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"Letters
From the Host"
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Talk about your great places. I'd have to say after spending 4 or five weekends this summer in the Big Bend, that it is definitely qualified to be a great place in my book. |
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silent desolation of Big Bend is, to the novice, a daunting thing to
overcome. Standing in the Chihuahuan Deserts in the Tornillo Flats of
northern Big Bend during midday in the summer will do two things to a
person...first, it will literally give you the willies. The infinite
nothingness and harshness of the land will make the casual visitor realize
how insignificant our technological marvels become when nature, at her
rawest and most unaltered form, is presented to us mano a mano. It's that
"Don't step to far from the car dear, or the Cholla will eat
you" feeling. In order to overcome this fallacy, one must leave that
blacktop umbilical to civilization and dare to test the desert. It becomes apparent quickly that, above all things, survival is the only goal here. And yet, how great and uplifting a feeling it is to see so much life around you prospering in a place where most people wouldn't last a week. Poetic cactus justice at work, I guess. Walking along the sandy deposits and Cretaceous cliffs south of the Rosillos Mountains, I once stumbled upon a small eagles nest. Two baby eagles were perched up in the nest, looking down at me, this out-of-place human, scrambling up a thorny slope in which the best progress is one step forward and up, and slide half a step back down the hill. I think they might have been secretly laughing at me. too. The lechugulla, a rascally desert plant related to the Yucca, was winning its battle with my feet, as its 8-10 inch spears easily kept penetrating the side of my boot. The temperature that day was about 109 degrees, and (thank you Texas weather) the humidity was unusually high as well, making the "miserability factor" quite high. So as I fought my way toward the top of this hill, bleeding, dirty and hot, these pleasant little eagle babies made me feel, well, pretty jealous of their comfort. I stopped my ascent, and took the opportunity to observe. They ware in an alcove about 50 feet up a canyon wall, in a nice shady spot. Oh, how I wanted to absorb some of those shade particles in that nest with them. It occurred to me, as I stood their drying like prune, that this is why this place, this Big Bend, is indeed so great. Man IS out of place here, and there are few places left in which we haven't butted in and modified the place beyond recognition. Later, after my hike into the desert, after soaking my wounds and taking a shower (if you'd call it that, more like a drizzling), I sat on the porch of the Ranch that night and looked out across the desert toward the Chisos. With the sun setting behind, in all glory of a nature scene, it dawned on me that really, its good to be tested by the desert every once in awhile. If you survive it, and spend some time, you may just fall in love with it's splendor. |
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