Big Bend National Park: Land of Dramatic Contrasts and Scenic Grandeur

Story and Photography by W. RAY SCOTT
Published by NATIONAL PARK CONCESSIONS, INC.
Copyrighted 1950 by National Park Concessions, Inc.
Southwestern Texas, along the Big Bend of the Rio Grande, one of the last scenic frontiers of America is located in a remote and unspoiled setting. Vast stretches of plains and range land, interspersed with numerous outcroppings of buttresses and ridges, end abruptly against a mass of mountains near the Mexican border. Etched and carved by the master hand of “Erosion” giant arroyos and imposing gorges are spread through the area in wild abandon. Towering, jagged peaks of the Chisos Mountains merge with the desert, plains and valleys in Big Bend National Park to create a kaleidoscopic pattern of dramatic contrasts and striking grandeur.
The northern approach to Big Bend is through Marathon. Leaving U. S. Highway 90 from this point, the Park boundary at Persimmon Gap is about forty miles over State Road 51. The Big Bend area is about 330 miles west of San Antonio and 220 miles southeast of El Paso. Alpine, the western gateway to Big Bend is 118 miles from the Basin of the Chisos Mountains, in the center of the Park.
Embraced in the gigantic curve of the Rio Grande, the Park lies just across the river from Old Mexico, where many geological features have a profound influence on the scenic aspects of this area. On the east, majestically rising above the Boquillas Canyon, the Sierra del Carmen Range provides a picturesque backdrop for the mesquite and cactus covered plains. Two other canyons complete the international features on the south and west. At the southernmost boundary of the Park, and almost inaccessible, is the rugged Mariscal Canyon, where the Rio Grande has carved its tortuous channel through more than seven miles of limestone rock. Precipitous walls of this abyss are almost sixteen hundred and fifty feet in height. The most imposing and the most easily accessible of the three canyons is the Santa Elena, along the western boundary of Big Bend.