trading at Fort Davis.

[Illustration: Chief Victorio]

[Illustration: Col. William H. Shafter]

[Illustration: West Texas Indians trading at Fort Davis.]

Another lily of the desert is the yucca. Overabundance of this perennial

often indicates abuse of a grassland, and yucca gradually thins out

again once a good grass cover is reestablished. Several species of yucca

flourish in Big Bend. Most widely scattered is the Torrey yucca or

Spanish dagger. Seen from desert lowland to mountain top, it thrives at

Persimmon Gap near the park’s north entrance.

[Illustration: One of six yucca species in the park, the giant

dagger abounds in Dagger Flat. It blooms every two or three years

from late March through April.]

Yucca grows like sotol from a central trunk, but it adds new growth at

the top and lets its dead leaves drop down in a palm-like grass skirt.

The yucca also puts up a bloomstalk year after year, and the creamy

flowers are a favorite browse of deer and cattle. Yuccas may live from

50 to 75 years, reaching tree-like proportions. The giant dagger that

gives Dagger Flat its name may grow more than 6 meters (20 feet) tall.

In good years it blooms around Easter-time, and a single bloomstalk may

have more than 1,000 flowers and weigh as much as 30 kilos (70 pounds).

Indians used nearly every part of the yucca in countless ways. They ate

the flowers and fruit, wove baskets and made brushes from leaf fibers,

and made soap from the roots. Along the border, natives still harvest

the great yucca flower-heads and feed them to livestock.

The Mescalero Apaches roasted the mescal or century plant using the same

technique they used for sotol. The mescal was as central to the Apache

way of life as the bison was to the plains Indians. They made food,

drink, medicine, mats, ropes, bags, and even needles and twine from the

great, gray-green agave.

It is not true that the century plant takes a hundred years to bloom;

it’s more like 25 to 50 years. Once started the bloomstalk shoots up at

the rate of nearly 2.5 centimeters (an inch) in an hour, or up to 41

centimeters (16 inches) in 24 hours. Soon platters of golden flowers

float on the air, and bees, flies, and ants come to the feast. The

violet-throated Lucifer hummingbird may sometimes be found at a mescal

in blooming season. At night the Mexican long tongued bat leaves its

cave on Emory Peak and comes to feed on the nectar and ample pollen.

Like all agaves, the mescal expends its strength on this onetime burst

of blooming. Once the seed pods form, the plant dies and young plants

arise near its base. But that is not the end of its beauty or its

usefulness. If you climb the foot trail to Juniper Flat through the

thickly grassed woodlands above the Basin, you will pass more than one

dead mescal with its towering bloomstalk supported by the limbs of some

pinyon pine. Year by year, in graceful and gradual decay, the agave

leans in its neighbor’s embrace. As it slowly splits up, it dresses the

pine in a flowing drape of fiber fragments. You can see little wormholes

here and there, and larger holes where woodpeckers have taken a meal.

This life-supporting return to dust goes on all over these mountains.

[Illustration: The century plant took its name from the erroneous

notion that it took 100 years to bloom. It takes “only” 25 to 50

years. Then the plant dies.]

Many of the park’s finest grasses may be found in the mountains, for

while the grasslands blend into the woodlands somewhere around 1,700

meters (5,500 feet), the grasses continue all the way up to the

mountaintops. Again, the species change with climate, altitude, and

ground cover conditions. The beautiful bull muhly favors north-facing

slopes, and, growing in clumps up to just over a meter (4 feet) high, it

helps hold soil on the hillsides. With its large purple flowering heads,

it makes a good bedding grass for deer. So does the golden thread-leaf

stipa that likes to grow under juniper trees, spilling its long blades

in rounded clumps.

Since the return of the grasses the mountains and foothills both support

a fascinating host of grassland animals. Some, like the yellownosed

cotton rat, have come back with the grass. Many of these grassland

creatures are abroad at night and are best seen at dawn and dusk. Even

after dark you may see a great deal of life along the highway. The

16-kilometer (10-mile) stretch between park headquarters and the Basin

may bring startling glimpses of grassland activity within reach of your

headlights: a great horned owl with its catlike face and “ears,” sitting

still as a sphinx in the middle of the road; a coyote pair gamboling

like shepherd pups, their paired eyes flashing white and bright as

automobile headlights. These carnivores have come to hunt the rats and

rabbits making a mad dash across the road. Arthropods and snakes come to

the pavement to warm themselves. The diamond sparkles that litter the

blacktop may be reflections from spiders’ eyes. You see a blood-red coal

of fire spring to one side at the edge of the road and then as abruptly

as a UFO leap 3 meters (10 feet) straight-up into the air. A ringtail

climbing a tree perhaps? Or a poor-will taking flight? A flash of pink

lights at elbow and shoulder height turns out to be a mule deer and

fawn. Stop, turn off your own lights, and look and listen and you will

behold a world as it must have been a long time ago, singing in the

silence underneath the stars.

Bandits and Revolutionaries

When the deepest channel of the Rio Grande became the boundary between

the United States and Mexico in 1848, the Army assumed a thankless

task: To enforce an invisible boundary in impossible terrain

populated—if at all—by people traditionally disposed to crossing the

river freely. At times the Army depended on the Texas Rangers. During

the Civil War era troops were withdrawn from the Big Bend, and border

incidents surged. After the Mexican revolution of 1910 that government

lost control of its northern provinces. Bandit gangs plagued both

Texas and California. Pancho Villa used border forays to create

tension between Mexico and the United States. In 1913, raiding bandit

Chico Cano was captured and freed by his gang in an ambush; the next

year he killed his Customs Service captor. Cano was photographed with

8th Cavalry Major Roy J. Considine in 1918. Three soldiers and a small

boy were killed in a 1916 raid on Glenn Springs led by Navidad

Alvarez, a lieutenant of Pancho Villa. The store was looted and houses

burned. Livestock raids on ranches sometimes left entire families

murdered. Many Texas Rangers were killed in ambush over the years.

Smuggling activities abounded. Arms and ammunitions passed into

Mexico, and liquor (during prohibition) and silver bullion passed into

the United States.

[Illustration: Chico Cano and Maj. Roy Considine.]

[Illustration: Bandits on horseback.]

[Illustration: The Chisos float in morning mist after a rare ice

storm.]

Where Mountains Float in the Air

From a distance the Chisos Mountains don’t look wooded. They seem to be

sculpted from naked rock. Even as you begin the drive up Green Gulch you

expect to see only buffy grass, century plants, and sotol. But as you

pull abreast of Lost Mine Peak the grass is gone from the road’s edge

and the shoulders are covered more and more thickly with green, leafy

shrubs. Soon you see taller bushes on the open slopes, the evergreen

sumac, Texas madrone, cat claw, and common bee-balm, crowned with

beautiful deciduous and evergreen leaves.

The Chisos Mountains fascinate for so many reasons: their great beauty,

their wooded coolness and greenness, the exceptional variety—and

rarity—of plant and animal life. Lying close to the border, they

encompass an interesting blend of U.S. and Mexican species. But because

they stand alone and apart, they support species found nowhere else. And

their height creates a temperate environment, a grassed and timbered

island in a sea of rock and sand.

