The Desert & the Parched Land Will Be Glad…
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: We had started our trek on the west side of Grapevine Hills, drifting north and zig-zagging to and fro as we made our way along. Though most look out across here and see nothing but harsh, barren terrain, in...
Tough Men for a Tough Land
Anguila Mesa is a special place for me. After all, I spent many of my growing years studying every visible nook and cranny for hours at a time, sitting on the front porch of the Lajitas Trading Post. It was the mesa that provided the...
Glenn Spring Excerpt from ‘Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Bend’
“Glenn Spring surely belongs to that list, though like the others the name has been changed repeatedly even from languages that no longer exist. Human activity in these spots go far into the past beyond the era of the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache, who were…
Banta Shut-In Perspectives
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Evening was falling in the lonesome country, another day in the desert coming to an end. Soon we would be topping out along a short cut I knew and back to the K-Bar, and the setting sun would be...
Where Many Had Gone Before
We were working our way along the bottom of an escarpment, north of the Buttrill and skirting an enormous flat that goes on for miles. It was another day and another prowl, making a loop through a portion of the national park where few others...
Ode to a Cowboy
“Well, I know some day, farther down the road, I'll come to the edge of the Great Unknown; There'll stand a black horse, riderless, And I wonder if I'm ready for this”… --Chris LeDoux, ‘The Ride’ Since learning of my brother Barry’s passing, folks...