Big Bend area, Texas, December 21-24, 2011

The day after picking our son Derrick up at the El Paso International Airport, we left early the next morning for Terlingua, Texas, where we had rented a refurbished home in the former mining boom town turned arts and vacation retreat community full of eclectic types of people – borderline off-grid types, retirees who fashion themselves with the likes of prospectors, and those who just seek freedom from conformity and to be among others who believe it’s okay to act a little funny.  However, for me it was an easy choice because of the aesthetic surroundings, with Big Bend National Park filling the skyline to the east, and an easy 10-minute drive to the border at Lajitas and past Study Butte to the entrance of the Big Bend National Park.

View from front porch, Terlingua, Texas.

The Big Bend area, encompassing Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, the Rio Grande and borderland to the South, and a handful of small rural communities who are comprised of vendors providing services to visitors and homes to the supporting work force, has an arid, mountainous geography with a rainbow of colors borne in its geology, with little more flora than mesquite, prickly pear, and ocotillo.  Animals are limited to the regular desert variety of the deep southwest, including mule deer, javelina, coyote, and smaller animals, birds and reptiles.  With the temperature in the low 40s to 60s during our visit, we did not expect to see much of anything.

After a five to six hour drive through the West Texas communities of Marfa and Alpine, we arrived in Terlingua late in the afternoon.  We drove past the Starlight Theatre, the centerpiece of town, to our place two hundred yards up a hill.  Built in 1909 out of rock and adobe, the mansion was home to the owner of the Chisos Mining Co., Howard E. Perry.  The mansion, referred to as “Upstairs at the Mansion” has 22 inch walls downstairs, and 14 1/2 inch walls upstairs. The addition on the South side of the mansion, which your room is located, was built in 1912, and has been restored to its original condition on the interior.  There are two rooms for rent, one upstairs and one downstairs.  A third room belongs to the owner, Kaci Fullwood, a local artist and part-time resident of the mansion.  All three rooms share a kitchen, decorated with a practical, homemade feel (the benches for the dinner table are bench seats from an older automobile or truck) with the original high cement walls, marked up with graffiti scratched into the wall during its former abandonment and by recent visitors.  A bathroom underneath the stairs serves all the occupants, though toilet paper must be disposed of in the wastebasket, rather than directly into the toilet (gross, considering I was suffering through a bout of food poisoning after eating a chile relleno burrito at Rafa’s in El Paso the day prior).   

Upstairs at the Mansion.

We never saw our hostess during our stay, but there was evidence she was nearby – someone had eaten breakfast in the kitchen after we left the second day, and upon our return the third day there was laundry drying on a clothesline next to the house.  Fine, I thought.  I didn’t pay to make new friends and risk violating the privacy that I drove nearly six hours to enjoy.  After dinner and a few beers on the long front porch, we all turned in to rest for the next day’s activities.

Bedrooms are on the right.

 After a breakfast of biscuits with eggs, sausage, egg and ham, we filled our camelbaks and departed for Lajitas Stables, a 15-mile drive from the house.  The stable is a more of a corral, where the wranglers and guides put the horses prior to a ride, situated on the Farm to Market Road across from the Rio Grande, and within spitting distance of the Rio Grande Rock House, another property for rent which sits on a bluff above the river, which I rented back in May with nine other cohorts from work.  A incredibly picturesque setting – high reddish-brown desert mountains, with an emerald river and small trees and grasses lining its bank, with an occasional group of wild horses coming to the water line to drink.  Our link-up of 8:30 a.m. came and went and I entered the makeshift office and called the main stable on the phone.  A woman answered who apologized and said the guide was having problems starting his truck.  I was relieved to know it was something beyond our control, rather than discovering that we were at the wrong location.  About five minutes later, Armando, our guide, arrived in an old green pick-up with a horse trailer he parked on the far side of the road.  He apologized for being late but said he wanted to make sure he picked the right horses based upon my description I gave to him previously.  He is a heavyset Hispanic man, probably in his late 30s, with a shy and distant demeanor.  When he asked if we had been down here before, I mentioned my stay at the Rock House, to which he quickly responded, “I know, you told me that on the phone”, referring to a brief conversation we shared while making reservations two month earlier.  Slightly taken aback by his tone, I brushed it off and continued the introductions.  After signing waivers and moving to the corral, Armando pulled me aside and quietly asked me what I wanted to do.  We had eight hours to kill, and it was only he and our family.  We concurred that we would focus on making the ride as exciting as possible, with the exception of anything that might result in someone getting hurt.  Great, I thought, I now have high expectations and Armando gets to have fun on this ride as well.