In the Chisos as elsewhere in desert country, what lives where depends

on highly local conditions of soil and climate. While daytime

temperatures in the mountains average significantly cooler than the

desert flats, and while rainfall in the Basin is twice as heavy as at

Rio Grande Village, just as crucial are the land’s shape and the sun’s

angle. You might expect that trees grow as a woodland belt around the

mountains, with treeline determined by altitude. Not so. Many trees

prefer canyons to exposed slopes because soils are deeper there and

drainages offer more water. Even in the same canyon, more trees may grow

on cooler north-facing slopes, while grasses predominate on sunny

south-facing slopes. Or pinyons, junipers, and oaks may flourish at

lower elevations, while most other forest species occupy the canyon’s

heights.

At about 1,400 meters (4,500 feet) of elevation as the mountains begin

to close, a surprise delights the eye: The first of what you might call

trees beside the road. Suddenly, masses of trees—junipers, little oak

trees, and pinyon pines—higher up in the drainages that crease the

mountainside. And multitudes of woodland birds dart in and out of the

trees and bushes along the roadway. You understand now why they call

this valley Green Gulch. As you approach the first water tank you are in

actual woodland. Grasses still grow on the open slopes along with bushes

and pricklypear and sotol, but here are the first easily distinguished

little pinyons beside the road. At 1,600 meters (1 mile) of elevation

they are fairly respectable pines. Tree cover increases and, after the

second water barrels, the woodland comes right down to the road. The

grass is less obvious now, but it covers the ground between the trees

and is especially thick on south-facing slopes. Flocks of little birds

fly up from the road ahead of you. At the switchbacks in Panther Pass

you peer up the steep slopes at solid stands of deciduous green trees

set off against darker evergreens. Way up at the top leap scarlet flames

of frost-touched Grave’s oak and fragrant sumac.

These pinyon-juniper-oak woodlands are pretty typical of the dry

Southwest. Chisos woodlands include only one pine, three junipers, and

many varieties of oak. You can easily identify pinyon and juniper trees,

but the oaks are often hard to tell apart because they tend to

hybridize. The different tree species have different soil and water

requirements and where moisture is harder to come by they grow smaller

and more widely spaced. You’ll find redberry juniper at drier, lower

elevations, such as Green Gulch. This is a rather scraggly shrub or

small tree whose lower branches often touch the ground. It has

scale-like yellow-green leaves, and red berry-like cones. It will often

invade abused grasslands. The gray oak, an evergreen with small

olive-green leaves and dark gray bark, also prefers drier soils. On

exposed slopes it too takes on shrub-like proportions but grows to 20

meters (65 feet) in protected canyons. Birds, peccaries, and deer feed

on gray oak acorns. The Indians preferred the acorns of the Emory oak.

[Illustration: Startling plant combinations comprise this forest

floor on the South Rim of the Chisos. Such biotic richness and

surprise led to the park’s designation as an International Biosphere

Reserve.]

[Illustration: Volcanic spires remind us that change has not always

come slowly in the Big Bend. Molten rock under intense pressure

created these spires as plugs inside softer rock, which has long

since eroded away.]

The other narrowleaf evergreens prefer intermediate to moister soils and

the Chisos Basin is a good place to see both drooping and alligator

junipers, the latter named for the square scales that make its bark look

like alligator hide. This slow-growing, long-lived tree has bluish-green

needles, and gray fox and rock squirrel relish its berry-like cones.

Drooping juniper all but cries out for recognition. Its wilted leaves

and drooping branches seem to be dying of thirst, but in fact are

perfectly healthy, as is the bark that shreds in long, fibrous strips.

You’ll find plenty of drooping juniper in Mexico, but the only place you

can see it in the United States is right here in the Chisos Mountains.

The Chisos Basin has been hollowed out of volcanic rock by stream

erosion. The peaks that ring the Basin all came into being when molten

rock squeezed up under enormous pressure from deep within the Earth.

Some of the red hot stuff poured out over the land surface in lava flows

which cooled so quickly that they cracked in long vertical fissures.

Then as the ages passed, joints toppled and square-faced peaks,

buttresses, and free-standing spires emerged. So the Basin wall took

shape from Casa Grande southward through Emory Peak. Later on, more

molten rock pushed up from below, bulging the surface rocks upward

without breaking through. Again the eons passed and the softer surface

rocks wore away, exposing the dome-shaped peaks which now rim the Basin

to the north and west. Today, loose rocks and clays still inch downhill

toward the Window. All Basin runoff heads for this chute, and when it

storms in the heights, the dry waterfall turns into a torrent, with

boulders bouncing along like so many corks. Growling and grumbling, the

big rocks plunge over the pouroff in a 67-meter (220-foot) free fall,

coming to Earth in a great rubble pile below.

Pinyon pines grow abundantly across both Mexico and the American

Southwest. In the Chisos you’ll find them almost anywhere above 1,500

meters (4,800 feet) of elevation, and at lower elevations they will be

the only pines. Short of trunk, with spreading lower branches, egg-sized

cones, and short, slender, bluish-green needles, pinyons range from

dwarf size to a tree 15 meters (50 feet) tall. Many birds and mammals

eat its delicious nuts.

As elevation increases you may find fewer junipers, while more pinyons

appear on the open slopes and more oaks along drainages. The deciduous

Graves oak requires more moisture than other oaks, so you find it

putting forth its shiny, dark green leaves in high moist canyons. The

Emory oak also prefers high drainages but it grows at slightly lower

elevations. It has small lance-shaped leaves. The Chisos oak, a small,

graceful tree with narrow, leathery leaves, requires a high water table.

In all the world it grows only in the Chisos Mountains’ Blue Creek

Canyon.

[Illustration: Mule deer frequent the park’s lower, drier

elevations.]

[Illustration: The Sierra del Carmen whitetail haunts the Chisos

Mountains. It has much smaller ears than the mule deer and bears the

characteristic flag tail. Isolation allowed this sub-species of

whitetail to develop. These deer live only in the Chisos and across

the river in the Sierra del Carmen.]

Many of these interesting woodland features can be studied at leisure in

Upper Green Gulch, reached by the Lost Mine Trail from the trailhead in

Panther Pass, following the well-kept path at least as far as Juniper

Canyon Overlook. Here you find yourself among the very pines and oaks

that you viewed from the switchbacks far below. On location it appears

much as it did from far below. There are few grasses and a host of

flowering bushes. Shaggy mountain-mahogany and fragrant sumac make

excellent feed for whitetail deer. Fragrant ash puts out long clusters

of cream-colored flowers in springtime. Mountain sage, a beautiful shrub

that grows nowhere else in the world, bursts into crimson flower each

fall. As a hummingbird feeder it even outranks the golden platters of

the century plant. Probably most surprising at this elevation is the

persistence of desert and grassland plants, for here among the pinyon

pines and oak trees grow clumps of ocotillo, lechuguilla, pricklypear,

and the great gray-green blades and towering bloomstalks of the Big Bend

agave.

Dryness is a fact of life in these woodlands. The north-facing slope is

densely covered with trees, while the opposite south-facing slope

exhibits mostly ocotillo and lechuguilla. The same holds true on the

narrow ridge extending from Casa Grande. Pine woodlands face north and

lechuguilla flourishes on the south-facing slope. It’s a question of

solar exposure and resulting temperature and moisture variations.

