Big Bend - Days 5 - 6

Big Bend National Park is remote. In a Southwest corner of Texas along the Rio Grande, anyone going to this park is not just passing through, but is really committed to seeing what this park has to offer. And it has a lot to offer.

Leaving from just two towns away, it took me nearly 3 hours to get to the entrance to the park. Once there, I took the recommendation of the entry ranger and started with the Max Ross Scenic drive. This out and back drive presented spectacular and diverse panoramas of the

various landscapes. I also saw many roadrunners, a desert rat, some deer and a fox. But the highlight of the drive came at it's furthest point the Santa Elena Canyon.

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A 2 mile hike up and down into the canyon on the US side was strenuous yet beautiful as massive rock carved by the Rio towered above on both sides. A mile in you reach the endpoint where there was an almost beach like area right at river level that a dozen or so people sat sunning and admiring the remote location. After returning back out of the canyon, I lingered at the narrowest point of the river and threw some rocks over to Mexico. I'm exporting America; this country is just a little bit smaller today than it was yesterday.

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I asked a ranger, a tourist and a camper where I should set up camp for the night and the responses were unanimous - The Basin. Chisos Basin campground turned out to be at the center of the volcano that long ago helped form some of the more dramatic features of this park. The drive into the volcano was dramatic, but once I set up camp and had a chance to appreciate my surroundings, I went around in circles just marveling at the massive geologic structures forming a rim around bed for the night.

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Have you ever seen a sunset from the bottom of a volcano? I have. Actually it wasn't that great of a sunset. It seems for a sunset to be great, you have to be able to see for a long distance in order to get the sky colors that make it special.

Following the sunset and a bite to eat, I went for a stroll with the intention of striking up a conversation with the guys who were luxuriously camped caddy corner to my spot. Oddly, it worked, and I spent the rest of the night with Tom and Dooley. They were in from Austin for an 8 day vacation, continuing a tradition they've had for the last 27 years. We spent the hours with them generously offering me beer and wine and me accepting. They gave me advice about what to see the next day and regaled me with stories of their adventures at Big Ben. I asked if I should be worried about the bears and mountain lions in the Basin and the park, and they said in all their 27 years they had never seen either. I couldn't thank them enough for their hospitality and entertainment.

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Up and packed in time to see the sun come over the rim of the volcano, I started out on the Window Trail. This 4.4 mile (round trip) trail started from the camp and went all they way to a crack in the volcano that ran down to the Basin level. I didn't see anyone on the trail the whole way out, so I think I was the first to the window that day.

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As I approached the Window and the wind roared in at me, two monoliths stood in the frame, and took center stage to the backdrop of the expansive desert below. My adrenaline rose with each baby step I took toward the edge. The edge dropped off slowly and tempted me to inch along as close as I could. Eventually, I was on my butt, inching forward. I was hoping to see to the bottom , but as I put my foot into a precarious spot, my fear of height overtook me and I could go no farther. After carefully backing away, I sat for a spell just enjoying the experience. I ran into the campground hosts on the way back on the trail and asked if I might have been able to go further and they said no...had I gone much further, I could have plummeted to my death - not the way I wanted to see the bottom.

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But when I met the camp hosts, that was not the death prospect that they first alerted me to. They froze me in my steps, hushed me, pointed and said, "Bear." I turned to follow their directional signal, and no more than 30 feet away from me was a 300 pound black bear foraging for berries. His (or her) back was to us and never seemed to notice or care that we were there as he slowly moved further away from the trail continuing his snacking. I wish I could be posting a picture of this, but the only picture I had the courage to take shows just a blurred black spot in the underbrush...my hands were shaking. I'd seen bears at Yellowstone before, but none so dangerously close.

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This park covers 800,000 acres. It's huge. And in all of this space there are at most 30 bears. 27 years Tom and Dooley have been coming without seeing a single bear, and I saw one on my first morning hike in the park. I was sure they'd be jealous, so before driving out of the Basin, I left them a note letting them know.

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Before heading out of the park, I did a couple more miles of hiking along the Lost Mine trail that was straight up to an overlook on the rim of the Basin. After being enclosed in the Basin for so long, getting to this view was well worth the struggle.

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The one thing that I think I should have added to the Big Bend visit would have been lazily rafting down Rio Grande. But that would have meant another day of camping out, and I really needed a shower. So tonight I am in Odessa , TX. That should be the last National Park for a while, and I am glad to be putting my hiking shoes away for a while. I don't have much of a plan for the next couple of days, so I will be seeing what I can see, eating what sounds good, and putting in some miles heading to the east coast.