Compliments of:
William James Stoness

Tucked into the badlands of southwest Texas is Big Bend National Park. To many, this park represents a dry, hostile, barren land of mountains and arid valleys, a place to avoid....

Big Bend National Park

Tucked into the badlands of southwest Texas is Big Bend National Park. To many, this park represents a dry, hostile, barren land of mountains and arid valleys, a place to avoid. To the rest of us it's a fascinating land of beauty and adventure. This is a place where you can get away into the backcountry, leaving civilization behind.

Big Bend NP gets its name from the big U-shaped curve followed by the Rio Grande, which is the border between Mexico and the USA. The land encompassed by the park has changed drastically over the last 150 years.


This is a desert, and as such the plants and wildlife had adjusted to the conditions. Grass covered the soil protecting it from erosion. The vegetation, dead and alive, kept the raindrops from loosening the soil and eroding it. Brush and grass held the soil in place on slopes and stream banks. Some of the grass was quite tall, thick and healthy.

Then came the settlers. When you drive through western Texas you can't help but wonder why anyone would start a ranch there. What we can't see are the miles and miles of thick grass that roamed on forever before the 1850's. Cattlemen and cows! Neither had any respect for the delicate balance that existed between the various ecosystems in that natural arid country.


If you enter the park on US-385 over Persimmon Gap you will view a vast plain that at one time is reputed to have had hay as high as a cow's stomach, and was cut for cattle and horse feed. Now you'll see bare sand, creosote bush, and patches of other kinds of brush randomly scattered across this once verdant valley.

Cattle ranches flourished over the land and when mining came to the area the miners ate well off the local produce. The cattle stripped the land of the grass and their hooves dug up the fragile soil. When the rains fell, they began to cut huge gullies filling the streams with the debris. Ranches began to fail leaving behind the windmills and water tanks, the irrigation canals, and their homes.


The road from Santa Elena Junction south to Santa Elena Canyon is one of the most interesting drives in the park. There is a campground at Cottonwood on the edge of the Rio Grande. It allows no generators and has limited space for large RV's. The campground has its own herd of javelinas.

It is necessary to climb a steep mountain and descend again so be prepared if you are not used to mountain driving. But it is quite peaceful, except for the horrendous holiday periods, such as the school break in March. At times like that don't even think of trying to get in and find a campsite anywhere in the park.


If a wide variety of plants and long vistas are what you are looking for, this drive has it all. At the river you will find a huge variety of birds, and the area is popular with those who like birding. This is an area of rich human history. There are many hiking trails that often take you to places where people once lived, and now there is very little to show for it. We found an old stone home, no roof, and upon examining the fireplace, found it built of petrified wood. The brushy field around the place once grew large quantities of cotton. It's all gone now. Nature survived the settlers' onslaught, badly beaten, but it survived and will slowly recover from some of the damage done. Grass has begun to grow in many places, natural plants are returning. Gullies and other areas of erosion will never be the same again.

For those who travel in the winter, you will appreciate the pleasant temperatures from December through to March. After that it gets warmer, quickly. We've been lucky twice, to encounter wonderful flower blooms which usually happen only when there have been timely rains in the fall months.

If you go, take time to enjoy the beauty, and the starkness of the desert.
Happy RVing!
For more than four decades James Stoness has travelled the roads of North America, photographing and writing about what he has seen. His travel articles and beautiful pictures have been published in several magazines and newspapers. He is also the author of five western novels.



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