Oddly enough, you will likely see more wildlife in the populated Basin

than along the whole Lost Mine Trail, for animals find the Basin as

attractive as man does. The del Carmen whitetails find it a good place

to feed off and on throughout the day. These deer are found only in the

Big Bend and across the river in the Sierra del Carmen. To the rock

squirrels the Basin offers acorns, pine nuts, and plenty of rocky

lodgings. The busy cactus wren can indulge its habit of year-round nest

building, because there is abundant tall grass, and introduced yucca, a

favorite avian building site. Sounding like a child’s squeeze toy, the

brown towhee takes to his human habitat as freely as a house sparrow,

and the crestless Mexican jay scolds ferociously, as jays will.

The Jackrabbit Economy

Should the jackrabbit reflect on its situation it might think life is

a conspiracy. This prolific breeder might feel it exists solely to

keep the local web of life functioning. Many predators include this

big-eared, nimble-footed creature in their diets.

Big ears, big feet, and protective coloration are the jackrabbit’s

major survival mechanisms. It will listen for danger, sit motionless

until perceiving a threat, and then burst into speedy flight. The ears

may also represent an adaptation through which the jackrabbit can emit

excess body heat to the environment, a useful ploy in deserts.

Birds, snakes, and numerous mammals prey on the jackrabbit, which is

really a hare, and on the park’s desert cottontail and eastern

cottontail rabbits. The coyote can sustain bursts of speed sufficient

to run them down. An arch opportunist, the coyote eats almost

anything, including an occasional tennis shoe. The bobcat and mountain

lion (photo page 103) are the park’s two felines. The bobcat hunts by

stealth. It will sit by a game trail for hours and then pounce on

passing prey. Threats to the jackrabbit come from above, too, where

the golden eagle soars.

[Illustration: Coyote]

[Illustration: Bobcat]

[Illustration: Golden eagle]

[Illustration: Jackrabbit]

Toward twilight the whitetail deer put in another appearance. These

dainty little animals are highly territorial, so you are likely to see

the same band of bucks in the upper Basin, and the same doe and twin

fawns near the campground turnoff. The eastern cottontails, larger than

the desert cottontails, also come out at dusk, after spending the day in

the very same thickets that the deer come to browse. A little later,

skunks may appear. These spotted, striped, or hognosed nighttime

foragers are cyclic in their populations, and like the raccoon they have

a decided fondness for campgrounds.

In the Basin as elsewhere, many residents are heard rather than seen,

especially the tree crickets and katydids that sing their songs at

night. The Chisos Mountains even boast their own katydid, known nowhere

else in the world, the Big Bend quonker. Scraping its wings together it

produces a squeak much like that of a cork being pulled from a wine

bottle.

The woods that rim the Basin to the south have a softer, more

life-supporting look than the slopes above Panther Pass. They feature

the same junipers and pinyon pines and the same pricklypear and century

plant, but the difference is the grass. Tall and short, gold and blue,

tasseled, tufted and feathered, it grows so thickly under the trees and

between the shrubs that it all but covers the ground. You find

basketgrass, too, with leaf edges like fine sawteeth and their tips

frayed into curls of twine. With such abundant cover animals should

thrive, and judging from the scat they do. In the fall the pricklypear

is still in fruit, and it appears that everyone is eating brick-red

tunas. At lower elevations where the tunas have already gone by, many

animals are eating black persimmons.

But strong as the signs of life are, the evidence of death and dying

cannot be ignored. You hear the shrieks of some creature on the edge of

a little meadow, watch a hawk come to circle the tree tops, wonder who

has won that contest as the cries cease and the hawk flies off. You

smell the pungent odor of pine resin and follow it to its source, a

pinyon oozing crystal drops from dozens of holes. As the sticky stuff

ages it turns yellow, and there, mired in the gum, is a small black

beetle exactly as some fossil bee in amber. And here is a redberry

juniper so strangled by pink tree-thief that the greenest thing on it is

the mistletoe cluster.

[Illustration: The mountain lion’s mystique explains the many park

place names that bear its alias, panther. Most park sightings of

these regal cats occur at Panther Pass, usually in May or June.]

Quicksilver Mining

Quicksilver, or mercury, the only metal that remains liquid at

ordinary temperatures, was mined as cinnabar in the Big Bend country

from about 1884 until after World War II.

Cinnabar, red mercuric sulphide, was used as a pigment and medicine as

early as the first century. Indians used it as pigment for war paints

and pictographs. Today mercury is used in electrical apparatus,

control instruments, thermometers, and medical and dental

preparations. The United States once produced about one-third of all

quicksilver. From 1910 to 1920 Texas mines produced about one-third

the U.S. production. Locally, quicksilver mining began in 1884, but

real production began after 1896. The park’s Mariscal Mine was opened

as Lindsey Mine by D.E. Lindsey, an immigration inspector, about 1900.

Production increased greatly about 1916, under the ownership of W.K.

Ellis, as World War I pushed up quicksilver prices. The mine

floundered again with postwar price declines and was not profitable

anew until World War II. In the Mariscal Mine’s heyday between 1919

and 1923, from 20 to 40 men worked it. All were Mexicans except the

manager, foreman, and a brick-kiln specialist. Wood for the furnaces

came from as far as 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, by burro. These

photographs show quicksilver operations at the Waldron Mine, just

outside today’s park, in 1916. Laborers toiled 12-hour shifts for

$1.00 then.

[Illustration: Waldron Mine, entrance]

[Illustration: Waldron Mine, buildings]

[Illustration: Aplomado falcons once ranged this far north and east,

but no longer. Now that the national park offers a large protected

area, we hope these birds of prey will return.]

The death of trees is actually part of the continuing cycle of life

because it returns much needed nutrients to the soil. Termites play an

important role in converting dead wood into substances useful to plants

although they cannot digest the wood themselves. Tiny protozoans living

in their intestines secrete digestive juices that do the job for them.

Dead trees also provide nesting and resting places for various birds and

mammals: Screech owls and mice may make their homes in hollow trees and

logs, and so may the ringtail, gray fox, and bobcat. These four mammals

are adept tree climbers. The brush mouse climbs to garner pine nuts,

acorns and juniper berries, while the ringtail and gray fox add berries

to supplement their largely meat diet. The bobcat, as sure-footed aloft

as other cats, will take to the trees when pursued but prefers to hunt

on the ground.

The bobcat, so-called because of its short tail, limits his diet to

mammals, birds, and insects. This smallest and most common of the wild

cats prefers rocky canyons and outcrops in pine-oak woodlands. Hunting

mostly at night and on the ground, he prowls on padded feet, hides for

hours beside a game trail, and springs on his prey in one lethal pounce.

The ringtail is the busiest of small predators. Strictly nocturnal, he

covers a wide territory several times each night. He has much the same

tastes as the raccoon, but without the latter’s fondness for water. The

ringtail especially likes to prowl rocky ledges and canyon cliffs on the

lookout for insects and small rodents. He climbs easily and hunts in

trees for roosting and nesting birds.

