My family and I recently enjoyed a nearly two-week vacation in Colorado, and I’d love to share some photos from Rocky Mountain National Park, a favorite destination for this Texan looking to escape the heat for a little while. Bear Lake Trail is an easy hike around a small, nearly circular mountain lake on the east side of the park. Although the trail is heavily used by visitors, I still find a slow meander around the lake to be a restorative experience.

We’ve walked around Bear Lake many times before, on sunnier days. But this time rain clouds had socked in the lake, making for a dreamy, contemplative hike.

On this still day, the glassy surface reflected a mirror image of the surrounding firs, pines, and mountain ridges.

Although the pine bark beetle has killed off many thousands of evergreens in the park, Bear Lake is still relatively untouched, although we did see stands of dead trees here and there. All part of the natural process, we were told, though it’s still sad to see entire mountainsides of bare trunks and fallen trees.

Shapely, white-trunked aspens are a favorite of mine. Walking through a grove of them, with their fluttering leaves overhead, is almost a transcendent experience.

We saw some cute critters, including this bold golden-mantled ground squirrel…

…and lots of birds, including this small nesting female, who flitted into a crevice under a rock shelf, right in front of our eyes, where she settled on her nest of peeping chicks, which we could only hear, not see.

She was quite safe from predators there, as the rock face was steep, and her nest situated under a overhanging ledge.

I don’t know what this satiny gray-trunked tree is, but its bark was very beautiful.

I spotted a number of wildflowers along the trail as well. though I don’t have IDs for any of them. This is a groundsel…

…and this is cow parsnip (thanks for the IDs, Tina).

Beautiful texture amid the ferny undergrowth

We also drove Trail Ridge Road, which takes you seemingly to the top of the world at 12,183 feet elevation. We took a short walking path through the tundra, admiring alpine plants that eke out a living up here, with a growing season of only about 40 days.

It’s easy to get altitude sickness at this elevation, if you’re not careful. That happened to me one year, when we walked the trail on an intensely sunny day. As I got back in the car, a stabbing headache, sensitivity to light, and severe nausea set in, and all I could do was close my eyes and slump against the window until we got back down to our cabin in Estes Park at 7,500 feet. Luckily, that didn’t happen this year.

We were higher than some clouds.

Later we spotted this elk on the side of the road, and I snapped a few photos through the windshield.

Majestic, no?

In one of the valleys, a sighting of a female moose having lunch in a marshy area stopped traffic on the park road, as several of us pulled over to have a look through binoculars and telephoto lenses. Wildlife sightings are one of the highlights of a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, along with beautiful scenery and mountaintop vistas.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Following up on my overall impressions of Big Bend National Park, today I’ll take you on a tour of the sights. Our first morning we drove up into the Chisos Mountains to hike the Chisos Basin Loop Trail. At an elevation of 4,500 feet over the desert floor, and with twice as much rainfall as down by the Rio Grande, the Chisos Basin is a surprising microclimate, with trees like alligator juniper, drooping juniper, Arizona cypress, pines, and oaks. Grasses grow in profusion here too although, as you can see, this area is also suffering from prolonged drought.

Havard agave and juniper

Here’s an agave that bloomed and then died. Its bleached bloom spike still stands…

…unlike this one, which has toppled over.

Mexican feathergrass

I don’t know what these pretty, white seedheads are. Anyone recognize them?

We spotted a few Carmen white-tailed deer in the Basin.

Carmen deer live only in the Chisos Mountains and in nearby mountains in Mexico, isolated here after the last Ice Age, as the surrounding country warmed and turned into a desert.

The Window View is a much-photographed spot.

As the day heated up and the sun grew intense, we spent time driving the park roads and ended up at a boat launch along the Rio Grande. Although signs prohibited it, we couldn’t resist strolling across an ankle-deep section of the river to stand on Mexican soil.

Santa Elena Canyon straddles the border with Mexico. This is the Mexican side of the canyon…

…and on the right is the U.S. side.

The next day we drove to Boquillas Canyon to hike, where I spotted huisache (Acacia farnesiana) in full bloom.

The flowers look like yellow pom-poms.

Just inside the canyon, a steep sand dune beckons the adventurous (and fit) to clamber up the deep, slippery slope, which you almost have to do on all fours. Only my husband made it to the top, along with a father and son from Belton, Texas.

Strategically placed along the trail, little beaded scorpions and roadrunners and carved walking sticks are offered “for a donation for the kids of Boquillas,” with only a collection cup and the honor system. We understood, from prohibitive signs in the parking lot, that Mexicans from the town of Boquillas, visible just across the river, were selling these trinkets to tourists, even though they risk deportation 100 miles away by the U.S. Border Patrol if caught. The signs advised that buying would only encourage the illegal trade and possibly result in the seller’s deportation and confiscation of anything you bought. What a sad situation. Before 9/11, the border between Boquillas and the U.S. was open, and the tourist trade flourished. However, the border crossing was officially closed after 9/11, destroying the Mexican town’s livelihood. According to Wikipedia, most of the residents have had to abandon Boquillas.

The day grew warm, but we headed next to the park’s hot springs, along with more tourists than we’d seen anywhere.

