The Mesa of Eels – the translated name makes me so curious – are there tinajas full of writhing wiggly eels in some of the hottest country in the Chihuahuan Desert? In the past, the Mesa has been partially closed this time of year for Peregrine falcon protection. This year it’s open – clearly I have to find out what is there. It’s an area of Big Bend National Park that is rarely visited.
The easy trailhead is near Lajitas. Evidence of civilization is all around me: bulldozers, airports, housing, green ponds with water spewing into the air. Get me out to nature!
The trail starts before the Park boundary, so we have to climb a small gate over barbed wire. The trail is a well-worn footpath with a few rock cairns. Shortly it starts to climb. It’s a steep climb, reminiscent of the climb at the start of Marufo Vega.
There are tiny desert wildflowers in bloom everywhere. Some of the flowers aren’t in any book I can find. Mary Kay and I wonder if anyone has actually documented all of them.
Ocotillo are blooming everywhere – red, brilliant red, against a very cloudy sky. We are so thankful for this cloudy sky this morning. It’s mid-April and the heat can be overwhelming if there are clear skies.
When Mary Kay and I started, we knew we were invoking the Hiking
Gods to be kind to us this late in the season. But we’d done it before
and the Gods always came through.
Mary Kay Manning explores a cavern on the Mesa de Anguila in Big Bend National Park. (Dori Ramsay)
Hard hiking on rocky surface, quickly ascending to the top; it’s a mile and a half. We are watching carefully. The rock is loose and forces us to regular stops because the scenery is so breathtaking. The trail is pretty steep and I hope it doesn’t lead us to another even steeper climb.
Suddenly, we top out and we are at the crest of the world. We are alone on a giant Mesa that goes for miles and miles. No sign of humanity or civilization. Great mountains in Mexico shimmer in the distance. There is just nature and us.
We can see the cut in the mountains that is the Rio Grande. There is a wide band of green surrounding the river. There’s little evidence that anyone has ever been here before us except the little, worn footpath. Bracted Paintbrush is blooming; it is lush and looks vermillion-red against the green lechugilla. The Globe Mallow is a red that I’ve not seen before; I’ve seen pink, orange, and fuchsia mallow, but not this red. The rainbow cactus has enormous fuchsia-colored blooms – sometimes two or three blooms on the plant. If we look closely, we see the stamens moving as little bugs fertilize the bloom.
We hike on, watching the trail to make sure we don’t go astray, stopping occasionally to look at the breath-taking view on all sides of us. In front of us is La Mariposa, the butterfly rock formation.
As we walk, we are seeing the world anew, as if we were strangers to a strange and new planet. Every flower merits an exclamation, every cactus ooohhs and aaahhs. Suddenly, a huge javelina darts from a thick brush. He startles us, as before the explosion of his presence, it was so totally quiet. We, in turn, scare the musk out of him. He’s huge and all his bristles are up to make him look as big as possible. We watch for the rest of the band, but none appear.
Now it’s decision time. We’ve come upon an interesting side wash. Do we stay on the trail to say we’ve done the whole hike or do we satisfy our curiosity and go down the wash? Of course we go down the wash; the trail will always be there. Today is for exploring.
We check rock cairns before leaving the trail. The wash gets more and more interesting. We’re scrambling, climbing, scraping ourselves. Pour-offs appear and we find a partially built rock house on a ledge in the wash. It couldn’t be a rockfall: it’s too neat and orderly. It has to be someone’s effort – but why and when?
We walk down a riverbed that is solid rock and that has boulder
holes all through it like someone dropped bowling balls from the sky.
An inviting arroyo on the Mesa de Anguila in the southwestern-most portion of Big Bend National Park. (Dori Ramsay)
The sky still has not cleared as we head back from our explorations. The trail eludes us for a little while and we realize that we are not in the wash that we started out on, but we find our rock cairns and head out. As we get to the saddle, the sun breaks out and the temperature starts shooting up. We are on the downhill slope and the walk is easy. Still, we are starting to heat up quickly. So many more plants that were not out in the morning when we came by earlier are now in bloom.
We’ve only done a small part of the Mesa, but I am now sure that the name is a misspelling of Mesa De Aguila – Mesa of the Eagle – for it made me feel like I spent a day soaring, away from all the cares of daily life.
We can’t wait to return next season, when the heat abates and the Mesa beckons us. Will we stay on the trail this time? At least for a while….
Dori Ramsay has been a volunteer in Big Bend National Park for 5 years. Dori lived in Wisconsin, lived and worked in LA, and retired to Wisconsin. She wasn’t born in Texas, but got here as soon as she could, and is currently building “Ramsay’s Rancho Not So Grande” on Terlingua Ranch.