Water, those rare spots where it occurs permanently, can do astonishing

things to a woodland. In a secluded canyon you’ll find a grotto no

bigger than a room, with countless seeps trickling down the face of a

high, nearly dry waterfall. At the foot of the fall, maidenhair ferns

and stream orchids crowd beside a deep pool, while redbud, oaks, and

maples canopy a burbling brook. The sun rarely reaches this rock garden,

so that at midmorning it is significantly cooler than the grassy slopes

nearby. The water in the main pool is even cooler. So many big boulders

lie heaped across the canyon that few animals can reach the water, yet

all sorts of creatures live here. You’ll find leeches in the pool, and,

looking like a shelled peapod, a dead katydid’s exoskeleton gutted by

water insects. You’ll hear a canyon wren echoing its own song, and spy

tiny canyon tree frogs clinging to trees and rocks with sticky little

suction-cup mounted toes. Tiniest are the mites living in parasitic

comfort on the tree frogs. Such microenvironments stand in surprising

contrast to the grandiose environment of the mountain masses surrounding

you here in the Chisos, and elsewhere.

People call one particular spot high in the Chisos the top of the world.

If you sit there at sunset you can watch the turkey vultures describing

long, lazy figure eights from the top of the world down to the Window

and back. At that time of day those vultures, not looking for food,

simply seem to be enjoying their world and being alive. In those sunset

cruises they’re living to the limit of their unique life form—and are

glorifying Big Bend!

Big Bend’s future, as its past, will be ruled in the long run by

triumphant nature. The vulture’s self-celebration almost portends this.

If we are entering another Ice Age, what a new lease on life this will

be for the high mountain forests of Douglas-fir, ponderosa pines,

Arizona cypress, and quaking aspen. What vindication for the staying

power of these many beleaguered species. If on the other hand the desert

pushes on, the summer rains don’t come, and the springs dry up for good,

then Big Bend’s big trees will vanish like the dinosaurs.

Such events are beyond our power to influence or foretell. Indeed,

change may be so imperceptible, so slow, that people, supposing there

are people left in Big Bend, may find it perfectly natural. Or change

may be catastrophic, and those last Big Benders disappear without a

trace, as though snatched off the Earth. And those, if any, who come

after may then marvel over ruins and artifacts and ask what drove these

Ancients from their homes.

[Illustration: The peregrine falcon’s easy soaring belies its diving

speeds of up to 320 kph (200 mph). Peregrines nest in the river

canyons and high Chisos.]

3 Guide and Advisor

[Illustration: Road into the park]

Map of the Park

[Illustration: The Roads to Big Bend]

This Texas map shows the main routes to Big Bend National Park.

Approaching Big Bend

Big Bend National Park sweeps so far south that, since there is no road

through it to Mexico, the park isn’t on the way to anywhere. That makes

an automobile the best transportation bet. Trains and transcontinental

buses approach only as close as Alpine and Marathon (see map). There is

no public transportation to or through the park. You can fly into the

Midland-Odessa airport to the north. Cars may be rented in Alpine and in

the Midland and Odessa areas. The distances encountered are vast, so

plan departures and arrivals conveniently for available facilities.

From San Antonio, Texas, it is 660 kilometers (410 miles) to the park

headquarters at Panther Junction via U.S. 90 to Marathon and south on

U.S. 385. Driving from the Persimmon Gap park entrance to park

headquarters will consume 46 of these kilometers (29 miles). The gap is

a low mountain pass once traversed by the Comanche War Trail, a

thoroughfare northward for thousands of horses stolen in Mexico. Had you

crossed this pass in 1859 you might have witnessed the U.S. military

experimenting with camels as beasts of burden for this dry country. The

cantankerous camels bettered the standard military mule on several

points. However, the Civil War ended the camel tryouts. The camel’s

aptness illustrates that you are traveling desert country. This calls

for unique precautions, so please read the “Tips for Desert Travelers”

on page 124.

From El Paso it is 520 kilometers (323 miles) to Panther Junction via

Interstate 10 to Van Horn, U.S. 90 to Alpine, and south via Texas 118.

You enter the park at the Maverick entrance. Just west of the park here

on Texas Ranch Road 170 is the ghost town of Terlingua, a worthwhile

side trip. In the park’s western section you find the Painted Desert,

eroded badlands formations showing distinct bands of colorful deposits

from up to 70 million years ago.

From El Paso and points west you can take U.S. 67 south from Marfa to

Presidio, approaching the park on Texas Ranch Road 170, the Camino del

Rio, at the Maverick entrance. From this entrance to the headquarters at

Panther Junction is about 43 kilometers (27 miles).

Water and gasoline are available in and around the park only at a few,

and often widely separated, points. Check your water supply and gas

gauge before you leave U.S. 90.

Driving the Park.

At Panther Junction you can purchase the _Road Guide to Paved and

Improved Dirt Roads of Big Bend National Park_. It describes five tours

and the points of interest en route. The Santa Elena and Basin drives

begin at junctions along the park road from Maverick to Panther

Junction. The Boquillas drive begins at Panther Junction. The Persimmon

Gap and Maverick drives extend from their respective entrances to

Panther Junction. A park map and information folder includes a large map

showing major natural and historical features, roads, and facilities and

services. It is available at Panther Junction in the administration

building, and in dispensers at Persimmon Gap and Maverick. (Supplies at

Maverick are sometimes exhausted.) Obtain a copy of this folder before

your trip by calling or writing the Superintendent, Big Bend National

Park, Texas 79834, (915) 477-2251.

Primitive Roads.

After you have toured the main points on the major park roads, you may

want to see more by vehicle. You can do so on the primitive roads, which

introduce further varieties of scenery and interesting plants, animals,

and historic features. Plan your trip in advance, don’t just turn off a

main road on the spur of the moment. And register at park headquarters,

getting current information about road conditions from a ranger. On

these primitive roads you are on your own, so play it safe. Primitive

roads are patrolled only infrequently. Some are suited only for 4-wheel

drive. A _Road Guide to Backcountry Dirt Roads of Big Bend National

Park_ may be purchased at Panther Junction.

[Illustration: Horse and rider in the hills]

Persimmon Gap Drive.

This drive offers short side trips: on a motor nature trail up to Dagger

Flat, or just off the highway north of the Tornillo Creek bridge to the

fossil bones exhibit. Signs along the Dagger Flat road identify

Chihuahuan Desert species, including the giant-dagger yuccas, found in

the United States only in Big Bend country. The Fossil Bone Exhibit

shows an extinct mammal, _Coryphodon_, whose remains were found in

sandstone deposits about 50 million years old. Tornillo Creek is one of

the park’s largest drainages. The Chisos Mountains, seen as you approach

Panther Junction, are the park’s highest. Panther Junction is such a

focal point that you may overhear park employees call it PJ.

Maverick Drive.

Terlingua and Study Butte are ghost towns—or nearly so—which were once

prosperous cinnabar (mercury) mining communities. The large, rounded

Maverick Mountain north of the road near the Maverick entrance is the

eroded exposure of an intruded mass of molten rock pushed up through

softer, older rock beds. You will also see the Painted Desert and many

plants of the desert shrub community. Outside the park to the north the

Christmas Mountains are prominent. To the east the Chisos define the

skyline. Along the Maverick drive you come to the Santa Elena Junction,

where the Santa Elena drive begins (see below). Further on you will see

dry washes that can carry flash floods and gravel slopes formed by the

erosion of the mountains. Then you come to the Basin Junction, where the

Basin drive begins (see below). Near this area you may also see mule

deer, the peccary (or javelina), coyote, or other desert animals. The

next stop—except for pictures—is Panther Junction.

Boquillas Drive.

