Big Bend East District Back Roads

On one of our project days we got a break in the weather and took advantage of it by checking out a vehicle and doing a back country road patrol in the eastern portion of the park.

We got off the pavement at the entrance to the Glenn Springs Road.  Like most of the dirt roads in the park, it is a narrow path strewn with multitudes of sharp-edged rocks.

Glenn Springs Road at the intersection to Pine Canyon (R).  That's Mexico far in the distance.

Just ahead from the above picture is a crease in the earth where lava once flowed.  Long after the molten rock had cooled, water flowed for eons down the same depression and cut a cross-section through the lava for folks like us to marvel at.



There are a couple miles of this formerly undulating mass of molten rock.  It is easy to envision with you mind's eye this mass of liquid rock pouring down the long draw.

Once again, a camera and its two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world just can't cut it.  Some things you just have to be there to get the full experience.

Just a little further down Glenn Springs Road the Sierra del Carmen Mountains make an appearance.  We are getting close to the intersection to the River Road but the cliffs are even farther still, well across the Rio Grande, deep in Mexico.

Just as we get on the River Road the scenery opens up and the vegetation changes.  It has been weeks since we have seen any blooming plants but standing there, singularly, was a giant yucca with a big o'l stalk and flower.

We have become accustomed to seeing purple prickly pear cactus but today we came across another purple cactus.  This one was dense and "meaty" looking.  We are going to see if we can get one of the park botanists to help us identify this one. 

There are more species of cactus, among other things, in big Bend than anywhere else.  Anybody that knows what every one them are is a virtual walking encyclopedia.  I know of at least two here.