Next week, seven of my friends and I will be canoeing and backpacking through a place few Americans know exists. Of America’s 58 national parks, Big Bend National Park ranks in the bottom ten for attendance, despite being larger than Rhode Island, having 118 miles of riverfront border with Mexico, and containing (according to Wikipedia) “more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals.”
That’s not a hipster brag of “I liked it before it was cool.” Until my buddies told me stories from their multiple adventures in this wilderness, I hadn’t heard of it, either. I had never really seen myself vacationing in Texas, let alone West Texas. It just wasn’t on my radar.
To be fair, there’s a reason few flock to this slice of the Chihuahuan Desert. It’s not convenient to get there—hours from an interstate highway and seven hours from a major airport (San Antonio). The unabated sun makes visits bearable only half the year, and paddling possible for even fewer months on the calendar. You have to buy water, because it’s that scarce; and educated folks know not to drink the river water that’s already there.
Despite all of that and more, I can give you five reasons why this isn’t my first trip to the short horn of Texas.
Conversations are different in the middle of nowhere.
In the desert, you don’t have to compete with the texters on the other end of a loved one’s cell phone. In most of the park, there is not enough cell reception to invite the interruptions of email, social media chimes, and app notifications. Your travel companions don’t “have to keep this short” or get a babysitter home before her curfew. Time is measured in light and temperature; and with the right gear, you can stretch your dependence on both.
You’ve got time enough to exhaust small talk and silence enough to take time pondering a response. Your laughter can grow to fill the emptiness; your revelations are protected by miles of buffering rocks. Your silence in front of wide expanses doesn’t make you seem distant.
The desert rips control out of your hands.
As a control freak, the wide expanse of Big Bend arrives like an intervention. You get what the desert gives you. You can plan for general seasons but not amicable conditions. In fewer than 18 hours, I’ve experienced a sweaty 81º afternoon and ice forming on my tent on a 29º morning. I’ve gone from a quiet night in a gentle mineral spring under the stars to 55mph winds breaking my tent poles.
It’s not masochism. It’s a lesson in delayed gratification, a rebuke to a sense of entitlement—both of which I need. In a given day, you can go from bunkered to breath-taken and back again.
The wilderness absorbs your need for man-made entertainment.
Your travel book probably won’t have an entry under “nightlife” for Big Bend. Pop culture and political news don’t seem urgent out there. I probably won’t be able to watch this year’s Super Bowl, and I probably won’t miss it. One thing I know is that my social media checks will become fewer and farther between.
Everything slows down. Even the sunrise and moonrise pass too quickly over distant cliffs. It’s not like when your mom used to tell you to find something to do outside. The park’s horizons steal your gaze. The river gurgles all other noise to a memory. The slot canyons envelope you. There’s a weird (or at least wild) animal to observe, a rock formation to scramble, the end of a dirt road to find. A place that looks devoid of organic life most of the time surprisingly turns into a giant playground.
The backcountry makes you feel like an explorer.
Big Bend is well-mapped. Its trails prove well-marked, and many of its serpentine roads unwind with asphalt. Its got a restaurant, multiple camp stores, and decent free-standing bathrooms. There’s a lot of evidence that this place has been settled. That said, in most places in the 800,000-acre expanse, it’s abnormal to see evidence of humanity. You feel like you have the place to yourself. Something in your brain infers that you are claiming new territory—if not for king and country, then at least for your memory and sense of accomplishment.
The dimensions cure your sense of importance.
In a culture that wants everyone to feel self-esteemed, it’s easy to start seeing the world for what it owes us. In our digital world, our portraits are now taken at arm’s length. It’s not surprising that the next zoom level out usually requires a mirror—and then social media to affirm our perspective.
In contrast, Big Bend’s immensity makes me feel small. Not insignificant, just small. I become another unique detail on a planet filled with lots of unique details. I’m part of a natural world that in places isn’t inherently pretty by itself but that can be made beautiful with a change in the weather or the sun’s location—or observers’ locations. Dwarfed and put in context, I am free to be me . . . with nothing to prove. I am reminded that there will be seasons of nourishment and seasons of barrenness. My business and busyness back home hide well beyond the horizon. The harshest reality might be that my everyday world is working just fine a thousand miles from the Chisos Basin.
No doubt, there are many places in the world where I can experience these realizations. I’ve set foot on some, and I hope to find more of them each and every year until I run out of years. But next week, Big Bend National Park will represent all of those pins on the globe—for me, for now.
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Photographs used with permission from Laurice Jennings.
