Hiking The Chisos

After sleeping for 11 hours, 11!, I was ready to hit the trails. My room has a window unit that blew hard all night, I didn’t hear a thing. No trucks at 0100. Nobody gaming at 0200. Nobody in the bathroom at 0300. Just uninterrupted, blissful sleep. 

Big Bend is massive. It can take hours to drive through it. Getting anywhere is not quick. It took us 30 min to get to the guarded entrance. Another hour to get to the central area of the park. We spent a lot of time today in the car - more than I planned. 

Hike #1 and #2 were the Window Overlook Trail and Chisos Basin Trail in the central region of the park. These were easy trails, and beautiful, but nothing compared to what was to come. 

Next up was the hike through Saint Elena Canyon, a truly remarkable hike worth the hour long drive in the southwest part of the park. We climbed a butte walking in switchbacks to the top and then went down the opposite side to the water. 

The Terlingua Creek serves as the border between Texas and Mexico. We crossed over to Mexico and back again walking across the river where the water level was very low. No border agents - just Americans walking across because they could. 

We then drove to an overlook to see the canyon from another viewpoint. 

We stopped at overlooks to get pics. This mountain made me think of the Painted Desert. 

On our way back to the main road we stopped to see the remains of one of the first ranches in the park dating back to 1918. 

This was a quick ten minute walk - not really a hike to Sam Nail Ranch. 

We then took the Subaru on an off rode adventure down a six mile gravel road / river basin so we could find Grapevine Hills Trail. At the end of the one mile trail, and the highlight, was Balanced Rock. 

To get there we walked in a sandy wash, hiked a butte, and scrambled the last .25 of a mile on all fours. It was an adventure! 

The views were spectacular. We were so high the birds were on eye level with us. 



I thought I might investigate a small cave until I found mountain lion scat at the entrance. I have never turned around so fast! 

The erosion formed a shape that looked like a horse’s head. 

After 20,000 steps today, we are beat! We got back to the house to see the sunset. 

Tomorrow we will cross into Mexico - legally this time - and eat street tacos. It’s too bad I’m unable to stay awake to see the stars - maybe tomorrow night.