Our previous rides amounted to no more than one to three hours of riding canned trails with our guides carefully scrutinizing our every move.  As we left the corral to take the road a hundred yards to our passage into the mountains, it became clear this would be a ride like anything we had experienced before.  Our horses charged down the embankment to the road, and quickly galloped to catch up with each other.  Our last long ride was two years before in Angel Fire, New Mexico, (we rode for an hour in Ruidoso last year) following an October snowstorm.  Our guide led us on a forest service high clearance road adjacent to the highway we traveled in on, riding on fat, older horses.  At one point our guide’s horse lost its footing on the icy trail (which was wide as a one-lane road and of minimal grade) and lay down on its side, along with the rider.  To the contrary, these horses were fit and not intimidated by the rugged and tricky terrain. 

Alex and guide, Armando, ascending Contrabando Peak.

The first leg of our ride took us steeply up the side of Contrabando Peak, a series of high volcanic mountaintops.  The route appeared to follow the makings of a trail, consisting primarily of large, blackish-red pumice stones, with ocotillos seemingly growing next to our route on purpose.  My brush cloth jacket shed the needles without issue, though Monica, still wearing her thin down jacket from the chilly morning, tore a hole in her shell, forcing her to pack it up for the remainder of the trip.  My jacket would become my best friend later in the day after some nail-biting descents through the middle of several ocotillos.  A pair of chaps would have been nice.  During our ascent, several times we would sight the only large animals we would see during our entire visit, two separate groups of Javelina, all in a hurry to clear the area once we made ourselves known to them.  A larger group continued uphill while a pair of large Javelina moved off to our far right.  After hitting two high points along the crest, we began to descend down the high, open ground to the northeast.  Alex followed Armando along the route, and remained apprehensive about commanding her horse with her reins, which would not pose an issue until later, and her horse blissfully followed his (we teased Alex about her horse earlier for having its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth).  At several points along our route that had the appearance of a dead end, Armando would kid us about this, pretending to be indecisive but eventually charging down a slope that was cleverly hidden by the precipice next to him.  Later in the day he would do this at places where we had a clear view of our options, only to begin descending an unimaginable route.  After an hour, we reached the northern extent of the high mesa we traveled all morning.  In the distance to the north was a wide expanse of badlands of multiple colors, cut by a large dry river bed.  In the middle of this network was a small red cone-shaped hill top, with a larger gray hill to its rear.  This would be our destination for lunch.  As we came to the edge of a large gully that continued steeply down the mountainside eventually meeting the river bed, Armando asked us to hold in place while he scouted a route down.  Alex’s horse, confused by this, was intent on following Armando, and Alex’s commands with the reins did little to dissuade him.  Instead, he began following, then backing up, creating enough confusion to frighten Alex and force Armando and myself to move to her position.  Armando was obviously frustrated by my attempts to coach Alex and my eventual dismounting – something he may have forgotten to instruct us not to do at the beginning, and was now realizing his error.  Alex eventually collected her self and we abandoned our attempt to descend at that location.  We continued to move further east along the ridgeline, where at another saddle in the crest Armando felt that he had identified another route.  Pulling me aside, we agreed that we would attempt it, but he would lead Alex’s horse down the steep slope.  I trailed everyone else, with Derrick and his mount ahead of me.  Immediately after a few steps the lead horse was vertically below the next.  Derrick started his move, and I watched his horse slide three to four feet with every step.  The horses seemed nervous – up to this point I assumed that no matter what, my horse would follow through instinct.  But the rocks were large, it was steep, and there was no trail.  Our aim was to continue downhill towards the river bed far below, nothing more.  As my horse hesitated and began to travel in a different direction, it struck me that I would have to select every step of his route.  With complete disregard for my instructions, he became so confused he rode through the middle of an ocotillo.  Finally, we exited the open face of the slope into a more defined gulch and easily followed each other to the riverbed.  Along the way, a mule deer skullcap with antlers lay off the side of our newly established trail, and numerous pieces of blue stone, presumably copper residue, littered the trail.  Armando did not feel comfortable allowing us to take these with us, citing that it may or may not be in violation of state land restrictions.  I would make a mental note of these as we continued to the river bed.

