Day 81 - Big Bend Natl Park

Our first full day in Big Bend National Park and I must admit that I’m still a bit lost. The big views are nice and they have a number of small visitor’s centers. This morning, we first drove to Panther Junction where the largest visitor’s center is and asked about a couple of the trails and roads. The road to balancing rock wasn’t recommended for a low clearance vehicle such as a Prius (the example car the ranger named) so we skipped that road.

We then drove to Chisos Basin located in the center of the park at an elevation of 5000’. A bit cooler with more green. The brochure said that this area of the park gets about four times the rainfall as the rest of the park. Some other RVers that we had met suggested the windows trail. It is about five miles but the ranger here discouraged us as it’s a long hike uphill for the return trip. So we just went on the short windows view loop trail after picking up lunch at the store.

Most national parks have something “special” but here I’m having trouble picking that out. Most of the landscape is the same desert landscape that we’ve been driving through for miles. Lots of yucca and prickly pear cactus, some cholla and ocotillo. Sort of the same old thing. The park is named after the long sweeping bend of the Rio Grande River which now has just a small fraction of the original volume of water due to all of the upstream dams diverting most of the water.

The picture on the right shows the “window” from the loop. The basin that we are in collects a lot of water from the surrounding peaks and it all pours through the window during heavy rains into the valley. It looks like a nice hike.

A roadrunner hanging around the trail looking for a handout. There was another near the picnic tables next to the store eyeing anyone with a plastic wrapper. In some parks it’s the squirrels or jays. Here, it’s the roadrunner.

So far, I still don’t understand why this is a national park. The government had to purchase a lot of land that was being used for ranching to form the park. We are here for several more days. Maybe something will stand out...