Top Secret Story about Big Bend National Park

cowboy adventure in Big Bend

The horse I’m riding is named Candy, which is appropriate, given that she loves to eat.

As we pick our way down the loose-stone mountain sides of Big Bend National Park, Texas, I’m sweating – half due to the 90-degree heat, half due to a concerted effort to stay on. Candy on the other hand is supremely relaxed and stops nonchalantly to graze on passing cacti.
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A sturdy Quarter Horse-cross, she is used to negotiating the dusty trails through hills and canyons and steadfastly ignores my feeble attempts to guide her away from the apparently delicious shrubs.

Our ride becomes a tussle of wills which Candy wins, easily. I console myself by admiring the panoramic views across Big Bend’s wide open space. And they really are something.

 Texas’ only national park, Big Bend stretches over 800,000 acres of the Chihuahuan Desert, in the deep southwest of the state - right along the border with Mexico. It is named after the U-turn that the Rio Grande makes here and the river defines the park’s boundary for 118 miles.

It has seen a lot of action in its time. The Spanish, Anglo-American settlers, Mexicans and Apache and Comanche American Indians all fought to dominate this remote outpost.

Our guide, Mike, knows every corner of the park and describes it as: ‘Sort of a secret place’. Even some Texans don’t know about Big Bend, he says. Other locals describe it as a ‘forgotten national park’. Compared with the almost five million visitors that descend on the Grand Canyon every year, only 300,000 make it here.

On our three-hour horse ride from Lajitas Stables, we wind up the slopes of the Contrabando Mesa. Ancient volcanic rock is molded into peaks and plateaus, scattered with bleached sand and deep stains of red earth.

There are six of us in the riding group, all fairly inexperienced, led by wranglers Linda and Janelle who keep both us and the horses in line. We trek along the top of an 800-ft ravine, with wide-winged vultures wheeling beside us. The air is so noiseless it buzzes in my ears. ‘Our greatest commodity here is quiet,’ says Linda.

 The park is fantastic for hikes and has a variety of marked walking paths. Among the best is the Lost Mine Trail in the Chisos Mountain Basin, a greener section, where fragrant pine trees mix with the ubiquitous cacti. The walk is five miles round-trip and climbs 1,000 feet. While the final stretch is fairly steep, the views over giant crags, canyons and plains are worth the effort.

Another of Big Bend’s must-sees is the towering Santa Elena Canyon, where the Rio Grande cuts through two huge edifices of rock - one side in America, one in Mexico. My voice bounces across the chasm between the two nations and my shoes sink into the cracked riverbed, the water running shallow due to a persistent drought.

Lots of people like to camp out during their exploration of Big Bend and the star-filled night sky is a sight to behold. But there are more comfortable options. Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa is on Big Bend’s border and provides some fairly affordable luxury, with rooms starting at around £120 a night. Spread across 27,000 acres, it takes in a riding school, shooting range and 19-hole golf course (the 19th hole is in Mexico).

Lajitas also boasts its very own cowboy, gun-slinging Brett, who puts me through my paces with a handgun, rifle and shotgun at the resort’s Cowboy Action Shoot. The range is set up around a purpose-built Wild West ghost town and I manage to hit quite a few of the metal targets. The sporting clays range is more challenging. Bright orange discs ping out from all sides and I find it hard to remember where to look, let alone where to shoot. Not quite Clint Eastwood, but getting there.

 Big Bend is all about escape, a chance to experience the remote beauty of Texas’ lesser-known highlights. It’s easy to while away a week here, riding, trekking and honing your cowboy skills.

To reach the park requires a mini-road trip as it’s around 250 miles from the nearest airports - either El Paso or Midland. But getting there is half the fun.

I fly via Dallas into Amarillo, almost 500 miles north-east of Big Bend, and spend the evening there watching a steak-eating challenge at legendary local restaurant Big Texan. A 24-year-old muscle-bound eating machine named Hugo gets through a 72oz slab of meat in under the allotted hour, thus securing himself a place on the restaurant’s prestigious roll of honour. My 8oz sirloin may have been puny in comparison but was tasty nonetheless.

Driving 120 miles south, I visit Lubbock, birth and resting place of Buddy Holly, and take in the fascinating museum dedicated to his life. I also drop in to local country-wear superstore Cavender’s. The John Lewis of cowboy gear, it’s an ideal place to pick up quality shirts, boots and hats. Knowledgeable assistant Lynne tells me he was once commissioned to order a cowboy hat in mink for a wealthy local gent - at the cost of $13,000!

 My final stop before Big Bend is the bohemian outpost of Terlingua, just outside the park. There’s a genuine ghost town around the old mercury mine here - and a thriving social scene at the Starlight Bar, where I enjoy an unexpected 80s night. As the sun sets over the desert, staff inside are dressed as Miami Vice and Soft Cell is the music of choice.

Later I learn to play shuffleboard at the Boathouse bar down the road, owned by impressively-bearded George, and a favourite with young hipsters and dusty old geezers alike. The nearby towns of Alpine and Marfa have a similarly artistic streak.

Fun and flamboyant, Big Bend’s surrounding communities counterbalance the quiet solitude and natural wonders of the park itself. So, when your horse is watered and your guns holstered, order up a margarita and dance the night away.

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