From Panther Junction you can head southeast toward the Rio Grande’s

Boquillas Canyon. Along the way are the Dugout Wells picnic area and

self-guiding nature trail, Hot Springs, and Rio Grande Village (see

Facilities and Services). Boquillas Canyon is one of the Rio Grande’s

three grandest canyons here in the park. It was cut through the Sierra

del Carmen (_sierra_ is Spanish for mountains) and is the longest of Big

Bend’s famous gorges. Across the river is the Mexican village of

Boquillas.

Santa Elena Drive.

Spectacular historic and geologic features are found along the Santa

Elena drive. You observe wall-like dikes, massive gravel deposits, an

ancient buried valley, and a narrow canyon cut through volcanic tuff.

Across the river near Castolon is the Mexican village of Santa Elena. On

the U.S. side are adobe and stone ruins of dwellings for farms on the

river flats. Near the end of this drive a viewpoint gives an excellent

view of Santa Elena Canyon. Summer sunlight only strikes the canyon

mouth for several hours after sunrise. To take pictures, make this trip

in early morning. The canyon is usually hot in midday during summer.

Basin Drive.

From Basin Junction southward the Basin drive climbs out of desert

lowlands into the woodlands of the Chisos Mountains and their Basin, the

park’s “island” of green. The grade of the approach road is deceptive:

watch that your vehicle does not overheat. The Big Bend agave plant

reaches heights of 4 meters (15 feet). Even if you miss its bright

yellow blossoms in summer, the old stalk remains standing for a year or

two. As you drive up Green Gulch the vegetation changes from desert

shrub to woodland species. The road’s highest point is Panther Pass,

more than 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) in elevation. At the parking lot here

the Lost Mine Trail begins its ascent of Lost Mine Ridge, where legends

of a rich Spanish mine have touched off many a vain (no pun intended)

search. From the top you get superb views into Mexico. As you leave the

parking lot the road begins to descend into the Chisos Basin via a

series of sharp curves. (Read about the Chisos Basin under Facilities

and Services.)

Driving Safety.

There are desert-related driving hazards not mentioned above. Please see

Tips for Desert Travelers.

Facilities and Services

Overnight lodging is available inside the park at the Chisos Mountains

Lodge in the Basin; at campgrounds at the Basin, Castolon, and Rio

Grande Village; and at a small trailer park at Rio Grande Village.

Chisos Mountains Lodge accommodates more than 200 guests in

stone-and-adobe cottages with terraces and private baths and in modern

motel-type units. Reservations should be made by writing to National

Park Concessions, Inc., Big Bend National Park, Texas 79834. The lodge

coffeeshop serves food from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Campgrounds.

Campgrounds at the Basin, Castolon, and Rio Grande Village provide water

and comfort stations. Electricity and fuel are not available, except

that the concessioner sells charcoal. Ground fires are not permitted. At

Rio Grande Village only there are pay showers and laundry facilities for

campers. Large groups may make advance campground reservations, but

families, other small parties, and individuals may not.

A number of backcountry roadside campsites are located along the park’s

backcountry dirt roads. A free permit, available at any ranger station,

is required. If you are interested in a primitive site, ask at a ranger

station.

Trailer Parks.

Rio Grande Village trailer park has hookups; use of all hookups is

required. Consult a ranger before taking trailers into the Basin

campground. The road to the Basin is not recommended for trailers longer

than 6 meters (20 feet) or RVs (7 meters/24 feet) due to sharp curves

and steep grades.

Stores and Service Stations.

Groceries, cold drinks, camping supplies, and film can be bought at the

Basin, Rio Grande Village, Castolon, and Panther Junction. There is a

gift shop in the Chisos Mountains Lodge. Minor auto repair service and

gasoline may be obtained at Panther Junction. Gasoline is sold in the

park at Castolon, Rio Grande Village, and Panther Junction only, so

check your gauge before you leave U.S. 90, and periodically in the park.

Saddle Horses.

You can arrange for saddle horses, pack animals, and guides in the Basin

with Chisos Remuda, Basin Rural Station, Big Bend National Park, Texas

79834.

Naturalist Programs.

Illustrated evening talks are presented in summer at dusk at the

amphitheater in the Basin, and in other seasons at Rio Grande Village

and park headquarters. Schedules for all programs are listed on park

bulletin boards.

The naturalist programs at Big Bend are designed to help you understand

and enjoy the natural and historic features. The park road system

features wayside exhibits and markers about local attractions. The

Dagger Flat Interpretive Auto Trail leaves the park road south of

Persimmon Gap. Self-guiding trails are located at park headquarters,

Dugout Wells, Santa Elena Canyon, the Basin, and Rio Grande Village. A

descriptive booklet is available at the head of the Lost Mine Trail in

the Chisos Mountains, to help you identify plants, animals, and

panoramic views.

Park naturalists and rangers provide many other services to interpret

the park’s geology, plants, animals, and history. You can supplement

these personal services by purchasing maps and publications at park

headquarters in Panther Junction.

[Illustration: A rainbow cactus in bloom is about to be immortalized

by a young photographer.]

[Illustration: The Panther Path, a self-guiding nature trail outside

the visitor center, introduces you to cactuses and other desert

plants of the park.]

Walking Trips and Hiking

Besides floating the river, the surest way to experience the “real time”

of the park is to walk out into it. Neither desert nor mountains will

reveal themselves to a motor vehicle. Opportunities for walks and hikes

abound, from short strolls on well-developed nature trails to multi-day,

cross-park treks via its network of trails. Walks and hikes are

described in _Hiker’s Guide to the Developed Trails and Primitive

Routes, Big Bend National Park_ (see Armchair Explorations). The guide

and a “Terlingua-Chisos Mountains, Texas” topographic map sold at park

headquarters or by mail, give particulars. General information follows.

If you take a trail, please stay on it. Trails are routed for safety and

constructed to avoid washouts and erosion. Shortcutting increases

erosion and rockslides. Low-heeled street shoes or sneakers will suffice

on developed trails, but if you hike off trails, wear hiking boots with

thick lug soles to protect against sharp rocks and the spines of desert

plants. Carry tweezers in your first aid kit, for pulling spines and

thorns. Take plenty of food and water to carry you through your return

or your connection with new supplies. In hot weather one person needs 4

liters (1 gallon) of water per day; in winter slightly less. In winter

rattlesnakes are rare. In summer they are common, but are mostly abroad

at night. (See Poisonous Reptiles under Tips for Desert Travelers.)

Smoking is prohibited on trails, because fire poses a real threat to

plants and animals in this dry country. Building ground fires is

prohibited, too. You will need charcoal or a camping stove in the

campgrounds. In the backcountry you will need a backpacking stove and

sufficient fuel for cooking and for heating water.

Water is a precious resource anywhere, but here in Big Bend it is also

scarce. Do not pollute streams, springs, or tinajas by washing in them

or close to them. Also be careful where you make your toilet in the

backcountry.

Short walks on developed trails are available throughout the park. Short

walks of 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) or less include: Window View Trail

(Chisos Basin); Rio Grande Village Nature Trail; Burro Mesa Pouroff

Trail (Sotol Vista/Castolon Road); Boquillas Canyon Trail; Chisos Basin

Loop Trail; Santa Elena Canyon Trail; and Hot Springs Canyon Overlook

Trail (off the road to Rio Grande Village).

