Big Bend National Park - Rio Grande River Drive

On Monday, February 3, 2020, we learned that rain would be coming in this afternoon, followed by perhaps two days of foul weather, so we decided we should try one of the backcountry drives we want to do, before the dirt roads become unpleasant.

The road we wanted to drive in 2013, but were unable to do because we only had Great White, the medium duty truck, and not little Dusty the Jeep, was River Road East, which would take us across the bottom of the park along the Rio Grande River.  So it was easy deciding to do it first on this visit:

Our first stop was at the Gravel Pit camping area, which includes a spot where small boats and be put in or taken out of the Rio Grande River.  As we drove down to the Gravel Pit, we spotted some interesting sandstone formations:

Dusty and Kathy enjoyed the view across to Mexico at the Gravel Pit:

Upstream looked calm and verdant, and the current looked slow enough that we are considering a paddle later in the week, weather permitting:

We hopped back in the Jeep and drove further along the river until we found an overlook, where we could see the village of Boquillas, across the way in Mexico.  There is a border crossing at Boquillas, and a small rowboat is the means to cross the border and the river.  We are considering the border crossing, but there isn't much to see in the Mexican village other than some tourist shops and restaurants, so we haven't decided on that yet.

A little further on, we came to a wide, flat playa with views of a dramatic mountain across the river to the south:

 As we approached the point where the road made its closest approach to the river, Kathy's GPS noted a location called "Rooney's Place."  We wanted to hike over to see the river anyway, so we followed the shadow of an old road toward Rooney's Place and the river, to see what we could see.

About a half mile into our walk, we found the remains of a stone cabin built against the side of the hill:

 The cabin had no view of the Rio Grande, however.  But a hill just to the south of the cabin looked promising as a viewpoint, so we hopped a couple of washes and climbed the hill, to discover a beautiful vantage of the Rio Grande River looking west, upstream. 

 Here is a more close-up view of the river from our viewpoint.  If you look closely in this photo, you'll see a riderless horse browsing the greenery on the right-hand (U.S.) bank of the river on the gravel or sandy shore:

 Looking north from our viewpoint, we could see white sandy hills and reddish sandstone formations up a wash:

 There was beauty underfoot as well.  We almost stepped on this beautiful rainbow cactus:

 Eventually made our way back to the Jeep.  We could see the south side of the Chisos Mountains to the north:

 Continuing on our drive and turning north, we passed a number of hills showing the layers of sandstone from eons past:

 A little further on, and we had our first view of Elephant's Tusk, standing majestically beyond where we would be headed on the second part of our drive:

This pretty red hill is known as Iron Mountain:

We passed these sandstone cliffs with very curious, lighter-colored veins.  After pondering them for a time, we surmised that they were caused by erosion.  But we're open to suggestions from other more knowledgeable about geology than we are:

In a few more miles, we reached the junction between River Road East, which continued west, and Glenn Springs Road, which turned north:

Stay tuned for our next blog entry, where we will explore the Marisca Mine further along River Road East, then return for a drive up Glenn Springs Road.