Welcome to Big Bend
“It was the biggest bear I’ve ever seen”, said the man and his wife. I thank them and continue ascending the canyon, occasionally dragging a foot through a patch of gravel or leaves; any bear will have ample warning of my approach. The ancient rock of the canyon walls, filled with bubbles and cavities, surrounds me, the Chisos mountains. High above the rock of the canyon walls form disfigured faces that gaze down upon me. I can see why the mountains have long been associated with witchcraft.
The trail gets steeper.
Animals rustle in the bushes around me and birds sing in the trees. The low sun has cast the valley into shadow. The whole forest seems to be suspended in a liminal state of timeless autumn. Green leaves still wreath the trees and yet the ground is covered with a thick layer of golden leaves; so thick in places that the trail is obscured.
The lush oak forest of Pine Canyon
Which gets steeper and steeper
I keep going and reach my goal, a waterfall in the middle of a lush grove of oak trees. But the waterfall isn’t flowing; it hasn’t rained recently. Yet the inherent majesty of the places quickly numbs any disappointment. I turn around and start heading back down. The short winter day has caught up to me and the sun is setting.
Waterfalls only run shortly after rainfall in the arid climate
I walk, and upon remembering that mountain lions come out at dusk, I walk faster. The landscape changes radically around me. After two miles I’m in the desert, surrounded by yucca plants and their dagger-like leaves.
The landscape shifts radically in a short distance
I get in my truck.
I pull out of the trailhead; I’m the last one there. I start driving back to my camp site. To the east the flat, shear peaks of the Sierra del Carmen are illuminated by the weak orange glow of a sun near the winter solstice. My goal is my campsite, one of the many backcountry sites that offer nothing more than a spot for a tent and a steel box to keep food away from the animals. Two clouds hang in the sky like tattered pieces of fabric. Briefly, they’re made incandescent by the fading fire of the sun.
The blue of twilight envelopes me. My headlights catch a jackrabbit and its giant ears that serve to radiate the desert heat away. The road has a slight incline and I must focus to maintain my speed. It’s rough and traveling even 15 mph feels daring. My engine revs as its work is purposed towards slowing the vehicle’s descent. I pass by the turnoff for Black Gap road, described simply as “unmaintained”.
I arrive at my campsite in the heart of the desert. I position my chair to get the best view as the sky starts to fill with stars. I’m alone. The nearest person is miles away. I hear movement in scrubland around me and occasionally glimpse a set of small, ghostly legs. My flashlight illuminates one of the culprits: a small kangaroo rat, hopping along like its namesake.
The sky is filled with stars, bright as platonically pure diamond dust scattered on impossible black velvet. Venus hangs in the east like the eye of a stellar hierarch keeping benevolent watch over the land. It seems like an absurdity for such brilliant objects to not be accompanied by the tumultuous noise that must surely be produced by their inner mechanisms. The sky turns around me. The individual moments of its subtle motion cannot be distinguished but are proved as Venus slips closer and closer to the horizon in a reprise of the sun’s earlier alchemy. The black paint of my truck hosts its shocking glare until the horizon extinguishes it like an ember falling into the sea.
It’s silent. Not even a breeze dares to flow across the land as the desert dreams beneath the stars.