Beyond the short walks, hiking and backcountry options are endless. If

you go off trail, wear proper gear, carry adequate supplies, use a

topographic map, and know your route. Get advice on routes and gear from

any park ranger or at park headquarters or any ranger station. It is

important that you inform someone, preferably a park ranger, of your

intended route. A backcountry permit is required whenever you plan to

camp overnight anywhere but in developed campgrounds. Backcountry

permits are issued free at park information and orientation points (see

map).

Take it easy on the trails and enjoy yourself, especially until you are

acclimated. In the mountains, the elevation adds to the exertion. In the

lowlands the heat is an important factor.

Birding

To learn about the raven, writes Barry Lopez in _Desert Notes_, “bury

yourself in the desert so that you have a commanding view of the high

basalt cliffs where he lives. Let only your eyes protrude. Do not

blink—the movement will alert the raven to your continued presence ...

there will be at least one bird who will find you. He will see your eyes

staring up out of the desert floor. The raven is cautious, but he is

thorough. He will sense your peaceful intentions. Let him have the first

word. Be careful: he will tell you he knows nothing.”

The raven is one of more than 400 species of birds that have been seen

in Big Bend National Park. Why so many? The park lies right smack on the

flyway for birds winging north out of Mexico and, indeed, almost

three-fourths of the species recorded in the park fly right on through.

But for serious birders—even those less determined than the raven seeker

Lopez describes—this is paradise. During the spring migration northbound

birds confront the northwest-southeast trending Sierra del Carmen.

Instead of flying over them, most birds keep to the west and are

funneled right into the park. For the return trip in fall, however, the

Sierra del Carmen have the opposite effect. Many southbound birds peel

off east at Persimmon Gap. The fall migration is smaller and brings more

lowland than mountain species.

The springtime bursts of birdsong are inspired by the drive to claim

territory, as some 100 species nest within the park. Many of these

breeding birds will abandon the lowlands as soon as their young are big

enough, moving to the mountains to beat the heat. Rio Grande Village,

for example, is at its low ebb for birdlife in July, and in the Chisos

Basin you will find yourself identifying lowland birds left and right!

But all in all, Rio Grande Village, with its ponds, cottonwood groves,

rich riverbottoms, heavy brushlands, and neighboring desert, is the best

year-round birding site in the park. In the springtime it offers an

unbelievable display of species.

The Chisos Basin is the second best overall birding site, providing a

long parade of mountain birds throughout the year, as well as lowland

birds. The Basin is one of three spots for the annual Christmas Bird

Count, along with Rio Grande Village and the Castolon-Santa Elena Canyon

area. Over a five-year period, 147 species have been counted at these

locations at Christmas time.

The Colima warbler is probably the park’s most famous bird, because in

all the United States it nests only here in the Chisos Mountains. It

arrives in April from southwest Mexico and leaves in mid-September. The

Big Bend has also remained one of the few successful breeding grounds of

the peregrine falcon, a species that suffered much from pesticides. You

are most likely to see peregrines during their spring migration, but

nesting pairs have been sighted at Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas

canyons and in the Chisos Mountains. These predatory birds prefer to

nest in a scrape on a high cliff ledge. This falcon, about the size of a

crow, is slaty backed and barred below, with a pair of black “mustaches”

on the face. In its magnificent dive, the peregrine is one of the

fastest moving animals on Earth.

For advice on good birding spots at any time of the year, or on where to

find specific birds, ask a ranger or at park headquarters. Also see

Armchair Explorations.

Birds of Big Bend

[Illustration: Summer tanager]

[Illustration: Gray vireo]

[Illustration: Great horned owl]

[Illustration: Yellow breasted chat]

[Illustration: Blackthroated sparrow]

[Illustration: Painted bunting]

[Illustration: Belted kingfisher]

[Illustration: Roadrunner]

Floating the River

[Illustration: Boulders dwarf the raft of Park Service employees

landing in Santa Elena Canyon.]

[Illustration: A kayaker drifts into reflections.]

If you stumbled onto the Rio Grande upstream of the park, between El

Paso and Presidio, during most of the year you’d say “Oh well, forget

floating!” That stretch is most often dry, sapped by irrigation

projects. But the Rio Grande gets a new lease on life as the Rio

Conchos, draining Mexican mountains, flows into it at Presidio. You can

thank the Rio Conchos for the prospects of floating the Big Bend. Along

the park boundary and down to the Terrell-Val Verde County Line, the Rio

Grande is designated a national wild and scenic river for 307.8

kilometers (191.2 miles). The “scenic” goes without saying. When you hit

the rapids or a cross-channel current hits you, the “wild” designation

rings true as well.

Below is general information about floating the river.

Particulars—including descriptions of the canyons and some rapids—are

contained in, among others, the river guide series published by the Big

Bend Natural History Association. (See Armchair Explorations.)

The first fact: You need a permit to float the Rio Grande in the park,

including the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River. The free permit is

available from park headquarters and ranger stations, or any park

ranger. Permits will not be issued if the river is at flood stage. In

high water the river is outright dangerous. The annual high water season

is July through October. Flash floods are a great danger through summer

and early fall. The best months for river running are November through

February, when water levels are relatively stable and the heat is

moderate. By late April or early May and after the heat can be a

problem.

The recommended craft is the inflatable raft. It is not as prone to

damage from submerged rocks as are kayaks and canoes. Any rigid craft

may break up when slammed into the canyon’s rock walls by treacherous

cross-channel currents. No craft or accessory gear is available for

rental within the park. You must bring your own, or make arrangements

with an outfitter. (Call or write the park for information on local

outfitting services.)

A second fact: Any float party, as the name implies, should consist of

two or more people for obvious safety reasons. Fact three: Everybody

should be able to swim....

You will need two vehicles, one for put-in and one for take-out. Gear

should include: approved personal flotation device for each person and

one extra for each boat; boat paddle for each person; waterproof duffle;

freshwater; flashlight; lash lines and a 15-meter (50-foot) bow line and

15-meter (50-foot) stern line; extra paddle for each boat; first aid

kit; and boat patching kit. Lash all these items to prevent their loss

in the event that your craft capsizes.

Lest you be discouraged by the safety warnings and logistical

considerations, suffice it to say that from the river inside Big Bend’s

magnificent gorges you will experience an intimate immensity rare on

this Earth.

Fishing

Most of the park’s native fish are of minnow size but the Rio Grande

does attract anglers. The major attractions are catfish, gizzard shad,

carp and suckers, the freshwater drum, and an occasional longnose gar.

The complete list of fish recorded in the park and its immediate

surroundings includes 35 species, including bluegill and sunfish

species.

Most anglers are after the blue, channel, and flathead catfish. The blue

and flathead are favored food fish. The longnose gar may reach over a

meter (4 feet) in length and is predatory, as its long snout and sharp

teeth suggest. You do not need a fishing license to fish in the national

park. For advice on fishing spots and preferred methods, ask a park

ranger.

