Clock Ticking for Burros?

Wild Burro Photo by BLM

100 Classic Hikes

Franklin Mountains Photo by E. Dan Klepper

Davis Mountains

Cougar Photo by Wendee Holtcamp

Big Bend Ranch

Mexicano Falls overlook Photo by E. Dan Klepper

Features

100 Classic Hikes in Texas with E. Dan Klepper

I have a confession to make. When I see a new guidebook published about the Big Bend or West Texas, I feel weary. And skeptical that it contains anything terribly new or very worthwhile. And, I note, these books are more often written by people who don't actually live in this region. (Maybe it's just sour grapes on my part? Damn, they beat me to it again!)

Go Primitive at Big Bend Ranch

Dawn casts a special illumination across the mesas and arroyos of the West Texas landscape. In late winter its sunrise skies, lying heavy and close, are cloaked in a leaden hue - a somber, half-drained violet that backdrops against the Chihuahuan Desert's still-dormant summer grasses. The sun's first rays breach just long enough to singe the sideoats with a faint feldspar light before retreating behind the cloud cover. But by late afternoon the atmospherics have vanished.

Davis Mountains Wonderland

A most amazing phenomenon has occurred in the West Texas highlands surrounding Davis Mountains State Park. Aside from the addition of a few more fences, a cell tower, a scattering of new homes and businesses, and some black-top paving, time in this part of the state appears to have stopped. In fact, this cool, clear mountain country seems to have remained basically the same for the last 125 years.

Desert Wetland Flora

It isn't difficult to understand why some ancient desert cultures appropriated the snake as their symbol for both lightning and water. Lightning, like the snake, strikes fast and deadly, yet its arrival in a desert also signals rain - a factor that often determines life or death in an arid world. The early Papago (now known as Tohono O'odham) of the southwestern desert placed their faith in the corúas, or serpent gods, which protected the desert's water.