Big Bend National Park - Seeking the Ernst Tinaja

By the time we returned to the base of the Chisos Mountains on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 5, 2020, the skies had started clearing and the air warmed up.  We had just enough time before sunset to take a drive out to see Ernst Tinaja, a less celebrated jewel of Big Bend National Park.

Ernst Tinaja (Spanish for "big earthen jar") is a natural pond or well of water created by natural erosion in a limestone layer in the hills and canyons north of Rio Grande Village Drive.  The tinaja was originally named, "La Noria" ("The Well"), and a small village named La Noria developed near here, started in 1898 by Max Ernst, who ultimately was shot and killed as he investigated a mail fraud case out of the post office at La Noria.

A stone monument marked our turn to the trailhead for Ernst Tinaja off a 4.5 mile rocky dirt road:

Along the way, we spotted the marked grave of Juan de Leon, who was murdered in La Noria in 1933.  We paid our respects and drove on.

We soon found the trailhead.  No one else was there, and we had the half mile hike up the canyon wash to ourselves:

The wash/canyon is a fascinating mix of limestone bedrock, mixed limestone-and-volcanic alluvial rubble, and sandy soil supporting large swaths of grass:

As we climbed the wash deeper into the canyon, sedimentary layers of sandstone and shale closed in upon us from each side:

While we were climbing, the underlying layers of rock were rising faster, lifted millenia ago by tectonic forces.  Our feet soon crossed solid layers of limestone stained in all colors of the rainbow, still deeper into the canyon:

Soon, protected by cliffs of the sandstone and mudstone in exoctic colors, we came to a solid limestone formation with several eroded holes that collect pools of water:

It was as if the erosion perfected its work as it rose higher in the canyon -- first a small, clear pool, then a larger, deep-colored pool, and finally the granddaddy -- Ernst Tinaja itself in the background:

Ernst Tinaja is spring fed, so that, no matter what the rainfall, it is always filled with water.  Wildlife stop here regularly for water, as did the settlers of La Noria.  In the photo below, David stands above the tinaja and peers in.  There is no visible bottom:

From his vantage point, David took this photo directly into the tinaja.  Kathy, on the rock layers behind it, lends scale to its immense size:

David climbed around onto the limestone above the tinaja and took a photo down-canyon from above the tinaja.  Kathy perches on the left:

We took one last look at Ernst Tinaja as we left --

-- and headed back down the canyon, now famished for dinner.  We imagined that Ruby, Baxter and Flip would be hungry too and wondering where we had got to for so long.  As we approached our campground, the sun was lowering into a clear sky, with only a few wispy clouds aloft to remind us of the storm last night.