Yellow cat up to 45 kilos (100 pounds) have been taken from the river,

and 14-kilo (30-pound) cats are not uncommon. Channel and blue cats also

provide fine sport and good eating. These deepwater species feed on

aquatic plants, insects, and smaller fish, both living and dead. They

spawn in depressions and sheltered nooks in river banks and canyon

cliffs. While catfish account for most of the recreational fishing in

the Rio, many other interesting species swim the brown waters: the

predatory garfish, needlenosed and shaped like a torpedo; the humpbacked

carp that can survive even in limited waters; smallmouth buffalo,

sheepshead, and green sunfish; the bullhead that favors quiet waters and

can endure higher temperatures and lower oxygen content than most other

fish; and of course the minnows, as plentiful and gregarious as

sparrows, with a preference for running water and rocky or sandy

bottoms.

Tips for Desert Travelers

Best Times to Visit Big Bend.

Winter days will be nippy in Big Bend’s mountains and comfortably warm

in the lowlands. Snow falls in the mountains once or twice a year.

Spring hits the desert lowlands in February and begins a slow ascent up

the mountain heights, arriving in May. Some of the desert plants bloom

throughout the year, but the most predictable displays are in

springtime. Summer is problematic. If you come in the summer you will

probably want to take to the mountains. Midsummer daytime temperatures

in the desert and river valley generally hover above 38°C (100°F)—often

well above. But up in the Basin, daytime temperatures average 29°C

(85°F) and nights are cool. Autumn is usually sunny, with the air gentle

and warm. The best months for running the river are November through

February, both for river conditions and for avoiding summer’s intense

heat in the canyons.

Climbing Hazards.

The character of the basic rock in the park is very unstable, making it

unsafe for climbing. Climbing is not recommended.

Night Driving.

Be extra alert for wildlife while you are driving at night. Many

creatures, particularly deer, may be blinded by your headlights so that

they make no effort to get off the road.

Spines and Thorns.

Beware the cactus and other spine- and thorn-bearing plants, shrubs, and

trees. These can inflict painful injury. To protect yourself, wear stout

shoes and tough clothing if you go hiking off the developed trails. If

you go out at night, walk carefully, carry a flashlight, and don’t

venture out too far. The National Park Service recommends that you carry

tweezers for removing irritating spines, which may be too small to

extract with your fingers. People have even gotten mouthfuls of

delicate—but highly irritating—spines of some pricklypear cactus species

while trying to eat the fruits! Delicate spines hardly noticeable to the

naked eye can inflict painful injury.

Poisonous Reptiles.

The park contains copperhead snakes and four species of rattlesnakes,

although these are seldom seen in daylight. Though poisonous, they are

protected in the park. Do not molest or harm them. Very few snakebites

occur in the park. Most of these involve bites to the hands of people

who have reached into places where they couldn’t see a snake resting or

hiding. The general precautions are these: Stay on trails after dark and

use a flashlight, and avoid bushes and damp areas. There are no

poisonous lizards at Big Bend, but if you molest lizards they may bite

you.

Tarantulas and Scorpions.

Tarantulas, contrary to horror films, will not bite you unless you annoy

them. And the park species of scorpion is not deadly, although if you

are stung, get prompt attention.

No Medical Services.

There are no doctors or nurses in the park. The closest hospital, in

Alpine, is 174 kilometers (108 miles) from park headquarters. Terlingua

Medics, a nonprofit first-aid station and medical care facility, is

located 42 kilometers (26 miles) west of park headquarters, in Study

Butte. The trained paramedics can provide interim care until further

help can be obtained in Alpine.

Carry your own first-aid supplies (including tweezers). Please notify

the nearest park ranger or park headquarters immediately of accidents or

emergencies.

Use Water Wisely.

Carry drinking water with you whenever you are in desert country. This

is particularly a must when hiking: 4 liters (1 gallon) per day per

person is a good rule of thumb. And remember: Start your return trip

_before_ half of your water supply is used up. Floaters and boaters, do

not drink the river water: Carry your own. Any spring water used for

drinking should be treated first.

Flash Floods.

High water is a threat during the flash floods that may follow summer

thunderstorms. You must be alert for this because a flash flood may

travel down the watershed to you even though you were not rained on.

Flash floods make roadway dips potential death traps. If you are caught

in high water, drive slowly to avoid stalling your engine: Do not splash

through at a high speed. And by all means, avoid any high water!

Washouts are a hazard in a storm and afterwards, so be on the lookout

for them. These same precautions about high water and low spots apply to

camping, too. Do not camp in washes and arroyos. They could turn into

swirling rivers while you sleep, and you might not even have the warning

of raindrops to wake you.

Park Regulations

Driving.

The maximum speed on park roads is 72 kilometers (45 miles) per hour.

Slower limits are posted; please observe them. Do not pass or park on

curves, and take road dips slowly. Motorized vehicles are restricted to

park roadways and are prohibited on all trails. Check with a park ranger

before driving the primitive roads.

Trail Use.

Stay on trails because shortcuts mar the area and can cause erosion and

destructive rockslides. Smoking is not allowed on trails because fire is

a constant hazard here. Please carry out all your refuse.

Camping and Fires.

Camping is limited to campgrounds except for backcountry camping, which

is by permit only. Building wood and ground fires is prohibited.

Fishing Licenses.

Fishing licenses are not required. Obtain fishing information from any

park ranger.

Firearms and Pets.

Use or display of firearms is prohibited. Pets must be kept on a leash

at all times, and they are not permitted on trails or in public

buildings.

River Use.

A permit is required to float the Rio Grande. At high water float trips

are particularly hazardous. No permits are issued for Santa Elena and

Mariscal Canyons when the river is at flood stage. Swimming in the river

is discouraged because of the dangers, many of which are unseen. Obtain

float permits at park headquarters or ranger stations. For information

call or write the Superintendent, Big Bend National Park, Texas 79834,

(915) 477-2251.

Armchair Explorations

Selected books, maps, guides, and other publications are offered for

sale at the park or through the mail by the Big Bend Natural History

Association, Big Bend National Park, Texas 79834. Please write and ask

for a free list.

Casey, Clifford B. _Mirages, Mysteries and Reality, Brewster County,

Texas, The Big Bend of the Rio Grande._ Pioneer Book

Publishers, 1972.

Deckert, Frank. _Big Bend: Three Steps to the Sky._ Big Bend Natural

History Association, 1981.

Langford, J.O. with Fred Gipson. _Big Bend, A Homesteader’s Story._

University of Texas Press, 1973.

Larson, Peggy. _The Deserts of the Southwest._ Sierra Club Books,

1977.

Madison, Virginia. _The Big Bend Country of Texas_ (Revised edition).

October House Inc., 1968.

Maxwell, Ross A. _The Big Bend of the Rio Grande._ Guidebook 7. Texas

Bureau of Economic Geology, 1968.

Sonnichsen, C.L. _The Mescalero Apaches_ (Second edition). University

of Oklahoma Press, 1973.

Tyler, Ronnie C. _The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier._

National Park Service, 1975.

Warnock, Barton H. _Wildflowers of the Big Bend Country, Texas._ Sul

Ross State University, 1970.

Wauer, Roland H. _Naturalists’ Big Bend._ Texas A&M Press, 1980.