Descending ridgeline, with dry river basin in distance.

Finally, in the riverbed, the horses acted as if a huge burden had been lifted and took off at a friendly trot.  During the excitement of the descent, or perhaps the galloping down the riverbed, my pocketknife freed itself from my left pants pocket.  After lunch Armando would insist we go back to find it, but I convinced him to continue.  We traveled up the riverbed, which was a combination of sand and yellow slate with 30 foot high walls, until we reached a series of steps near the red and gray hill.  There, on a stone bench, Armando prepared lunch while the horses fed on grasses growing alongside the base of the cliffs.  After a lunch of cold baked chicken, vegetables and cold cuts, Armando playfully teased Alex with a sleeve of Oreos, and we packed up and continued across the basin.  After riding another ½ mile up the river bed, we watered the horses at a small pond left by the rains of the previous weeks.  November and December was the first period the entire year where this part of the country received a nominal amount of rainfall.  Much of the surrounding area, including the Davis Mountains and around Alpine, Texas, were ravaged by the summer’s wildfires.  After watering the horses, we continued until we reached an old ruin made of yellow stone, which Armando referred to as “Casa Grande”, and claimed it was the remnant of an early 20^th century ranch.  Half of all historic dwellings across the southwest are referred to as “Casa Grande”.  True or false, I placed little credence in his explanation.  Upon departing Casa Grande, we rode back to the southeast in the general direction of the mesa we descended before lunch.  From this perspective we were able to get a good view of the slope we descended earlier, with Derrick and I remarking proudly at the difficulty of the experience.  As humans in a modern, settled society, we often convince ourselves that no matter the circumstances, nothing bad will happen.  Belief systems and organizations encourage this assumption in a multitude of ways.  Financially millions of people find themselves in dire straits because they believe that if banks and credit companies didn’t think they could manage their finances, they wouldn’t extend them a line of credit.  Many young people find themselves seriously injured or killed in automobile accidents because they believe that despite drinking and driving at excessive speeds, the car’s safety systems and other driver’s defensiveness will prevent them from harm. “It can’t happen to me.”  The reality is there is never a guarantee that things will work out favorably for you, more so if you put your fate in someone else’s hands, and occasionally you experience that realization.  This realization could be something simple, as it was in the case of the descent on the horses, where we discovered that we would have to figure it out, and ended without incident, or more complicated, like the death of someone close or the complete loss of financial security.  And though a fleeting moment, that realization during this ride made the entire day worthwhile.  It pushed us out of normal level of comfort and security and forced us to act.  Could have something bad happened?  Unlikely – Armando was very conservative, not reckless in his attitude and approach to the ride.  But I appreciate the fact that he recognized our limits and pushed us as far as he could in a safe manner so we could have a remarkable experience.

Mounts during lunch.

Route-finding in the badlands.

 Armando led us to several more precipices, climbing up spurs in the mud hills to a dead end, and then dashing down the steep incline into the gully below.  Eventually, we began our climb back up to the mesa, with the afternoon sun blazing into our faces; we began to feel a bit fatigued.  With sore legs and aching backs, we steadily climbed up and over the crest, picking up a more defined trail which we followed back to the river.  Once the horses were back in the corral, we settled with Armando, said our goodbyes, and departed for the house.

Riding south across mesa, heading to stable.

Looking back at ridge line descent.  The saddle second from the left.

Derrick and Alex in the Kitchen.

