A stunning sunset in Texas' Big Bend National Park, with bright orange Ocotillo blooms in the foreground. Photo / 123RF
A stunning sunset in Texas' Big Bend National Park, with bright orange Ocotillo blooms in the foreground. Photo / 123RF
Explore these two wilderness areas and you'll find a Dark Sky Park, the highest point in the state and a staggering variety of animal and bird species
As the USA's National Park Service celebrates its centenary, we're profiling the wilderness areas it manages.
Today: The national parks of Texas . . .
Big Bend National Park
"No other national park has this combination of size and remoteness coupled with the romance and mystery of the Mexican border." - Frank Deckert, former Park Service chief naturalist, in 'Big Bend: Three Steps to the Sky' (1981)
The Rio Grande river flows through Big Bend National Park. Photo / 123RF
For a clue to the character of this sprawling landscape, consider this: It was used for astronaut training because of its harsh terrain and climate.
But this park is also hospitable. It's home to 75 species of mammals, nearly 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles and more than 1000 species of plants. The wide-ranging flora and fauna is due to the ecological diversity: water (the Rio Grande), mountains (the Chisos range) and desert (the Chihauhuan).
Taking it all in can be done via car on 160 kilometres of paved road, or by hiking and rafting. This park has almost 400km along the Rio Grande. Visitors will encounter places with such colourful names as Panther Junction, Mule Ears Trail, Dog Canyon and Devil's Den.
When first lady Claudita "Lady Bird" Johnson visited the park in 1966, her stay included rafting. The trip was part of her campaign to highlight the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. In this centennial year, her words still speak to the wonder of the parks.
Johnson reportedly stood on a ridge in the Chisos Basin and said, "This looks like the very edge of the world."
Fifty years later, park visitors can honour "Lady Bird" by doing a little birding. Cactus wrens, curve-billed thrashers, black phoebes, Lucifer hummingbirds and greater roadrunners are among the year-round avian inhabitants.
Park staffers also suggest stargazing. The International Dark-Sky Association has certified Big Bend as a Dark Sky Park — no surprise, given that El Paso, the nearest large city, is 483km away.
Size: 801,163 acres
Founded: 1944
Attendance: 381,747 (2015)
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
"Guadalupe Peak is the highest place you can get in a state full of tall tales and big history." - Sam Martin, writer, in 'Texas Monthly' (1969)
Spring Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Photo / 123RF
To the uninitiated, sightseeing in sun-bleached desert landscapes may seem like a "Where's Wally" challenge. On close inspection, however, nature and beauty appear. Creatures show themselves in the morning or late evening. And even park staff make new discoveries, including a little, yellow violet that was an unknown species until 1990.
There are obvious assets, of course, including Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas (2667 metres). In addition, visitors find canyons, a high-country conifer forest and lush streamside woodlands.
More than 300 species of birds either nest or migrate here. Depending on season and location, birders may spy western bluebirds, violet-green swallows, white-throated swifts and red-naped sapsuckers.
Nature here in West Texas (177km from El Paso) lives among layers of history. There are remains of ancient cultures (projectile points, baskets, pottery and rock art). From the displaced Mescalero Apache inhabitants, there are agave-roasting pits. And from later years, there is a memorial to the Butterfield Overland Mail stage line. A stainless steel pyramid on Guadalupe Peak commemorates the line (1858-1861), which passed south of the mountain as it carried mail from St Louis to San Francisco. Such overland driving does not happen here, now. There are no car tours of the park.
El Capitan in Guadalupe Mountains National Park catches the day's first rays. Photo / 123RF