Index

_Numbers in italics refer to photographs, illustrations, or maps._

A

Alvarez, Navidad 91

Amphibians 22, 45

Animals 34, 40, 75, 107;

Basin 99-102;

canyons 62;

grasslands 89;

illustrations _68-69_, _71_, _82-83_, _100-101_, _103_;

prehistoric 63, 66-71

B

Beaver 75

Big Bend National Park:

accommodations & services, 18, 117-18;

fishing, 123;

founding, 22-23;

health advice, 119;

hiking, 119;

International Biosphere Reserve, 94;

map, _112_;

nature trails, 74-75;

rafting, 122-23;

regulations, 125;

size, 6, 18;

transportation & roads, 23, 112, 114-17;

water conservation program, 49

Birds 44, 56, 61-62, _63_, 77, 108, 120-_21_.

_See also_ Eagle, golden; Falcon

Bobcat _82_, _100-101_, 107

Boquillas Canyon 22, 62, 64, 114

C

Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez 12, 32, 86

Cactus 30, 32, 75;

photos, _13_, _14_, _31_, _116_

Camel 12

Candelilla _32_

Cano, Chico _91_

Canyons 59-71;

photos, _64-65_

Castolon _60_, 70, 77

Castolon Peak _4-5_, 23, _122_

Century plant _cover_, 88-_89_

Chisos Basin _cover_, 94-108, _115_, 120

Chisos Mining Company 15, 18

Chisos Mountains _16-17_, 22, 70, _92_, 93-94;

South rim, _20-21_, 81, 94, _95_, 120

Considine, Roy J. _91_

Cottonwood _47_, _72_, 77

Coyote _83_, _100_, 101

Creosotebush _26_, 27, 29

D

Deer 18, _19_, _82_, _99_

Desert, Chihuahuan 6, 22, 65, 77;

illustrations _16-17_, _28_

Desert, Painted 114

Desert, shrub 22, 28-30, 74, 77, 80, 81, 84

E

Eagle, golden 59, _101_

F

Falcon _106_, _109_, 120

Faver, Milton 50

Fishing 123

Fossils 66, _67_, _68-69_, 70, 114.

_See also_ Animals, prehistoric

Frog, leopard _44_

Fur Trade 82-83

G

Geology 6-7, 18, 59-60, _64-65_, 66-67, 70, 98

Ghost towns 114

Glenn Spring 45

Gopher, pocket 32

Grass 74, 80-81, 84, 89, 93, 102

Grasshopper 33, 85

Grassland 73-74, 77, 80-81, 84-85, 89

Green Gulch 11, 94, 115;

Upper, 99

H

Hiking 119

Hot Springs _60_

Hot Springs Canyon 61

I

Indians 12, 13, 15, _84_, 85, _86-87_, 88

Insects 29, 34, 40, 44, 54, 56, 102, 108;

water, 45, 48, 60-61

International Biosphere Reserve 94

J

Jackrabbit 34, _100-101_

Javelina. _See_ Peccary

Johnson’s Trading Post, Elmo _82-83_

Juniper, alligator _20-21_

K

Katydid 40, 102, 108

L

Lechuguilla 28, _32_, 84

Lion, mountain 101, _103_

Lizard 34, _35_, 38

Locust _49_

M

Mammals, Age of 67-69

Marfa 50

Mariscal Canyon 22, _61_, 62, 64

Mariscal (Lindsey) Mine 15, 104-5

Mesa de Anguila 18, 64

Mesquite, honey 77, 80

Millipede 33

Mosquitofish 74, _76_

O

Ocotillo _29_-30

P

Panther Pass 94, 102, 115

Peccary 32, 34, _45_, 82

Plants 22, _26_, 28-32, 62, 74-75, 99, 114-15

Persimmon Gap 13, 66

Petroglyphs _85_

Population 12-13, 15, 18

Presidio 59

Pricklypear _14_, 30, _31_, 32

R

Raccoon 73

Rafting 122-23

Rainfall 22, 53, 93

Ranching 18, 49, _50-51_

Rat, kangaroo _38_-39, 56

Rio Conchos 59, 64

Rio Grande 6-22 _passim_, 59-60, 90;

photos _8-11_

Rio Grande Village 60, 73-77, 120

Roadrunner _38-39_, _121_

S

Sam Nail Ranch 49

Santa Elena Canyon 22, 23 62, 63, 64, 114-15;

photos, _9-11_, _58_, _122_

Scorpion _33_, 124

Settlements _60_

Shafter, William H. _86_

Sierra del Carmen 18, 23, 64, 66

Snakes _36-37_, 38, 40, 124

Sotol 85

Swallows, cliff 56, 62, _63_

T

Tamarisk 49, _52_, 53, 62

Terlingua Abaja mine 75, 114

Tinaja, Ernst _42_, 43, 48

Toad, Couch’s spadefoot _44_

Tornillo Flat 68, 80-81

Trees _20-21_, 22, 70, 93-107 _passim_.

_See also_ Cottonwood; Tamarisk

Turtle 61

V

Victorio, Chief 86, _87_

W

Waldron Mine _104-5_

Warbler, colima 120

Water 43, 48-49, 59, 77, 107-8;

_See also_ Rainfall

Wildflowers 53-54, _55_, 56, _57_

Window, the _cover_, _24-25_, 108

Y

Yucca 85, _88_, _114_

* GPO:1962-361-611/103

Handbook 119

The National Park Service expresses its appreciation to all those

persons who made the preparation and production of this handbook

possible. The Service also gratefully acknowledges the financial support

given this handbook project by the Big Bend Natural History Association,

a nonprofit group that assists interpretive efforts at Big Bend National

Park.

_Illustrations_

All photographs and other artwork not credited below are from the files

of Big Bend National Park and the National Park Service.

Amon Carter Museum 87 Indian.

Tom Bean 14, 19, 24-25, 29, 38 patchnose, 60 color, 88, 99 mule deer,

110-111, 118 photographer.

Frank Bell 4-5, 31 pricklypear and fish-hook, 46, 55 caltrop, Desert

baileya, dayflower and cardinal flower, 72.

Richards Bushnell 8.

Robert P. Carr 26, 42, 47, 63, 78-79, 103, 106.

Ed Cooper 41.

Frank Deckert 57.

John Dieckhoner 38-39, 81-82 drawings, 100-101.

Frid Fridrikson 109.

David Goss 122 kayaker.

Hunter’s, Alpine, Texas 51 longhorns.

Library of Congress 87 soldier.

Rick LoBello 44 toad, 45, 85 mortar hole, 118 with book, 121 vireo.

David Muench covers, 9-11, 16-17, 20-21, 58, 92, 95-97.

Syd Radinovsky 33.

Smithers Collection, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas

at Austin 50-51 except longhorns, 81-82 photo, 91 inset, 104,

105.

Doris Lee Tischler 68-69 color.

John Tveten 121 tanager, bunting, kingfisher and chat.

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

As the Nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the

Interior has responsibility for most of our nationally owned public

lands and natural resources. This includes fostering the wisest use of

our land and water resources, protecting our fish and wildlife,

preserving the environmental and cultural values of our national parks

and historical places, and providing for the enjoyment of life through

outdoor recreation. The Department assesses our energy and mineral

resources and works to assure that their development is in the best

interest of all our people. The Department also has a major

responsibility for American Indian reservation communities and for

people who live in island territories under U.S. administration.

IBSN 0—912627-15-8

[Illustration: Sunset silhouettes a century plant and lone bird

through the Window, from the Basin in the Chisos Mountains.]

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

—Relocated all image captions to be immediately under the corresponding

images, removing redundant references like ”preceding page”.

—Silently corrected a few obvious typographical errors.