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| The walls of the Santa Elena Canyon reach over 1000 feet high and are visible from miles away. |
We do a lot of hiking here. It's hard not to being where we are, smack in the middle between these two beautiful Parks.
These pictures are from our day trip along the Old Maverick Road following the Ross Maxwell scenic Drive in the National Park to visit the magnificent Santa Elena canyon.
The Old Maverick Road is a well graded dirt road, passable only in dry conditions, taking you to to south west corner of the Park where the canyon is located.
You have to cross a small creek, which at times can mean getting your feet wet. It was a hop across when we were there, but during the rainy season it can be too deep and swift to make a safe crossing.
Santa Elena Canyon is composed of a hard form of limestone and it is very deep (about 1500 feet) but not very wide (as little as 30 feet in some places).
I kept an eye out for them but they didn't show themselves :-(
The trail climbs a series of concrete stairs, which is the section that I believe gives the trail the medium difficulty rating.
From the top of the stairs you follow a switch back trail to the bottom of the canyon and parallel to the Rio Grande River until you hit an area where the river comes to the canyon walls, so that you can no longer continue on.
This is one of the narrowest places in the seven mile long limestone Santa Elena Canyon. The canyon is quite striking with 1,500 foot sheer vertical walls rising above you and the deep silence made us feel we were standing in a big cathedral.
It's in the shadows most of the day and usually pleasantly cool but on a cold day as today we were practically freezing our butts off down there!
Santa Elena Canyon is shared by the US and Mexico. With modern equipment and boats (and proper planning) you can traverse the canyon safely; but in older times this passage was dangerous.
Crossing the river here will get you arrested nowadays though!
We brought some lunch and picked a nice spot to sit down for a while and enjoy the view.
From the Canyon the dirt road changes into a nice paved one while you follow the river towards the visitor center in Castolon, where we stopped for a short visit.
The center is housed in the barracks of an old outpost and the area in front of it is the old parade ground but there's not much of interest here other than some interpretive signs that talk about those early days when the first settlers had to fight off the Indians and Mexicans in the area.
A little further down the road we took a short hike to the viewing platform that overlooks Tuff Canyon.
There are many washes in the desert of Big Bend National Park, but perhaps none so dramatic as Tuff Canyon. It was carved by Blue Creek, which originates in the Chisos Mountains. The rock that comprises the canyon is volcanic tuff, formed when a volcanic explosion blew tons of ash into the air, which eventually hardened as it was compressed by overlying layers of rock.
You can hike to the bottom and out through the other site but we didn't think it would add much more to what we could see from here so we took the lazy way out and went back to the car to continue our drive.
About 2 miles down the road from the Tuff Canyon is the turn out and parking lot for the Mule Ears Springs Trail head.
Again, we just admired the gorgeous elevated views from here from the 'Mule Ears Peaks' in the distance and the desert floor below us.
There's a few more 'scenic spots' along this road that we will save for next time. We might even hike some trails!
We've had some interesting neighbors during the previous week!
A group of Casita owners decided to have their yearly 'get-together' in Lajitas this year.
Maybe it was picked for being able to name this year's retreat ..... you got it ... 'Casitas in Lajitas'!
With their 17 feet they looked like dwarfs next to our 39! We were asked if we were the rose in the thorn patch or the thorn in the rose patch!? Ha!
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| You're as big as you think you are .... |
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