Is Banta Shut-in Worth the Challenge?
Banta Shut-in is a spot many of heard of but far fewer ever journey to. Several routes lead to its vicinity from all points of the compass, but each to some degree can be like threading the eye of a needle. A topographical map and...
Big Bend National Park
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...
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...
It’s a Family Tradition
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Life is an odd thing, full of twists and turns and ironies that we mortals only have the briefest of experiences in. It tends to slip past us way too fast, even when we thought we were paying attention....
Seeking and Finding Along the Big Yellow
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Many have heard of Hannold Draw or at least of Nina Hannold. Her grave is one of the more frequented sites in the national park, sitting atop an eroded finger above the dry wash bearing her family name. The...
Another Awe-Inspiring Moment
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: In essays past I have written about the many intrigues of Burro Mesa, so much so there is an entire chapter dedicated to it in my third book ‘Out There.’ But for all the pitiful knowledge I have managed...
A Special Kind of Lonesome
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Elephant Tusk Trail is one of the least utilized designated paths in the Big Bend National Park system, and this lack of use shows in the dilapidated condition it is found in these days. Even some of the cairns…
I’ll Never See It All
SOMEWHERE IN THE LOWER BIG BEND: Stink Spring has been dry for several decades, nothing more now than a brush infested run with some decaying horse troughs amid rusting sections of water pipe. At one time the spring was important enough to be fenced…