Big Bend – Santa Elena Canyon Hike
We finally made our move into Big Bend National Park over the weekend. With no requirement of Internet for 3 days, we could spend the entire time exploring and adventuring. Sadly, even though we tried to get one of the dispersed camping locations in the park large enough for the Airstream, none were available for this time. Instead, we jumped right to plan-B of camping at the Cottonwood campground on the West side of the park.
The first day, with a major wind and dust storm rolling over us, we decided to tackle the much praised hike into Santa Elena Canyon…. let me first explain what I failed to realize before visiting the area; The Saint Elena Canyon is the border between the USA and Mexico. The Rio Grande river runs through it, surrounded by 1500 foot cliffs on both sides. A trail leads about a half-mile into the canyon, after crossing the Terlingua Creek that connects to the Rio Grande at the mouth of the canyon. Approaching the canyon is surreal – something right our of a fantasy movie. Climbing into it double-downs on the amount of surreal.
The mouth of Saint Elena Canyon for the overlook, a few miles away.
Standing just inside the canyon looking back at the overlook position
Although the hike is only 1.6 miles round trip, it was very enjoyable. Even with the abrupt and anti-climactic ending to the trail, the initial joys of hiking into this monster made it one of the best. I am not easily wow’d in my travels anymore, but Saint Elena Canyon did just that.
Look closely and you can see Kerri ahead
Oh, Man! This is one of my favorite spots in the world! On your way outta the Big Bend area, maybe check out Balmorhea State Park. It’s a desert oasis, literally.
Quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of Texas as well.
I’ve did spend some time at Balmorhea State Park in 2012 on my way out the Austin for the Formula 1 race back then.
https://www.van-tramp.com/wp/balmorhea-ants-and-bats/
Which direction was the river flowing that day? My friend and I kayayed upstream (“upstream”) in May, but the river was so low we mostly just mucked through pulling our kayaks behind us. The views were amazing, though.
It was flowing out of the canyon towards the East. We paddled up, into the canyon a few days later, after the wind died down. We got 2.5 to 3 miles in before we could not get up some small rapids. We decided not to walk past and just settle in for the easy ride back. Blog post to come of course :)
I loved Santa Elena Canyon. Now I want to go look at my photos and relive it.