Big Bend National Park

Listen for a moment. In much of Big Bend, the loudest sound is the wind moving through dry grass and creosote bushes. After a rain, the creosote gives off a sharp, clean smell, a little like wet pavement and pine resin. Underfoot, the ground crunches with gravel and broken volcanic rock. The light is wide and very bright, and the far mountains look closer than they are. Welcome to one of the emptiest corners of the United States, where Texas meets Mexico at a long curve of the Rio Grande.

That curve gives the park its name. On a map of Texas, the river turns south, then swings sharply northeast, and this turn forms the big bend. The river also forms the park's southern boundary for well over a hundred kilometres. Everything on the far bank is Mexico. Here, the border is not a wall or a fence. It is a slow, muddy river, often shallow enough to wade, and lined with tall river cane. Standing beside it, many visitors feel how thin that line on the map really is.

Big Bend became a national park in 1944, during the Second World War. The land had been gathered first as a Texas state park, and then the state handed it to the federal government. Today the park covers more than eight hundred thousand acres. That is larger than some small countries. Yet it is one of the less visited national parks in the country, mostly because it is so far from any large city. Many people drive for hours across open ranch land just to reach the entrance.

Most of the park sits in the Chihuahuan Desert. This is the largest desert in North America, and it stretches deep into Mexico. But this desert does not look empty when you look closely. Ocotillo plants rise like bundles of thin green whips, and after rain they grow red flowers at the tips. Low lechuguilla plants have stiff, sharp leaves that can pierce a boot. Sotol and yucca stand on the slopes. In spring, after a wet winter, the desert floor can turn yellow and purple with wildflowers.

Now look toward the centre of the park. Those dark, jagged peaks are the Chisos Mountains. Here is a surprise many visitors miss: the Chisos are the only mountain range in the United States that lies entirely inside a single national park. Their highest point is Emory Peak, at about 2,385 metres. Because the mountains are high, they are cooler and wetter than the desert below. Oak, pine, juniper, and even some Arizona cypress grow up there. Climbing into the Chisos feels like travelling hundreds of kilometres north.

In the middle of these mountains is the Chisos Basin, a large bowl ringed by cliffs. On its western side there is a gap called the Window. Through this narrow opening, the basin drains, and the view runs out across the desert for many kilometres. At sunset, people gather to watch the sun drop straight through that gap. The rock walls turn orange, then deep red, then grey. It is one of the simplest and most loved moments in the park, and it costs nothing but patience.

The mountains also hold a small natural mystery. A grey and yellow songbird called the Colima warbler spends its summers here. In the United States, this is the only place where it nests. Birders travel from across the world to hike into the Chisos and hear it. In fact, more than four hundred and fifty bird species have been recorded in the park. That is more than in almost any other national park in the country, because Big Bend sits on a crossroads of migration routes.

The animals here have their own stories. Black bears once disappeared from this region. Then, in the late twentieth century, bears from Mexico crossed the river and returned on their own. Today they live in the Chisos again. You may also see javelinas, which look like small, bristly wild pigs, moving in family groups at dusk. Roadrunners dash across the road. Mountain lions live here too, though they are very rarely seen. Rangers ask visitors to keep food locked away, because these animals learn quickly.

The rocks hold an even older story. Long before the desert, this area lay under a shallow sea, and later it became a swampy coastal plain. Scientists have found many fossils here, including dinosaurs. The most remarkable find came in the early 1970s. A student discovered bones of a giant flying reptile, a pterosaur, later named Quetzalcoatlus. Its wings may have spanned about ten metres or more, wider than a small airplane. The park's fossil exhibit, in the desert north of the Chisos, shows replicas of creatures from this lost world.

On the western side of the park, the river cuts through a high wall of limestone. This is Santa Elena Canyon. The cliffs rise roughly four hundred and fifty metres straight up from the water. The left wall is in Mexico, and the right wall is in the United States. A short trail climbs a little way into the canyon, and the air turns cool and shady. Sounds bounce off the stone. The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive leads there, named after the park's first superintendent.

People have lived here for thousands of years, and the park keeps many traces of them. Native peoples left rock art and grinding holes in stone. Later came ranchers, miners, and small farming villages on both sides of the river. Near the river, at a place called Hot Springs, a homesteader built a small bathhouse in the early twentieth century. The stone foundation is still there. Warm spring water still flows into it, right beside the cold Rio Grande. Many visitors sit in the warm pool and watch the river pass.

When night comes, Big Bend changes again. The park has been named an International Dark Sky Park, which means it protects its night sky from artificial light. Far from cities, the sky here is among the darkest in the lower forty-eight states. On a clear, moonless night, the Milky Way stretches from one horizon to the other. You can see satellites crossing slowly. Some visitors say they have never seen so many stars, and many simply lie on the ground and look up.

So take a moment wherever you are standing now. Look at the colours of the rock: the reds, the greys, the pale yellows. Notice how far you can see, and how few human signs there are. Listen again for the wind in the grass. As you walk on, watch the ground for small lizards, and the sky for a hawk turning slowly in the warm air. This land is very old and very quiet. For a little while, you are part of it.