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Big Bend National Park

On a visit to Texas' remote Big Bend National Park lies you will see beautiful Chihuahuan desert scenery, the Rio Grande river, tarantulas, javelinas and 7000 foot mountains.

Texas

2009

About The Park

Nestled in a bend in the Rio Grande River in the southernmost part of Texas, Big Bend National Park is not the easiest park to get to but well worth the effort. The Chihuahuan desert scenery is both beautiful and interesting with mountains topping out at 7825’ (2384m).

It is one of the largest, most remote, and one of the least-visited national parks in the contiguous United States. In the 10 year period from 2007 to 2016, an average of about 352,000 visitors entered the park annually which would rank it in the bottom ten.

It is also one of the darkest. In 2012, the park was named as an international dark-sky park by the  International Dark-Sky Association, which recognized the park as one of only 10 places in the world certified for dark-sky stargazing. If you appreciate a star-filled sky and the amazing sight of the band of the Milky Way, Big Bend is a park that you will love.

The park has a good number of paved roads leading in and out and around the park and, with the park being over 1200 mi.², in the three full days I spent in the park I was able to pretty much drive all of them. The main road, the Ross Maxwell scenic drive, lives up to its name.

Wildlife

Deer are seen on a regular basis around the lodge. Other wildlife in the park consists of mountain lions, jackrabbits, coyotes, golden eagles, rattlesnakes, copperhead snakes, and Mexican black bears in the mountains. You might also see groups of javelinas, a small peccary resembling a wild boar. The creature that I saw the most of were tarantulas. Unfortunately most of them were run over on the roads. They seem to like to cross the roads and whether people intentionally hit them or they get hit at night I don’t know. On my initial entry into the park I was surprised to see one crossing the road and hit the brakes to get out and photograph it. I didn’t see any on trails but I did see other live ones crossing the road.

Lodging and Dining

Chisos Mountain Lodge

The only place to stay in the park is the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the Chisos Basin. The surrounding towns are neither close nor do they contain much in the way of lodging. The Chisos Basin is a beautiful area at an elevation of 5400 feet surrounded by mountains. The lodge is very nice, with a restaurant and gift shop, and you can’t go wrong staying here.

While the dining at the Chisos Mountain Lodge is convenient, and more than adequate, just outside the park is the small town of Terlingua, population 58. It had a nice rustic little restaurant that served some very good Tex-Mex food.

Hiking

There’s lots of really nice day hikes to take but you need to remember to take lots of water, sunscreen and avoid the midday sun. I was there in September and it was hot. These are some of the hikes that I took and can comment on.

Window Trail

In the Chisos Basin area, where the visitor center and lodging is, there’s the Window Trail. The trail leads down to a pouroff. A pouroff is a narrow drainage where water flows out from a higher point to a lower point. It is pretty much like a waterfall. The Windows Trail pouroff drops about 220 feet out of the Chisos Basin. The last quarter-mile of the hike is through a narrowing slick rock canyon with rocks and steps and several stream crossings. It’s easy to see how all of the water from the Basin would get funneled down to this one point and go shooting out onto the desert below. It would be a nice sight to see but you wouldn’t want to be there in heavy rain and it would also be a dramatic sight from down below looking up at it. You can cut 1.2 miles off the round-trip hike by driving to the Basin campground’s trail head instead of leaving from the visitor center area.  

Instead of doing the 5.6 mile out-and-back hike to the pouroff we decided that we would climb over the mountain at the pouroff and down to the valley below making the hike probably about 7 miles.

Before breakfast we ferried a car about 25 miles around to the other side and parked it where we would end our hike. The hike was really good but took longer than we expected and we came down the other side of the mountain in the heat of the afternoon sun which made it that much more challenging. At the bottom we got to see the pouroff from the other side and a bit further on there was a little picnic area with some nice shade trees to get us out of the sun and rejuvenate ourselves a bit before we walked to the car which was about another half-mile away.

A word about the pouroff. It’s rounded and slick with nothing to hold onto and a long way to the bottom - don’t try to look down from the edge.

Lost Mine Trail

The Lost Mine Trail, off the Chisos Basin Road, is a 4.8 mile out-and-back hike. It takes you up to about 7000 feet with stunning vistas of the surrounding terrain.

Grapevine Hills Trail

Another really nice hike is the Grapevine Hills Trail. It’s a fairly easy 2.2 mile out-and-back hike to a group of balanced rocks and some nice photo opportunities. Most of the trail follows a wash through an area with lots of rounded boulders and rocky outcroppings.

Burro Mesa Pouroff Trails

The Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff Trail is an easy 1 mile out-and-back hike which ends at a box canyon at the base of the 100 foot pouroff. I didn’t hike the Upper Burro Mesa Pouroff trail which is a 3.8 mile round-trip that leads to the top of the pouroff.

Hot Springs Historic Trail

In the Eastern part of the park near Rio Grande village there’s the Hot Springs Historic Trail. This easy 1 mile round-trip trail leads to what was once a Hot Springs resort. All that’s left is the foundation of the building but you can still soak in 105° hot springs by the side of the river. When I was there the Rio Grande was kind of low and muddy looking and the hot springs didn’t look at all appealing.

Off-Road Drives

Old Maverick Road

The Old Maverick Road is a good graded/gravel road that will take you down to the Santa Elena Canyon Overlook and I would recommend that. Four-wheel drive isn’t needed.

Rafting

There are a number of local outfitters that do rafting and canoe trips through some very scenic areas. The National Park Service website for Big Bend National Park has a page with a list of links to outfitters providing rafting and other types of tours.

Although the Rio Grande’s headwaters are in Colorado it seems that the main flow of water at Big Bend National Park comes from the Rio Conchos River in Mexico and is controlled by them. The demands of people and farming probably have a lot to do with the river being so low and muddy and unattractive at certain times of the year.

Mexican Border Issues

The Park’s 118 mile southern boundary is the Rio Grande River separating the United States from Mexico. This can present a problem with thieves crossing from Mexico and breaking into cars at trailheads right across the river. Signs at these parking areas warn about this. The Hot Springs trailhead was one of them. There is also the remote possibility of encountering people illegally entering the United States through backcountry areas close to the border. They could be innocent people looking for a better life or drug smugglers and should be avoided and the Park Rangers notified if you encounter anyone.

There is a legal border crossing into Mexico at Boquillas but crossing elsewhere carries a $5000 fine (and one year in prison). The beautiful Santa Elena Canyon is an area of shallow water between two tight canyon walls where it would be easy to walk across to the other side but is not a good idea. You can see a picture of the canyon in the photo gallery for this page. The National Park Service website for Big Bend National Park has a section on visiting the border area. There are lots of rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do and what you cannot take back into this country. It’s worth looking into if you think you might like to cross into Mexico on your trip to Big Bend.

Big Bend National Park Photo Gallery

Other Resources

Big Bend National Park on the National Parks Service website - NPS.gov


Big Bend National Park - Wikipedia


Terlingua, Texas - Wikipedia

Other National Parks Within a Day’s Drive

Carlsbad Caverns National Park America’s most spectacular cavern is about 290 miles to the northwest.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is about 270 miles to the northwest.

Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe mountains are only about 35 miles from each other so visiting these two on one trip is easy.

White Sands National Park is to the northwest and is about a 415 mile drive from Big Bend. If you are planning to visit White Sands National Park you might as well try to work in Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Park’s since they are not very far out of the way.
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