Big Bend National Park, north and west sections

 February 4, 2021

Big drive today, left at 8:00 am and arrived at our campsite at 3:30 pm.  Drove straight thru with only one gas station stop.  

Here is a shot from our ride to the park.

The new truck drove great!  Jim loved how it performed.

 Which is great since our route took us straight thru Big Bend National Park north entrance

 to the center of the park and then out the west side to our campground.

A slight stop for some road work being done inside the park.

We pulled up to our campground, Maverick Ranch RV Park where we had a reservation for one spot for 2 nights and another site for the next 5 days.  They were able to rearrange some things and give us one site for all 7 nights! Yeah we don't need to move the RV.

And this is the wonderful view from our campsite.  It's even better in person.

A closeup of the cute wagon with dynamite plunger is right next to our site.

And from the front of the wagon you can see our Reflection RV and the mountains we see in the other direction.  This campground has views all around.

We took a quick stroll around the campground and saw some trails that are right here that head into these hills.  Smiles all around for this campground.

February 5, 2021

Today we explored the west end of Big Bend National Park by driving along Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive and stopping a few times along the way.  Come on along and see what we saw.

The blue sky made all the various shapes and colors look their best.

Chisos Mountains are the heart of Big Bend.

As you drive along the shapes and colors are constantly changing. 

The variety is mind boggling.

a quick shot of us at the start of our first mini hike

". . . the site of an early Big Bend ranch. Near the oasis, look for ruins of an adobe ranch house, two windmills, and non-native trees—figs and pecans—the Nail family planted to transform the desert."

The Nail Family has left the Big Bend, but the well they dug still

pumps, keeping their trees and shrubs alive.

In this green shade it is easier to understand how Sam and Nena Nail could adapt to life in the desert. Here they dug a well, put in a garden, and built holding pens for horses, chickens, and a milk cow. Like other ranchers in the area, the Nails ran stock and dealt with drought, predators, and isolation.

view of the mountains from the ranch

Jim on the trail from the road to the Nail ranch area

Onward down the drive we come to another ranch setting

The buildings below look like an active ranch, though this line camp was abandoned in 1945. 

A flowering cactus along the trail to the ranch house

Rock outcropping that we named Snoopy rock

The back of the Wilson ranch house

A front porch that anyone would like to sit on and look out on . . .

Carousel Rock

The foreman's house makes eloquent use of native materials: reed ceiling from the river, timbers from the mountains, and large stones from Blue Creek Canyon.

"Homer Wilson's 4,000 sheep and 2,500 goats escaped the summer heat and found abundant grassland on the slopes up-canyon."

View from the back of the Wilson Ranch

Further down the road where reach Sotol Vista

You are gazing toward Mexico, the Rio Grande, and Santa Elena Canyon—the destination of the Scenic Drive. Fourteen air-miles away, Santa Elena Canyon appears to be a small gap in the mesa.

Volcanic activity caused these mountains

Every direction has a beautiful view

And each one different from the others

A little further down the road we come to Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff

1.0 mile round trip 120 feet elevation gain

I favor this Illini inspired orange rock against a blue sky

"Burro Mesa gives evidence of Big Bend's volcanic past. The yellow and orange bands across the bluffs are ash-flow tuffs, which show the layered beds created as they were deposited."

an easy walk that leads through a gravel creek bed to a narrow box canyon where water has carved a deep channel into Burro Mesa 

This 100-foot pouroff attests to the power of water that floods this canyon during summer rains.

In February its dry, so no pour off.  In fact after a rain the pour off may only last for 2 hours.

The top of the cliff is formed from Burro Mesa Rhyolite.

As we drive off, the rear view mirror makes a nice picture

Next stop Goat Mountain

"Some 29 million years ago, volcanoes dominated the ancient Big Bend. Many of the formations along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, including Goat Mountain, originated in this volcanic past. "

Next stop, Mule Ears View Point

Sometimes its hard to find the formation, but this is definitely Mule Ears.

Another formation at Mule Ears that caught my eye.

On to Castolon Peak

"The layers visible in Cerro Castellan reveal millions of years of volcanic events. Stacked in this tower are several lava flows and volcanic tuffs (ash deposits), with layers of gravel and clay from periods of erosion between eruptions."

This is looking back at Jim and the truck while I took pictures of Castolon Peak.

Castolon Visitor Center, not too impressive, the area was burned in a fire in 2019.

I can see for miles and miles.

"The vast distances viewed through the clean skies of Big Bend have long been one of the defining qualities of this unique desert land.  Visitors to Big Bend are often overwhelmed by the scope of the landscape. For example, Emory Peak, a vertical mile higher than you are, is 16 miles away."

Down the road another old ranch house owned by Dorgan.

These are the remnants of a stone farmhouse 

I imagine they enjoyed the view as much as we do.

The wood lentils and window frames 

The home had a central fireplace that opened to two rooms

Interior of the Sublett ranch home.

At the end of Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive is the Santa Elena Canyon Trail

1.6 miles round trip 80 foot elevation gain

Here is the beginning of Santa Elena Canyon

This trail enters between the walls of spectacular Santa Elena Canyon, and ends where the cliffs meet the Rio Grande.

So let's start climbing up the trail.

The walls of this canyon rise 1,500 feet from the banks of the Rio Grande, making this one of the most dramatic and popular places to view the river. The sheer face of this canyon was formed by the Terlingua Fault, which is mostly covered in gravel. Calcite crystals filled in cracks formed by this fault and can be seen along the trail.

On the trail looking back from the canyon

Except during flood season, the quiet waters below do not seem powerful enough to have carved Santa Elena Canyon. 

Tall grass and bamboo are along the trail here.

Large rocks are also part of the trail.

At the end of the one way trail

 Santa Elena Canyon is 8 miles (13 km) long and 1,500 feet (450m) deep.

 A father and son go wading in the shallow waters of the Rio Grande.

Smiling faces at the end of the trail since this trail was in the shade,

now to head back.

Sunlight lighting up the canyon's end

The trail back

and of course going back down the switchbacks.

Now we are headed back home via Old Maverick Road.  It is not paved and has been described as washboardy by the ranger at the Castolon Visitor Center. We have a truck with good clearance, let's give it a try and cover new territory on the way back and shorter by 23 miles if we retrace our route in.

The road was varied, and washboard does describes most of it.  Some areas were smoother than others, but overall Jim did not seem very happy with this option.  After 35 minutes we were back on pavement and got to see views like these

It was a bumpy ride, but worth it.

Here are some shots from the Garmin Windshield Camera.

94.2 miles today and we are back were we started. The view here is still great.

And as a post script for those of you who would like to be a fly on our windshield,

some Garmin Windshield Photos from the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive

Sometimes the view is just rocky

 

 

Santa Elena Canyon's a short trail enters the mouth of the gorge, where limestone walls tower 1,500 feet above the river.