Lions and Tigers and Bears. Oh My! 3/29 - 4/2

Big Bend National Park  March 29, 2010 – April 2, 2010

My good friend Tina invited me to tag along on an outing to Big Bend National Park.  This was an offer hard to refuse. Tina escaped to Big Bend as a young woman fleeing a relationship gone awry, married and started a family in the Park. She knew the place well and I could not ask for a better tour guide.

I had been to Big Bend as a young woman. I was living in New Jersey at the time and was anxious to explore and experience everything life had to offer. After a trip to Brazil fell through I convinced my boss that my already scheduled six-week leave of absence would be well spent exploring National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks in this country. The workload at the Environmental Education was admittedly heavy in spring with a multitude of scheduled classes for kiddos and adults, but I suggested that experiencing nature first hand could only make me a better Naturalist. I even persuaded Ross that my best bud and fellow staff member should come along.

So off we went to far-flung places hiking, birding and completely immersing ourselves in nature. Big Bend and was one of those places. My memory recalled an arid, vast landscape of rugged mountains, grasslands and desert. I promised myself that I one day would return. It proved to be a promise worthy of keeping.

My first trip to Texas included not only Big Bend but also wildlife refuges near McAllen and Brownsville, where the Texas air is so humid that lying in a sleeping bag could be considered a form of torture. That spring I remember witnessing droves of families descending into a state park to picnic on Easter Sunday and promptly disappearing at sunset. Why did they all leave so fast? What did they know that we did not? Was camping for the foolhardy? My discovery and subsequent insight is that scorpions have little respect for otherwise occupied shower stalls. There is something very disconcerting about a rapidly approaching scorpion when you are naked and blind. "Oh my God I think there is something crawling towards me! Where are my glasses?" Who was going to answer and fetch my glasses lacked reason.  Blind and vulnerable I was left to the only sensible behavior I could think of… shriek and run.  So much for decorum…

Well things are different now. I have been living in the West more than twenty years and I have spent much professional and recreational time living in a tent. This trip to Texas would be a piece of cake. I would not even be in a tent. Nope, no tent. Instead Tina and I would spend our first night in Marfa, Texas in the magnificent Riata Motel. We were given the handicapped room. I guess the gent at the desk was not expecting any more travelers for the evening. Hot tip - don’t take the handicapped room at a cheap motel. The ridiculously large bathroom was like an echo chamber. It made chatting with the bathroom door open an interesting experience. Okay, I am just kidding about magnificent. The Riata is not exactly a five star kind of place nor is Marfa a five star kind of town.

I am not suggesting Marfa does not have culture. It does. Right here in Marfa, population a bit over 2000, (I am not sticking around long enough to find out what the 2010 census determines) there is art. No I am not just referring to the roadside exhibit of the Prada shoe and handbag collection (see FB picture -yep, Prada, Martha, Texas). I am referring to the real deal. Minimalist sculptor, Donald Judd, tired of his chaotic life in NYC, stumbled onto Martha way back when, bought a house and with him brought art to Martha. Judd died in 1994 but much of his art is still in Martha. Who knew, Martha right behind New City and Santa Fe for art and culture?  Makes me feel right at home.

Dining in Martha was a bit of a challenge. The highly recommended Pizza Foundation closed early the evening Tina and I were in town leaving us to rummage through our own food bags for sustenance. Once we settled into our deluxe room, quesadillas were served fresh and hot out of the microwave and washed down with wine served in paper cups.  "Would you prefer white or red?" "Gee Tina I don’t know? What goes well with paper?" Ah, I just love a love gourmet meal.  After a few glasses, I mean cups, I was beginning to like Marfa. In addition to the art scene Marfa is also famous for mystery lights that appear to hover the size of basketballs on the horizon. I did not check out how many bars there are in Marfa but something tells me quite a few. The only round orb I saw on the horizon was a full and beautiful moon. Good night man in the moon. Goodnight Marfa.

It did not break my heart to leave Marfa early the next morning and head to our real digs for the week in Terlingua. I can only describe Terlingua as an outpost for people who have dropped out. It was perfect, dusty, hot, plunked down in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a big Texan sky.  Our lodging for the week was roughly a  300 sq foot rustic room/cabin with a couple of beds, stove and refrigerator and bathroom over yonder. Aside from walking over to the bathroom at night, when the rattlers would be out, the place was down right rough around the edges, perfect, and all ours.

We only had a few days to experience the Park, we wasted no time in getting out and hitting the trail. We explored Santa Elena Canyon, Dugout Wells, Cattail Falls, Pine Ridge, the Chisos Basin and historic ranch sites, I marveled at the shear cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon, one wall Mexican and the other American, separated by flowing molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, the Rio Grande, a river of politics. In the canyon black phoebes flitted from shrub to shrub as canyon wrens sang and my heart delighted. In the hot sun and cooling breeze I felt present, content and very much alive.

