A Long Drive To Big Bend National Park

An Early Rise

The destination on Monday was Big Bend National Park where I would be sleeping in my tent at a campground in the park’s southern most point. Along the way, I would be stopping at Amistad National Recreation Area. Big Bend NP is a remote park and reaching it would take over eight hours from San Antonio, so I had to get on the road by 8 AM in order to arrive at my campsite with a decent amount of light left in the day. It’s been about seven years since I last set-up my tent and I wanted to make sure I had time to troubleshoot.

Rather than load up my stuff on a cart at 7:30 AM, when half the hotel would be doing the same thing, I decide to move my things to my car in small loads that I could carry myself. It rained all night long and there were forecasts for thunderstorms later in the morning, which gave me another reason to just get out of bed and start the day when I woke-up a half-hour before my alarm went off.

More Funky Weather

Once again, the skies were solidly overcast, only today I’d get the added bonus of some interesting thunderstorms. About 2/3 of the way to Amistad NRA, the horizon suddenly turned a dark blue as a front stretching from the southern horizon (on the left) all the way to the northern horizon (on the right) began approaching my direction. It looked like something out of a horror movie and had me a little concerned. As the front passed over me, I initially experienced some heavy squalls, but those subsided and I ended-up driving through intermittent rain nearly to the end of my journey.

Amistad National Recreation Area + Changing Terrain

Amistad National Recreation Area was located right around the middle of my driving time today. At the visitor center, I asked if there was anything notable I could see or do before I was on my way to Big Bend, and the the ranger recommended a short nature walk. The walk was only about a quarter of a mile and gave me some decent views of lightening strikes off in the distance, followed by thunder which was a cool moment to experience. After hiding a stone that my mother decorated for my project, I got back on the road, fingers crossed, hoping that the weather would improve.

Will This Be A Big Bend Bummer?

By the time I arrived at the first visitors center at Big Bend NP, my hopes for decent weather and seeing the stars were almost gone. What I was experiencing resembled more and more what I would expect from a spring day in mid-April back home in Ohio. The rangers confirmed that the forecast was for rain in the 50s today, followed by thunderstorms tomorrow. They said I was lucky that it wasn’t 100-degrees, but when I mentioned I’d rather have that so I could see the stars, they told me there wouldn’t be much stargazing for the next few days.

Let There Be Light… and Then Darkness… And Then Light Again!!!

To give you an idea of the size of Big Bend NP, it took an hour to reach the main visitor’s center at Panther Junction from the turn-off and then another hour to reach Cottonwood Campground where I was staying for the night. The size apparently gives it different weather patterns because between the first visitors center and the one at Panther Junction, the skies cleared and the world became mesmerizingly brilliant. The color in everything popped, I could see the mountains around me and was finally able to roll-down all of my windows. Things were looking good.

Then, in the area surrounding Panther Junction, it reverted back to springtime in Ohio. The temperature dropped, the clouds seemed to cling to the mountains in the center of the park and the rain was more like an ever present mist that clung to everything and obscured any views of the horizon. After stopping at the visitors center, I got back on the road for the final leg to my campground

The final twenty or so miles looped around the mountains in the center of the park and headed south to the Rio Grande. Once I got to the southwest of those central mountains, everything cleared-up. Looking back from where I came, it looked like the mountains actually held back the weather to the north. It was partly cloudy and in the low-70s by the time I got to camp. There wasn’t much I could complain about.

Pitching My Tent, Twice

While the overall weather was perfect, there was a strong wind that gave me trouble setting-up my tent. There were signs as I entered the camp mentioning on-going irrigation and that tents should be pitched on high ground, but the only high ground was the crushed stone parking space next to the picnic table and grill. Upon looking around, I saw there were a couple other tents that were pitched in the grass, so I just did that and managed to get the tent set-up without too much struggling, once I figured-out to use the wind to my advantage and guide the tent where I wanted it to go.

After pitching my tent, I walked back to the notice board to see if I could read a bit more about the irrigation thing, when I noticed a couple who had a large tent which was in-fact pitched partially on their parking spot. They told me that they’d talked to someone who worked in the park who told them that the grass was watered throughout the day, so if you pitch your tent in the grass, you’d get flooded. After thanking them, I returned to pull-up my stakes and move the tent onto the parking surface, which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It was just a matter of driving the stakes without hitting a buried rock that wouldn’t move.

Santa Elena Canyon

With that finished, I headed to Santa Elena Canyon to see the feature of the Big Bend NP that made me want to visit it. The northern border of Mexico along the Rio Grande in this area is a smooth, flat wall of stone that towers hundreds of feet above the river. If it were made of ice, you’d think it was the wall in Game of Thrones. It really doesn’t seem possible when you see it. A river flowing through a canyon make sense to me, but how could one side of a river be so different than the other? Santa Elena Canyon emerges from this rock wall, which gives it the appearance of a massive gate with the river flowing out of it from the south.

Because I arrived so late, I had the overlook to myself, so I took my time taking a few pictures and a long, panning time-lapse video. Then, I just sat there for a while taking it all in and relaxing after such a long journey.

Let’s Log Some Media

Part of the reason my blogging takes so much time is that I shoot a lot of photos and videos during the day… and I’m obsessive about it. Everything is organized chronologically and by media type. This allows me to retrieve things easily, and also, years later, provides me a sort of objective log for each day.

But, this takes time, and, given the fact that I’ll have to deliver a double-post tomorrow evening, I decided to get a start on the process tonight. There were still a couple of hours until it would get dark, so I set-up my computer in the tent and managed to get everything downloaded, logged and backed-up with time to spare, which felt amazing, again, because I’m obsessive.

Chilling In My Tent

Once I cleared-out the computer equipment, I got situated in my tent. My foundation includes a narrow strip of memory foam, topped with a thin Thermarest roll. Even on the stone parking area, it was ridiculously comfortable. Seriously, I had no trouble getting comfortable at all. On top of that, there was no humidity and it wasn’t very cold, so I ended-up sleeping on top of my sleeping bag with only my travel poncho as a cover.

Stars

After reading park brochures and a bit of a book until I got sleepy, I headed outside just to see if any stars were visible, and I was lucky enough to get about fifteen minutes worth of views. There were clouds, so I could only see patches, but I was able to see a lot more with my naked eye than I ever have before. But, I think there were quite a bit more clouds that I could actually see because it didn’t seem as brilliant as I thought it would be. And, after that fifteen minute window, the clouds did roll-in, as expected, to obscure them almost completely, after which I got back in my tent to sleep.