Once back at the house, we prepared dinner and turned in earlier.  The next morning we would visit Big Bend National Park to do a driving tour and two hikes.  The wind picked up and the temperature dropped quickly, making it less desirable to sit out on the porch.  No fire pit, but a large firewood pile on the other end of the porch.  My assumption is Kaci Fullwood has a wood stove in her room, but not sure.  All the rooms have an electric and a kerosene heater.  At night we turn off the kerosene heater.   The bathroom has a small portable electric heater, which we leave on through the night.  At night the house is silent, thanks to the thick slab walls, save the old windows.  One of our bedroom windows squeaks on its hinge, making a noise similar to Alex speaking the word “Mom” over and over.  The second night I am more aware of it (it kept Monica up the first night) and we stack books, clothes, anything we can kind to stop the noise, but it manages to persist.  We take the large wooden block by the door, there as a doorstop, and lean against the door to prevent it from swinging open in the night, like a scene from the movie “Paranormal Activity”.  Otherwise, we sleep peacefully.  I awake early to make breakfast, part of the deal I had to strike with Monica in order to bargain for an early start each morning.  It’s much cooler today – not even forty degrees out.  For the remainder of the day we don’t see the temperature climb out of the 30s.

 

Santa Elena Canyon.

We entered the park a few miles east of Study Butte, and immediately turn south on Maverick Road, and head the fourteen miles to Santa Elena Canyon.  Maverick Road is gravel, but well-graded, so we move quickly.  After a couple of stops along the way, we reach the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon, which during our approach is a massive fissure in the long stone wall we can observe from our house in Terlingua.  The canyon begins near Lajitas and is one of the major highlights for rafting trips down the Rio Grande.  We park and cross the massive confluence of Terlingua Creek, which is dry from the drought.  On the opposite shore, the sheer walls of Santa Elena Canyon abruptly end and allow river banks and a flood plain to exist as the massive walls continue further back from the water line.  Above the beach in the grassy areas spotted with paloverde trees are two vaqueros with a small herd of cattle.  I’m not sure how far they are from home, but I imagine there are some small Mexican villages a few miles further downstream.  We take the short one-mile hike upriver until the walls close in and eliminate any shoreline on our side of the river.  Not a unique terrain feature, but remarkable nonetheless – here at the brink of a unique frontier, along the border, virtually unchanged since the days of Pancho Villa and Santa Anna, and as wild as when it was first occupied by native Americans thousands of years before.  The vaqueros seem unaware to how remarkable their circumstances are, their lives appearing as simple and pure as a work of art; though many of us imagine a life of simplicity, not fully realizing that those we long to be and the places where we desire to live are only true in the hearts and minds of those actually living them.  To believe that one can evolve from one world to another so easily and to experience what they regard as real is foolhardy.  Our lives develop in a way that does not permit this.  One can change their lifestyle and their home, but they cannot change who they are and how they came to be who they are.  This in itself prevents anyone from truly experiencing life through another’s eyes.  So, as is such, we look upon these romantic and simple scenes, and can grow no more closer to them, forcing us to admire them from afar, like a sculpture or fine painting.  It brings a feeling of grace and then disappears when the moment passes.  To admire and relish those moments is understandable; to attempt to alter your life to emulate this brings no one closer to what is real for the people living it.  You can identify this tendency in other parts of our lives – the rustic park lodge, the nostalgic coffee shop, the western steak house; the refurbished downtowns of historic areas, with their quaint boutiques and restaurants; it sometimes comes close, but never truly captures the realism of those simple times gone by, because they cannot.  Their employees leave work and don’t return to a humble prairie house with chickens alongside a river in the forest, but rather they return to their apartment or home, link up with friends or family, and go out to eat or see a movie.  It’s a novelty, nothing more.   This is why people buy weekend places in the mountains, why they buy small farms in rural communities, large ranches on prime real estate in the most picturesque areas.  They all seek the same thing – to find themselves in the middle of a work of art, feeling that moment of grace for as long as they can.  And they can do it without the risk of disease, crime, and other dangers of the period or society which they wish to emulate.  My eight-hour horseback ride is half as long as many people rode on a daily basis in the 19^th century.  I would argue in those simpler circumstances, daily decisions are less complex, there’s less gray area in matters at hand, but they are no less consequential; and further, there is much less a degree of security when it comes to physical security, relationships and financial security.  When we contemplate a life that we identify as easier, nostalgic, we fail to realize that there are people born into those lives who dream of something else as well.  I imagine in the 19^th century pioneer families did much of what they did out of necessity, rather than dreaming of a utopia or bohemian society.  Their existence was simply driven by wealth, survival, or independence, no different from today, or the future for that matter.  Country living might sound blissful, but not when you have to sleep with one eye open and worry if your children will live long enough to see their 18^th birthday.  Notwithstanding, how we live in our daily lives at this moment characterizes our era and provides our identity in history – iPhones, Global War on Terror, rise of Islamic states, technology in our daily lives.  In summary, the preceding explanation can be simply defined by the common axiom, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Vaqueros and cattle at mouth of Santa Elena Canyon.

