Chisos Basin

We left Big Bend Ranch State Park and traveled east about fifty miles to Big Bend National Park.  The trip took us through an area of ranches and one small town, Terlingua, which was at one time a large town because of the mercury mines.  After WWII, the market for mercury ore changed and most people left.

Our goal at Big Bend NP was to visit the Chisos mountains.  When we were here in January, it was very cold and icy in the mountains so we had stayed at lower elevations.  Today we took the road up into the mountains.  At first the road makes a gradual climb trough the desert, then quickly becomes a steep climb with sharp u-turns.  (The sharp turns are the reason that RVs over 24 feet and trailers over 20 feet are not permitted on this road.)  After a short while we came over the mountain to see the entire Chison basis ahead of us.  It’s quite a sight; the basin is at about 5000 feet, completely surrounded by mountains 2000–2500 feet higher.  At the far west end there is one break in the mountains (called “The Window”) which allows rain falling on the mountains to drain to the desert floor below.

The Chisos Basin Campground has about 60 sites, most of which were full.  We were able to find one of the last sites.  The campground is mostly designed for tent campers so not much effort was made to make the sites level.  Ours is one of the most level in the CG, but we still needed 5 inches of blocks to level the van.

After settling in we hiked up to the Basin Inn and restaurant area and then took the Basin Loop which took us up closer to Mount Emory, the highest  of the Chisos mountains. As usual, the rhyolite formations are quite dramatic. Because this area gets a lot more rainfall than the lower elevations and remains cooler in the summer, there are cedar and pine as well as a number of broadleaf trees.

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)