Big Bend's Canyons

Big Bend National Park's natural features basically break down into three areas: desert, mountains, and the Rio Grande. One interesting thing that cuts across all three of these areas is canyons. The river flows through canyons; the desert has (generally) dry canyons; there are canyons in the mountains.

At either end of the park, the Rio Grande traverses a canyon. Upstream, it is the Santa Elena Canyon, a massive piece of work with 1500-foot-high walls. I hiked into the mouth late one day.

Downstream, the river enters Boquillos Canyon. Across the river are the cliffs of the Sierra del Carmen in Mexico. I was serenaded by a Mexican selling trinkets (he on the Mexican side, the trinkets on the US side).

In the Chisos Mountains, which are the centerpiece of the park, is the beautiful Boot Canyon, which shelters a wide variety of exotic (for the area) life, including ponderosa pine.

In the far northwest of the park, I hiked out to two canyons, Dog Canyon and Devil's Cut Canyon. Dog Canyon is the big cut visible in the picture to the left. The trail was basically a straight line across the desert, about 1.2 miles. A (currently dry) wash runs through the canyon, which takes about 10 minutes to walk through, and has walls maybe 2-300 feet high at their highest.

Devil's Cut Canyon is reached by a trail that branches off the trail to Dog Canyon. This trail required some route-finding -- the directions include things like "climb out of the canyon to the right before the walls get too steep", as the bottom of the canyon is not traversible without technical skills. The trail ends at the upper end of the canyon rim, where there is a 300-or-so-foot drop off. (Bear needed to be careful when being photographed -- the breeze might have carried him away...)

On the return from Devil's Cut Canyon to my car, I decided to dead-head across the desert, since I had a pretty good idea where it was (the benefits of a mostly-flat environment, but I had also taken some compass headings before setting out).