The trail is popular for such an isolated park, and I notice a group of hikers that look European, but not sure.  With them appears to be some sort of guide, carrying a backpack large enough to support someone on a two-week backpacking trip (for a 1.5 mile hike) and is constantly lecturing to them as a group.  Most of his gear and clothing looks incredibly ragged, leaving me wondering his history (and why anyone would need to hire a guide for a day hike).  It is cold out.  It’s windy, and the temperature can’t be more than the mid-thirties.  There are a lot of clouds and the Chiso Mountains to the northwest, our final destination for the day, are shrouded in fog.  We continue our drive along the river towards Castolon, and we pull over to look at what Monica believes is a turtle crossing the road.  It ends up being half-correct; it is definitely a turtle, but in skeleton form.  We pick up the shell expecting to see an angry face, but rather are looking into two black hollow eye sockets and turtle is as light as a feather.  We arrive in Castolon, a small visitor center and way station in the park, with a few historical buildings framed by Cerro Castellan to the north.  As we continue our drive north along the road to Santa Elena Junction, we begin looking for a place to stop and make lunch.  The wind and temperature is much worse now, and we pull off at Mule Ears Peak Overlook, but there are several other cars there and it does not afford the privacy we’re looking for.  We continue north, then make a left onto the road leading to Burro Mesa Pouroff Overlook, and drive to the trailhead for the Pouroff, a narrow desert gulch which ends with a dry waterfall.  It’s too cool outside and the wind is unbearable, so we fold down the backseats and make an area large enough for the four of us to gather and boil water for our soup.  Frustrating at first, the set-up is quite comfortable and provides a feeling of security from the outside elements.  After 30 minutes, we clean up and continue our drive towards the Chisos, but the weather seems to get worse as we get closer.  As we head east from Santa Elena Junction, a border patrol Jeep sits at the intersection, probably as a deterrent than ever likely to capture someone traveling illegally north.  The drive towards Basin Junction is dreary – a dark grey sky and with the mountains still shrouded in fog, not much to look at.  Past Basin Junction, we continue uphill for the final six miles to Chisos Basin, a high mountain plateau surrounded by the peaks of the Chisos.  Halfway up, rime ice encases all the trees and grasses within arms reach of the road, and we cannot see any further.  At the top, it’s evident by the temperature (28 degrees) and the visibility that we will not be doing our five-mile hike to the Window.  Tired of the bad weather and driving, we begin to head back to Terlingua.

Castolon outbuilding with Cerro Castellan in background.

The Chisos masked by clouds.

Dead turtle.

Derrick and Monica during lunch at the Pouroff.

