Big Bend National Park, Chisos Basin Campground, Texas

Wednesday, March 5 to Saturday, March 8, 2014

After leaving Desert Willow RV Park, in Van Horn, we had a great desert drive to Big Bend National Park where we spent four night at the Chisos Basin Campground. There are three camping areas in this massive park, tucked into the south western corner of Texas. It boarders on the Rio Grande River, with Mexico on the other side. Chisos Basin is up in the mountains and forms a bowl that is surrounded by volcanic mountain peaks. It is a steep incline and a steeper descent into the basin. It is not meant for RVs bigger than 24 feet. The majority of sites were taken by tenters and we scored with a great site, once again. We enjoyed our hike on the Window Trail and especially appreciated the vista view from Oak Canyon, where there was an endless view of mountains and desert. Rested one day and spent most of our time getting the blog updated since it was a cool and windy day anyways. Later that afternoon the temperature dropped significantly and the wind increased to gale force. Many tents were blown down and campers resorted to sleeping in their cars for the night.  Even PeeWee was rocking back and forth in the howling wind. We didn't do some of the many challenging hikes, so will have to come back at a future date. Loved the ruggedness of the mountains here.

A US surveillance blimp which keeps an eye on the Mexico-US border

Chisos Basin Campground is in a basin up in the Chisos Mountains on the right.

Scenic lookout on the way up the steep mountain road

The campground is at the end of the winding road

Yup, it's a very steep drive down

A second gear drive all the way down. Don't want the breaks smoking.

Settled in to another scenic site

A large shelter along with a bear-proof storage locker

Yucca coming into bloom

Grace gets caught up on her journal

They did have sightings close to the camping area.

Don't really want to meet this guy on a trail. The mountain lion is bigger than we thought.

Bird nest in a cholla cactus

View into the desert

A short hike close to camp in the evening.

As soft as cotton

All aglow

The night sky lit up with stars, even with a slight cloud cover.

The Big Dipper can be seen with handle down.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to hike we go.

Trail winds into a canyon

Blossoms are braking out

Steps were built right into the boulders near the end of the trail.

The Window is just around the corner.

End of the trail. It drops straight down for for hundreds of feet to the Chihuahan Desert below. The boulders were
extremely slippery, so getting close to look down was not an option.

High on life.

All the water from the basin runs out through this canyon.

No end to the variety of rock designs

After the Window trail we took another side trip to the top of the mountain for a better view.

It's straight down from here, so step back Grace!

We're at the highest point looking at the trail below. 

I'm the little blue dot on the very narrow trail which leads down to the valley from here. Look very hard.

Mexico is somewhere in the distant background

Watch where you stick that nose!

That little yellow tank down below, supplies all the water to the campground
and the lodge. Can't image how they got the pipe up the mountain and then
all the way under the trail. It can be seen near bottom left of photo.

A little patch work.

On the way back down

What an amazing sight!

The narrow trail

Beautiful agava plant

Mexican jay

These two were picking grasses to build nests

Cardinal drinks tap water from a plastic bowl. It was a popular spot for many birds. Made great
viewing from our site. 

Yup, another sunset

Bern and Wendy and their adorable 'velcro' dog, They are from Juneau, Alaska and spend their winters in
California. Had a very nice happy hour with them.

These two made nightly appearances

Spent most of the cool and windy day at the Chisos Mountain Lodge to get blog updated and also treated
ourselves to a late lunch.

After the mile hike back from lodge, in extremely windy conditions, we found that all our items we left to air out,
were scattered all about the neighbourhood. Someone was kind enough to return our mat and place a large stone
on it to hold it down. 

The high wind blew clouds over and then down the mountains. 

PeeWee up on levelers and we sure could feel the rocking motion during the night.

Tents were blown down and people opted to spend the night in their cars. The extreme wind and cold, lasted all night.

The day did end with a glow on the mountains.