Big Bend National Park continued ...

The first indication that Big Bend National Park wasn't the Smokies occurred when I read the park newspaper, The Paisano. Superintendent William E. Wellman's message was not of the flowers, trees and marvelous rocks but of law enforcement. He emphasized the number of rangers and Border Patrol agents that were sent to Big Bend so that "issues south of the border do not begin to spill into this pristine natural park."

But in the Chisos Basin where we camped for three nights, the south of the border problems were not evident. We were in a typical high-elevation (over 5,000 ft. ) desert - hot during the day and cold at night. Most nights the temperature hovered around the freezing mark. I was cold from 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. though I had a good sleeping bag, rated 25 deg. and several layers of thermals and fleeces. I wore a hat and gloves to bed.

The signature hike in the Chisos Mountains was the South Rim loop - 12 miles and 1,800 ft. ascent. The South Rim is considered one of the most scenic hikes of the Park but you could say that about any hike. We climbed on the Laguna Meadow Trail up to the South Rim of a canyon where we could see vast stretches of the Chihuahuan Desert. The South Rim is a large escarpment on the edge of the mountains. We spent a long lunch looking down into the rocky slopes and cliffs below and into Mexico. There was no sign of civilization.

We took the Pinnacles Trail back and saw the prominent boot (pictured above), a rock formation that resembled an upside down boot. On the way we passed the side trail to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park, but the Sierra Club group did not choose to do the scramble.

This part of the park was lush - oaks, pinyon pine trees and drooping junipers.

I kept looking at our sentinel, Casa Grande, a large rock shown on the left that seemed to be constantly in view in the Chisos Basin.

Paradise ended the next morning when we woke up to a snow storm. We broke camp in record time and were treated to breakfast at Chisos Lodge. Then we drove down to the second campsite on the Rio Grande River at about 1,800 ft. I thought this would provide us with a little more warmth at night, but no such luck.

I did, however, start to understand the "border issues".