There is a lot to be said for being present. A spiritual seeker would say there is nothing but the present, the Now. As a naturalist being present connects me to the Now. Each sound uttered from the throat of wren is processed by my nervous system and transformed by my brain into the song and joy that is life. All I have to do is listen. All I have to do is be aware, to be with, the magic of life, in all its perfection.

We had lots of time while driving and hiking to spill our guts about our secret animal fears.  Most of us have some creature that we fear, or should I say have a healthy dose of respect. Tina seems to have a great deal of “respect” for bears. Black bears were extirpated in this region by 1940s. By the 1980s black bears began repopulating Big Bend. The bears wander up from Mexico. Whether or not the Mexican bears need to apply for citizenship before making their home in the Chiso Mountains is something that I don’t know?  Since we are not camping, hence no food laying around, I am not really concerned about a few black bears. Admittedly, walking in grizzly bear country makes me a bit on edge but that is a different story for another day. Just for the record I also have great respect for moose.

Besides bear, Big Bend is home to another sizable mammal, the mountain lion. In my opinion any animal that can run fast, jump far, sports long claws, sharp teeth and likes to consume flesh commands respect. Tina told me a remarkable story from her years past in Big Bend. It occurred on a trail in the Basin meadows area. Tina would take me there.

We walked up to a beautiful place just begging for a picnic. When Tina’s children were just mere tots, the youngest just 18 months, her husband somehow managed to coax two little girls and a boy to this very spot for a picnic on bit of a rainy day. While the family enjoyed their food after their arduous climb, perhaps more arduous for Dad as he must have carried each child at some point along the trail, a mountain lion appeared from the vegetation. The cat was big, lithe and beautiful. They watched. The cat approached and did not stop until within a foot of little John Thomas. Dad scooped up the child and began to shoo the cat away. "Was your husband crazy? What was he thinking? He let a child-eating predator within a foot of an 18-month of toddler?!"  I could not believe this. Tina said according to her husband it had all happened so fast. Yea, and it would have been a quick and easy snack for the cat! The family had been mesmerized by the beauty of the animal, each of them present, each in the moment. I remarked to Tina that it was an incredible story. I  would relish the opportunity to see a cat. Even though there are lots of mountain lions living where I work and live, I have never seen anything but their tracks in Bandelier National Monument.

We began to head back down the trail towards the Lodge. "Hey, this is a great place for a picture." We stopped. I dug out my camera, took a photo as Tina admired the view. We heard a deer snort from somewhere nearby in the forest. Tina quipped, “The mountain lion is right behind it.” I smiled.  I stepped from the clearing back onto the trail to take another picture. Snapped the shot and looked up and there it was, not thirty feet away walking across the trail. "Tina, Tina," I could barely get her name out or my mouth. Yea, right…her expression gave away her thoughts. "No, really a mountain lion just walked by."  Life is filled with magic.

An hour or so later Tina and I sat on the Lodge patio each sipping a beer as we watched the sun slip low towards the horizon.  A man came running up, “there is a mountain lion on a rock come see.” Up slope a cat rested under a tree, stretched on a rock, watching us and  the three hapless javelinas munching their dinner beside us. A park ranger showed up and mentioned that a lion had not been spotted in this area in the past nine months. I sipped the last of my beer and thought about the power of words.

Before returning to Tucson we slipped over the border to Ojinaga, Mexico where Tina’s bother Mickey and sister-in-law Vicky live. Mickey and Vicky treated us to an excursion to the tiny village of San Carlos. The four of us piled into Mickey’s 1971 VW camper with our picnic lunch and off we went . San Carlos was about an hour away. The wind howled and whipped up dirt from all creation. The wind pushed the van every which way. One moment the van edged ever so close to oncoming traffic, the next puff brought the wheels near the embankment. Did I mention the fumes from the fuel and whining sound of the engine? Finally we came to a halt and I eagerly stepped into the blazing sun. We were at some sort of recreation site.

We strolled up a beautiful canyon, hopping from rock to rock, crisscrossing a river, until finally I felt no need for rock bridges. My sandaled feet carried me happily across the warm water.  Later we picnicked on homemade burritos, avocado and fresh cheese made in Ojinaga by Mennonites. Mennonites? Did I hear Tina correctly? I guess I should have asked more questions. It was a grand day and a grand trip. 

Our trip to Big Bend flourished rich with experience of landscape and friendship. The poison oak I brushed against seems to be flourishing also.  Adios for now.