Couple finds true wilderness in Big Bend

My wife and I were propelled to Big Bend National Park by a flash flood in Arkansas.

We had planned to spend our annual pre-hurricane-season vacation on the Eagle Rock loop trail, which begins and ends at the Albert Pike National Recreational Area in the Ouachita National Forest.

We planned for May; things got in the way. We planned for the second week of June; other things got in the way. We said the third week of June.

On June 10, a heavy rainstorm stalled over the mountains north of Albert Pike, turning the normally placid Little Missouri River into a torrent. When the counting was done, 20 campers were dead.

It would be awhile before Albert Pike was a proper place to vacation.

We had been planning a fall or winter trip to Big Bend. Why not move it up?

Blazing heat, said every one we told.

Even a cashier at REI in Houston raised an eyebrow as he rang up a map of the park.

“Big Bend? Now?”

“Sure,” I said, as if any fool knew early summer was the best time to go.

And maybe it is.

Hard To Tame

We arrived June 28. I didn’t expect much. Partly from a bias against anything called a “park.”

Partly from the fact we’d have to spend most of the trip in the Chisos Mountains, which are beautiful but also are the most highly developed part of the park.

Our winter trip would have been along the Outer Loop Trail, which takes in both the mountains and the Chihuahuan Desert.

I’d never been to Big Bend but had read enough to suspect the solitude, the wilderness, the authentic experiences all would be down on the desert floor.

I was wrong. Maybe the park service has managed Chisos development very well, or maybe there are places no amount of human effort can kill. Whatever the reason, and despite the motel, the lodge, the gift shop and the RV hookups, the Chisos feel more like wilderness than theme park.

Solitude

In general, solitude is among the main things Big Bend has to offer. The park encompasses more than 800,000 acres of mountain, desert and river valley but draws fewer than 400,000 visitors a year.

Compared to the 521,000-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which draws more than 9 million a year, that’s nearly empty.

And summer is the off season at Big Bend. Most of its 340,000 or so visitors arrive during the fall and winter.

But the Chisos Mountains account for only a fraction of the park’s land area, and most of those relatively few summer visitors will be there.

During peak season weekends, the 60-site Chisos Basin camp ground fills up early in the day. In late June, we had our pick of tent sites.

Water

People were everywhere in the Chisos Basin, but few of them ventured out onto the backcountry trails.

Out there was something near solitude. Out there also were authentic experiences.

The Chisos Basin campground is only about six miles from the South Rim, a must-see destination at which the mountains abruptly end and the land plunges 2,000 or more feet to the desert.

The basin is at about 5,300 feet above sea level; the rim is at 7,300 feet. So, almost another half mile of the trip is up.

Unless Boot Spring is flowing, there’s no water outside the basin. The spring typically is dry in the summer, and probably was despite some recent rain, a park ranger said.

We opted to leave our filter and other treatment gear and carry all the water we’d need to drink and for cooking. Most sources recommend at least a gallon a person a day just for drinking.

Few things are more authentic than humping three or four gallons of water up six miles of steep hill. As it turned out, Boot Springs was fairly spewing water, the sight of which brought authentic feelings.

On Your Own

You don’t have to hike far in a place like the Chisos to reach the remote. It’s on one of civilization’s margins.

The one paved road dead ends there. You can’t rely on cell phones even in the basin. And while the trails are mostly smooth and wide, once you’ve topped the first few sets of steep switchbacks en route to the South Rim, you are beyond easy assistance.

If something goes wrong — a heat stroke, a badly turned ankle, snake bite — it’s on you to get back down, which is authentic.

High Desert Hurricane

We went to Big Bend expecting dry heat and mostly unimpeded sun. We found roaming over the high desert the outer bands of a tropical weather system that would evolve into Hurricane Alex. Or maybe it found us.

We began to wonder about ourselves and floods. The mornings were jacket-cool and damp. Rain came every afternoon, sometimes hard rain, which made us a little more aware in some of the tight arroyos with their evidence of past floods.

The weather added to the normal beauty an interplay of light and clouds and land, which in itself was worth the trip. There might have been a better time to visit Big Bend, but you couldn’t prove it by me.

Michael A. Smith is associate editor of The Daily News.

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How To Get There

Interstate 10 West from Houston. In San Antonio, take U.S. 90 to Del Rio, then Marathon. From Marathon, take U.S. 385 south to the park. It’s 10 or 11 hours to Marathon, another hour or more to the park. Consider spending one night at the Marathon Motel or the fabled, and more expensive, Gage Hotel.

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Things To Know

Spend some time on the National Park Service’s Big Bend website. If you want to camp in the Chisos backcountry, you need to get familiar with the rules (Those meant to keep you and bears in harmony, for example). Download and fill out the itinerary planner, which will make check-in faster.

In general, you can’t reserve camp sites, so plan several different scenarios in case the site you want isn’t available.

You need a permit to camp in the Chisos backcountry. Get it at the Panther Junction ranger station.

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Things To Do In Big Bend National Park

Trails to consider when visiting Big Bend National Park.

Lost Mine Trail

A good starter hike for arrival day. It’s five miles with memorable views of Juniper Canyon, the South Rim and Casa Grande.

Chisos Basin To The South Rim And Back Via Laguna Meadow, Pinnacles And Boot Spring Trails

The guide books say you can make the 12-plus mile round trip from the basin to the South Rim in a hard day hike. And they say it can take as long a 12 hours.

That leaves little time to enjoy anything and means hiking through the hot part of the day.

It’s a hard hike under a overnight or longer load. Like all well-traveled and maintained park trails, those between the basin and South Rim are stepped to slow erosion. That makes a lot of the hike more like climbing stairs than simply walking up hill.

This is the Chisos backcountry. There’s enough in it to keep you busy for three or four days, but water can become an issue before you run out of things to do.

There are about 30 camp sites, some near composting toilets. You have to claim them in advance at the Panther Junction station.

Emory Peak Trail

A one-mile (one way) spur off the Boot Spring Trail to the highest point in the park — 7,825-foot Emory Peak. Sit this one out if you fear heights.

The Window Trail

A fairly easy four- or five-mile hike (depending on where you start) though Oak Canyon, which drains the entire Chisos Basin. The destination is a narrow slot — the Window — in the basin’s rock rim through which this drainage culminates. Don’t linger if it starts to rain hard.