About 2:30 p.m., about halfway back I announce that I want to hike into the basin we rode through the day before and retrieve the mule deer antlers, the copper stones, and attempt to locate my knife.  Derrick quickly announces that he’ll go as well.  For the rest of the drive I mull over a course of action.  In Study Butte, Derrick asleep, we stop at Many Stones, a rock shop with a rebel flag flying proudly out front.  The shop, like many rock shops, has an outdoor area as well.  Both areas are well-organized, and I compliment the proprietor, who is wearing black framed glasses, has a gray mustache, pony tail and a bandana around his forehead to mask his hair loss.  A wood stove in his living quarters just off the showroom floor heats the store and leaves us smelling like wood smoke.  Alex purchases a chunk of malachite and a small emerald-colored pendant and we drive back to the house, Derrick is still asleep.  After a few minutes, Derrick and I prepare for our hike, and depart the house at 3:25 p.m.  It gets dark in about 2-2 ½ hours, so our plan is simple:  drive down the Farm to Market Road past Contrabando Peak, to the Rio Bravo movie set, and walk in along the dry riverbed until we recognize the ridgeline and gully we descended the day prior.  It’s still cold, which I reason is good, because we need to move fast in order to reach our destination and return before dark.  After a few minutes it becomes evident that from this route everything is unfamiliar.  We try to avoid the temptation to climb to higher ground for vantage points since it will add more time to our ingress.  Eventually we come across a marked trail, the West Contrabando Trail, and begin to follow it.  Eventually it crosses to the north side of the river bed and moves further and further north, to the point we decide to head south and descend back to the river bed.  For over 1 ½ hours none of the terrain features we recognize come into view.  Finally, we make out the ridge crest we descended from the mesa and convince ourselves that the antlers are in one of two gullies we are looking at.  We debate over where we entered the riverbed on horseback to try to pinpoint our route and find evidence of our tracks for confirmation of the location.  We move up one gully, and then climb out on some high ground to make a decision.  We decide that I will continue up the gully to our front and Derrick will move over the spur to the gully to east to look.  As soon as Derrick moves out of view, I took a misstep and laid myself out facedown on the pumice-covered ground.  Though it is in the high 30s, I felt sweat running down my face.  We were already 30 minutes past my original “turn back” time.  As I moved up the center of the gully, I recognized the broken ground left by our hoof prints, and glancing in the ditch to my left, there lay the elk antlers.  I yell to Derrick that I had found them, but receive no answer.  I yell again, and Derrick answers back.  I grab several of the copper-laden rocks along the trail, and begin my move downhill to link-up with Derrick.  Derrick emerges from the east, holding a single antler in his hand, a lucky find.  Thrilled by our finds, we conspire to continue to look for the missing knife, but after some initial difficulty identifying yesterday’s route into the river bed, we cut our losses and begin our walk out.  We decide to stick to the river bed, pick up the trail for speed, then dead-reckon over the hills back to the car.  The route is not easy, but we return in about 75 minutes in the dark.

We return to the house and face Monica’s frustration for our disappearance, then begin to make dinner.  Derrick and I go out to start the gas grill in the dark, and find evidence that our hostess has been by the house – the propane tank is missing.  We find two of them along the wall of the house nearby, and hook one up, but are unable to get gas flowing, so we reluctantly pan-fry our salmon fillets.  Tired from two long days outside, we turn in and resort to reading until I fall asleep.  I’m halfway through “The Crossing” by Cormac McCarthy, reminiscent of the borderland frontier we spent the week exploring.

The next morning we depart without making breakfast, instead stopping by the Ghost Town Cafe, which takes only cash and we have $30 between us, so we decide to wait until we reach Presidio, Texas 65 miles away and 50 miles upriver.  After stopping at the Rio Bravo movie set and several other overlooks along what is probably the most magnificent stretch of the Rio Grande, with its high desert mountains dusted with snow and emerald water, we reach the forgotten town of Presidio, which in many ways fits the romantic description mentioned earlier.  Like most border towns, the population is nearly all Hispanic, and the town is stretched out on the open desert landscape, many of the structures abandoned or near abandonment.  Aside from the Mexican influence, this could be one of hundreds of western towns I have passed through between Montana and California.  We eat at the El Patio Restaurant, a simple diner on the main street in town.  It is Christmas Eve and though we are in the brush stroke of New Mexican Catholic influence that covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas, there are only a few simple decorations in the restaurant and in the town period.  The food is practical, but forgettable, and after finishing our meals and receiving stares and glares we exit and hit the road north to Marfa.

Coyote along Rio Grande east of Lajitas.

Looking into Mexico across Rio Grande.  Note horse in center of photo, below bluff.

The Rio Grande.

There’s a lot of snow on the roads, but it does little to slow us down, except for the occasional cautious motorist that appears in front of us.  The landscape through here is monotonous, but still beautiful.  Wide open plains with a few accenting hills in the distant, covered with snow.  In one open valley we see a group of camels traveling.  We passed through Marfa, and then past the border patrol Aerostat blimp, which is grounded due to the weather, then pass through Valentine, stopping to photograph an abandoned home ready to collapse with vivid aquamarine door length shutters.  The wide open valley runs to our west for miles, eventually broken by the Sierra Vieja, rarely visible due to the cloud cover and low-lying fog created by the snow flurries, unbroken but for the occasional defunct windmill and water tank.  Valentine, for the most part a ghost town at the southern end of a pecan orchard, is perfect in its current state.  To do anything to it, whether it be to open a gallery or coffee shop on Main Street for the occasional traveler, would forbid us and everyone else from experiencing that moment of grace we endlessly seek.

House in Valentine, Texas.