Big Bend
Well, now I know where all the mountains that should be in TX are, they all got bulldozed down to Big Bend National Park. The biggest ones, the Chisos (7,000’+) appear suddenly, no foot hills, nothing but flat dry land with thin small brush scattered on the rock. Instead of the porous soft limestone, these are volcanic, hard rocks, and they have odd shapes and cliffs and bluffs and fingers. The colors range from reddish to dark, almost purple, through light orange, but mostly they are dark, even brown. Because they are above the searing heat of the desert floor, they actually have small trees and bushes clinging to their steep sides. There are mountains behind mountains so as you move along the road, what you see changes very dramatically in a short distance. We can see even bigger mountains across the Rio Grande in Mexico, which form the rain shadow that causes the desert. I can’t stop taking pictures.
It turns out that these mountains were pushed up by the same collision of continents that made the Appalachian chain. So you can see the sharp tilted planes where the flat sea bottom sedimentary rock was shoved. Volcanoes blew up here too, and the lava surged up out of cracks and colored ash fell down. The range that is the most dramatic and the most beautiful to me is the Chisos. Looking at satellite pictures, they are actually a ring, the remains of some huge volcano. I don’t know my geology very well, but they are un scraped by glaciers and seem very young and rough and new. There are plenty of limestone areas too, with lighter rocks that have been smoothed by rain and wind.
The brochure says to think of the Rio Grande as a giant belt sander, grinding away at the rocks. Where they are soft, there are rounded, amorphous shapes, and where the rocks are hard, we see huge ramparts and cliffs. In the usually dry creeks that flow down into the river, there are also canyons where they go through hard rock, and odd places called tinajas (water jars) where the water has worn a series of rounded holes that hold water long after the thunderstorm is over. Sometimes the creeks erode the limestone so fast that walls like road cuts are left, usually horizontal layers that look almost like stonework, and in places the ancient upheavals force the layers to bulge upward.
We drove through the park to get to our campground on the western side in Terlingua ( three tongues because the Commanches, Apaches and Spanish were all around ) This is an old mercury mining town, and now has only tourism. A little run down, and judging by the notices posted outside the PO, there are a number of old hippies (are they making new ones?) hiding up these draws. I saw 10 Airstreams here, parked off in the desert with all the windows silvered. There are a lot of sheds covering cars, trucks and RVs, the heat here in the summertime is frightful.
Big Bend Motor Inn and Campground has decent sites, full hookup and the all important WIFI. Out my kitchen window is a big craggy red mountain (Bee Mountain), and I can see some sort of mountain in every direction, along with various buildings. Behind the CG are some peculiar steep hills. I can’t tell if they are natural, they are very yellow, or the remains of mine works. They make a fine place to climb up and see if the sunset will be worth a photo as it lights up the mountains like a son et lumiere show.
It is kind of hazy the first day, and we can only see the palest blue shapes of the big mountain, so we head west for some geocaching. Up to an old cemetery of mine workers, the graves only piles of rocks in most cases, with weathered wooden crosses and some bleached out plastic flowers. Some of the caches are at marginal businesses where we have to be stealthy. By 4:00, we are hot and happy to come back to the AC in the trailer
More geocaching next day, crawling over the red rocks like two tarantulas looking for the little boxes, a long hike up through the desert into a cleft on the west side of the Chisos. There, a waterfall comes down off the convoluted rock cliffs and makes a big pool of water and then a series of smaller pools. The sound of the water on the rocks, and the shade of the cottonwood trees, and even the sound of the leaves of the trees was pretty magical after the hike through the rocks and spiny plants.
We decided to drive up into the Chisos basin after that, a steep and windy road with the rocky cliffs and mesas on all sides. Above a certain height the trees reappear, pines, oaks, cedars and other small shrubs. And a lot of grass. The rocky peaks surround it, there is a campground and a lodge. The air is cooler and seems damper, and through a window in the rim you can see out onto the desert below, pale blue in the distance, and even paler blue the far mountains in Mexico.
Sunday. We have treated ourselves to a rental Jeep so that we can go off on the dirt roads. We are like two little kids with a new toy. We get up early, because we have 43 miles to cover, over dirt roads that are fine for the Jeep ( or actually even our non 4X4 truck as we find out ) but have places where rocks or washouts mean we have to crawl along.
Our route takes us along the Rio Grande. At the west end of the park is Santa Elena Canyon, one of several places where the river gouged out the cliffs. We hike to the opening of the canyon and stand in awe of the height of the cliffs, watching the hot morning sun turn the rocks orange and the shadows of the canyon black.
The Rio Grande in the old days was full of water. Now, the western states have take ALL of the water from it, so that above Presidio it is dry. The only water (coffee with milk and very fast) comes from the Rio Concho up from Mexico. We drive along the desert, stopping to see plants, and trying to get to actually see the river. When the river floods, it takes everything, and opportunistic plants like the giant bamboo like grass called Cane grow up very fast. This means no roads go anywhere near it, and even hiking to its always changing banks is impossible. The best spot, a primitive camping area called the Loop, is perched on a bluff above a wide detour that the river takes. And to the north, the dark brown toothed Dominguez Mountains. Inside the loop (which is Mexico), there are bright green trees and the cane grass. Up here on the bluff, rocks and cactus and creosote bushes.
I see what are undoubtedly cow tracks in the sand, and then a dried cow plopper. The ghost of a longhorn ? No, both horses and cattle swim or actually wade the river frequently. The rangers round them up and deport them pretty quickly. No green card, and they don’t want them here eating up the grass (what grass?).
