When our sons, who were best friends, were 12 years old, one of my good friends and I decided to make a swing through Texas for their spring break, including a raft trip on the Rio Grande River through the Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park. Big Bend National Park is one of the more remote national parks. It is named for the vast curve of the Rio Grande in remote southwest Texas. It is a wildly beautiful natural region consisting of over one million acres of public land. The very few towns in the area…Terlingua, Lajitas, and Study Butte…are fascinating enclaves populated by ex-hippies, artists, cowboys, and folks who have a real desire to live “off the grid.” One does not “pass through” any of these towns. They all seem to be at the “end of the road.” AND it’s a road to nowhere else! The flora and fauna in the area are extremely diverse, and in addition to the rattlesnakes, the variety of birds is amazing. If you have ever heard of Terlingua, it’s because it is the location of an annual chili cook-off that today draws over 10,000 “chili heads” from literally all over the world. Until relatively recent times, these small towns were provisioned from wagon trains! In addition to rafting on the Rio Grande, the area attracts folks who are hiking, birding, horseback riding, shooting, or stargazing. The largest nearby city is Alpine, and there are reasonably good roads most of the way into the Big Bend area. If you fly into the general area, you still have many miles to travel from the nearest airport.
We arranged to meet our river guides in the town of Terlingua, Texas. Entering the town of Terlingua is a trip all by itself! The Mayor of the Town is a goat, and he is an alcoholic! People feed him beer all day, and he staggers around his pen bleating for “more beer” as visitors pass by. As the story goes, on one occasion he reportedly butted his head through the wall of the general store where he is located in pursuit of more beer!
We had driven down to Terlingua from my friend’s grandmother’s ranch….in the middle of nowhere, attempting to dodge jack rabbits which stood like sentinels along the sides of the road until our car approached when they would hop into the road, and we had arranged for two rafts and two guides to take us down the Rio Grande River through the Big Bend National Park. Our guides, Tracy and Huck, met us at the river’s edge and put-in point and told us to go back to the general store to get beer if we wanted any. The rest of the provisions were part of the package for the trip. We got our beer and loaded into the two rafts for our overnight two-day trip through the Santa Elena Canyon.
The Canyon is over 1,500 feet deep in spots, and the narrows in the Canyon create some good white-water rapids to be negotiated. The weather was perfect. My friend and I were in one raft with Tracy, and our sons were in the other raft with Huck. Tracy and Huck were both wiry and muscled young men who looked like they had enjoyed the sun and weather for a long time, and they were truly experts at handling the rafts through the currents and rapids! They were also full of surprises! They took us rock climbing on one occasion and showed us techniques that got us up and then down a fairly steep cliff wall. They were also experts on the constellations! Since we were down in a canyon, the star field was extraordinary, and we spent part of the evening after sundown getting instructions on how to spot various constellations and planets. In addition to the huge array of stars, we could also spot satellites as they orbited the earth, something that you rarely see back in the mid-west. They taught the boys how to play “hackey sack,” a game involving kicking a bean bag around, and they had lots of interesting stories of life in the Big Bend area.
As we began our trip, the river current was inconsistent, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. There were a number of rapids sets, and the guides would pull off the river and scout the rapids before going through to make sure of the proper line for the rafts to follow. Because of spring rains, the river was running fairly high given the fact that in late summer, the water levels are so low, rafts can’t negotiate the entire stretch through the Canyon. The high cliffs on either side of the canyon created shadows on the river, even with cloudless skies, and as the Rio Grande meandered along its path, we were alternately in shade or sun. The rafts were propelled by oars, not paddles, and we all took turns rowing down the river. When it was time for lunch or dinner, we would find a nice spot along the river, and Huck and Tracy would prepare incredible meals for us! How they managed to cook such excellent meals is beyond my skill set! Since the river is also the border between the US and Mexico, we didn’t seem to care which side we were on so long as it was a good spot…shady, not muddy, and clean.
Our night on the river proved interesting. We found a great flat spot on the Mexican side of the river and set up our campsite. Huck and Tracy began the meal prep, while the boys, my friend, and I explored the area. If you look at a map, you can see that the Mexican side is very much a desert. There was nothing to see beyond more and more desert. When we finally bedded down for the night in Mexico, I was not concerned since it appeared we were miles from anywhere. However, when we awoke in the early morning the next day, we were surprised to see three young Mexican men standing at the river’s edge just beyond our campsite. Huck and Tracey were immediately on alert, and they approached the group with friendly greetings in Spanish. It turned out they had been fishing in the river, and they had caught a large fish! They asked if they could borrow a knife to gut it, and Tracy handed them his knife, which they proceeded to use as intended. Once the young Mexican men finished their work on the fish, they wished us well and headed off into the desert!
The final miles of our trip down the Rio Grande turned into a race as the boys stressed and strained to get ahead of our raft. As we raced our rafts on down the river without further incident, we simply enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding area and wished we had another day or two to spend with Tracy and Huck!