Apparently a dip in a hot pool sounds good even on a hot day. Volcanoes created Big Bend millions of years ago, and there’s still enough heat under the earth’s crust to warm the spring-fed pool.

This nondescript, upright shrub was alive with a deep humming.

Its branches were covered in pretty, purple flowers…

…and hundreds, maybe thousands, of busy honeybees. Does anyone know the name of this desert shrub? This is guayacan (Guaiacum angustifolium). My thanks to David R. for the ID.

Above, the mud nests of cliff swallows adorned the stratified cliff wall along the river.

This would be a fascinating place for a geologist.

Fresh, green mesquite leaves

Back on the road, we spotted Big Bend bluebonnets (Lupinus havardii). They are much taller than the bluebonnets in central Texas, as befits of place of such extremes. In case you’re wondering, all varieties of Texas bluebonnets are officially Texas’ state flower.

Because of the drought, the bluebonnets and other wildflowers were sadly sparse. In wetter springs I’ve heard the desert floor can be colorful.

We left Big Bend on Saturday for the town of Marfa via FM 170, which leads through Big Bend Ranch State Park, the largest state park in Texas. The scenery along the narrow, twisting highway, which climbs through ancient volcanic mountains, was as good as anything we saw in the national park. We stopped to hike Closed Canyon, a narrow slot canyon carved by occasional flooding that leads to the Rio Grande. There had been a thunderstorm the night before, but by the time we arrived the water was gone and a flash flood unlikely, so we hiked in, noting that should water rush in, there would be no escape up the smooth walls of the canyon.

The kids particularly enjoyed this hike. The canyon floor steps down along the way, with increasingly higher drops. Unsure we could get back up, we eventually turned around and hiked back to the car, wondering how the canyon ended: was it a box canyon or open at the end? I found the answer online when I got home: it’s open all the way to the river, but steeper drops near the end may require use of a rope.

Another ocotillo in bloom

Check out those wicked thorns.

The tubular flowers are sure to attract hummingbirds.

A last look back at Big Bend country.

To read my first post about Big Bend and the impact of the drought, click here. Next up: Terlingua’s ghost town and the Starlight Theatre.

By the way, my blog Digging is a finalist for Best Gardening Blog in the Readers’ Choice Awards at About.com. I’d love to have your vote. You can vote once a day (it’s on a 24-hour cycle) until March 21. So vote early and often! Thanks for your support! (And thank you to Pamela Price for the vote graphic.) Click to VOTE.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Lured west by the mystery of one of America’s lesser known national parks, we packed broad-brimmed hats, sunscreen, and several gallons of water in the trunk and left behind the crowds of SXSW last Wednesday, driving for 8 hours through increasingly open country to Big Bend. Traveling to Big Bend brings home just how big Texas is, and how varied the topography. It’s not an easy park to get to. Nearly 6 hours by car from the nearest city, El Paso (or 10-1/2 hours from Houston on the other side of the state!), Big Bend is tucked in a broad crook of the Rio Grande, the river that separates the U.S. from Mexico, in remote west Texas. From Austin you drive through the rolling, green Hill Country until it gives way to the flat, brown tableland around Ft. Stockton, and when you reach Alpine or better known Marfa you head south into the stony, mountain-rimmed Chihuahuan Desert.

Unlike so many before me, I did not fall in love with the desert. The unprotected openness, forbidding landscape, and glaring sunlight felt oppressive to me. I was awed by the vistas and hiked some of the trails, but I felt no love for the place. Until the evening, that is. Each evening as the sun dropped to the tops of the jagged hills, bathing the sun-baked landscape in a rosy glow, bright stars emerged in the vast sky, a cool breeze picked up, and I breathed a sigh of relief and appreciation. These images were taken just inside the park on our first such evening.

As you can see, the extreme drought in Texas has left its mark on Big Bend as well. Even desert plants must have water, and west Texas has not seen the recent rains that have greened up central Texas. I’d hoped to see wildflowers dotting the desert floor, but almost the only plant in bloom was the distinctive ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), a vase-shaped collection of tall, spiny branches which are usually leafless and able to photosynthesize quite nicely without them.

After a rain they will leaf out briefly, and we did see some in full leaf on our visit, but in dry springs like this one they are able to bloom without leafing.

Ocotillo and the ubiquitous creosotebush (Larrea tridentata), two of the hardiest plants in the desert

Creosotebush fascinated me with its cheery, yellow blossoms and black-and-white striped bark.

Beautiful bare branches

Alas, not all of Big Bend’s flora has fared so well during the drought.

Everywhere plant corpses littered the ground like animal bones.

Even lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla), found naturally only in the Chihuahuan Desert, could not cope with the utter lack of rain. Entire hillsides of this plant were bleached and dead.

It was sad to see so much loss, even in this stark, unfamiliar region. But there was beauty too, especially in the sunsets.

I’ll have more pictures from Big Bend soon with a post about the Chisos Basin, Santa Elena Canyon, and other sights. Stay tuned.

By the way, my blog Digging is a finalist for Best Gardening Blog in the Readers’ Choice Awards at About.com. I’d love to have your vote. You can vote once a day (it’s on a 24-hour cycle) until March 21. So vote early and often! Thanks for your support! (And thank you to Pamela Price for the vote graphic.) Click to VOTE.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.