The last leg of the jeep day takes us up the southeast side of the central mountains to a spring for another cache. There are springs around in this desert, the flow doesn’t amount to much, but you can see them by the sudden appearance of green and of actual trees. This one is called Glen Spring. Here is a corral, the US Cavalry had a post here in the Comanche days, complete with a cement dipping tank to drive animals through and remove ticks, chiggers and other horrors. Only the crumbling shell of adobe brick houses. We are to count the number of graves and email it back to claim the cache. Small mounds of rocks, and weathered wooden crosses. No names. What a lonely dried out place to die.
Stay tuned.
It turns out that these mountains were pushed up by the same collision of continents that made the Appalachian chain. So you can see the sharp tilted planes where the flat sea bottom sedimentary rock was shoved. Volcanoes blew up here too, and the lava surged up out of cracks and colored ash fell down. The range that is the most dramatic and the most beautiful to me is the Chisos. Looking at satellite pictures, they are actually a ring, the remains of some huge volcano. I don’t know my geology very well, but they are un scraped by glaciers and seem very young and rough and new. There are plenty of limestone areas too, with lighter rocks that have been smoothed by rain and wind.
The brochure says to think of the Rio Grande as a giant belt sander, grinding away at the rocks. Where they are soft, there are rounded, amorphous shapes, and where the rocks are hard, we see huge ramparts and cliffs. In the usually dry creeks that flow down into the river, there are also canyons where they go through hard rock, and odd places called tinajas (water jars) where the water has worn a series of rounded holes that hold water long after the thunderstorm is over. Sometimes the creeks erode the limestone so fast that walls like road cuts are left, usually horizontal layers that look almost like stonework, and in places the ancient upheavals force the layers to bulge upward.
We drove through the park to get to our campground on the western side in Terlingua ( three tongues because the Commanches, Apaches and Spanish were all around ) This is an old mercury mining town, and now has only tourism. A little run down, and judging by the notices posted outside the PO, there are a number of old hippies (are they making new ones?) hiding up these draws. I saw 10 Airstreams here, parked off in the desert with all the windows silvered. There are a lot of sheds covering cars, trucks and RVs, the heat here in the summertime is frightful.
Big Bend Motor Inn and Campground has decent sites, full hookup and the all important WIFI. Out my kitchen window is a big craggy red mountain (Bee Mountain), and I can see some sort of mountain in every direction, along with various buildings. Behind the CG are some peculiar steep hills. I can’t tell if they are natural, they are very yellow, or the remains of mine works. They make a fine place to climb up and see if the sunset will be worth a photo as it lights up the mountains like a son et lumiere show.
It is kind of hazy the first day, and we can only see the palest blue shapes of the big mountain, so we head west for some geocaching. Up to an old cemetery of mine workers, the graves only piles of rocks in most cases, with weathered wooden crosses and some bleached out plastic flowers. Some of the caches are at marginal businesses where we have to be stealthy. By 4:00, we are hot and happy to come back to the AC in the trailer
More geocaching next day, crawling over the red rocks like two tarantulas looking for the little boxes, a long hike up through the desert into a cleft on the west side of the Chisos. There, a waterfall comes down off the convoluted rock cliffs and makes a big pool of water and then a series of smaller pools. The sound of the water on the rocks, and the shade of the cottonwood trees, and even the sound of the leaves of the trees was pretty magical after the hike through the rocks and spiny plants.
We decided to drive up into the Chisos basin after that, a steep and windy road with the rocky cliffs and mesas on all sides. Above a certain height the trees reappear, pines, oaks, cedars and other small shrubs. And a lot of grass. The rocky peaks surround it, there is a campground and a lodge. The air is cooler and seems damper, and through a window in the rim you can see out onto the desert below, pale blue in the distance, and even paler blue the far mountains in Mexico.
Sunday. We have treated ourselves to a rental Jeep so that we can go off on the dirt roads. We are like two little kids with a new toy. We get up early, because we have 43 miles to cover, over dirt roads that are fine for the Jeep ( or actually even our non 4X4 truck as we find out ) but have places where rocks or washouts mean we have to crawl along.
Our route takes us along the Rio Grande. At the west end of the park is Santa Elena Canyon, one of several places where the river gouged out the cliffs. We hike to the opening of the canyon and stand in awe of the height of the cliffs, watching the hot morning sun turn the rocks orange and the shadows of the canyon black.
The Rio Grande in the old days was full of water. Now, the western states have take ALL of the water from it, so that above Presidio it is dry. The only water (coffee with milk and very fast) comes from the Rio Concho up from Mexico. We drive along the desert, stopping to see plants, and trying to get to actually see the river. When the river floods, it takes everything, and opportunistic plants like the giant bamboo like grass called Cane grow up very fast. This means no roads go anywhere near it, and even hiking to its always changing banks is impossible. The best spot, a primitive camping area called the Loop, is perched on a bluff above a wide detour that the river takes. And to the north, the dark brown toothed Dominguez Mountains. Inside the loop (which is Mexico), there are bright green trees and the cane grass. Up here on the bluff, rocks and cactus and creosote bushes.
I see what are undoubtedly cow tracks in the sand, and then a dried cow plopper. The ghost of a longhorn ? No, both horses and cattle swim or actually wade the river frequently. The rangers round them up and deport them pretty quickly. No green card, and they don’t want them here eating up the grass (what grass?).
The last leg of the jeep day takes us up the southeast side of the central mountains to a spring for another cache. There are springs around in this desert, the flow doesn’t amount to much, but you can see them by the sudden appearance of green and of actual trees. This one is called Glen Spring. Here is a corral, the US Cavalry had a post here in the Comanche days, complete with a cement dipping tank to drive animals through and remove ticks, chiggers and other horrors. Only the crumbling shell of adobe brick houses. We are to count the number of graves and email it back to claim the cache. Small mounds of rocks, and weathered wooden crosses. No names. What a lonely dried out place to die.
Stay tuned.
posted by Thistledown24 at 7:58 AM
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