Terlingua beyond the ghost town

I had stopped in Terlingua back in March 2023 on my way to Big Bend Ranch State Park. The town sits between the state park and the national park and is an ideal spot to get your vehicle and yourself fueled up. I did the quick detour and followed the signs to the ghost town, a collection of dwellings that are little more than a few walls and a cemetery, but still told a story of what used to be there.

This time around, it was an emergency stop. We had vastly miscalculated how far our rental SUV could carry us on a tank of gas, then found that the only gas station in the national park at Panther Junction, wasn’t open as late as advertised. We did some quick checking on a map and found the only gas station within range – maybe – was in Terlingua.

We arrived well past dark and too late to get food and ended up staying the night in a motel. The next morning was a brilliantly clear day with deep blue skies. Out the door of our room was a view of a Ocatillo in full leaf and bloom set against Study Butte.

One of the joys of being on the road is getting breakfast at the local diner. Terlingua’s Chili Pepper Cafe didn’t disappoint – tamale, tortillas and beans with your eggs.

Santa Elena Canyon, three views

We arrived at Santa Elena Canyon late in the day and the parking lot was nearly full, but beginning to empty. We met several group heading out as we walked toward the river. By the time we were at the mouth of the canyon, it felt like we had the place nearly to ourselves.

The favored light – the one you see in the posters and postcards – hits the canyons in the morning. We were there late in the afternoon, which meant that the sun was beyond the canyon. The way was also overcast, but that worked in my favor by eliminating the harshness of backlighting.

Looking towards the canyon, especially from a distance, I kept wondering over the power of the mostly placid river to cut such a deep cut into the Sierra Ponce cliffs.

This final shot is a reverse shot, looking north out of the mouth of the canyon toward the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. The light was starting to fade by this time, especially in the shadow within the canyon.

Alvino House, Castolon, Big Bend

This is by the ranger station in the Castolon Historic District inside Big Bend National Park.

From the National Park Service website:

The Alvino House is the oldest intact adobe structure in Big Bend National Park. The building represents the everyday life of the many families who lived and farmed along the Rio Grande. This building was constructed around 1901 by Cipriano Hernandez, one of the Hispanic settlers who farmed near Castolon.

National Park Service

What makes the photo for me is that off in the distance, you can see the Sierra Ponce Mountains stretching across the horizon like a fortress wall with a notch that marks the location of the famed Santa Elena Canyon.

We didn’t go down to the Alvino House. It was already late afternoon and was trying to get to Santa Elena with enough time to hike through the canyon before the sun went down.

Shot on Cinestill BWXX, one of my favorite film stocks, Leica MP-4 and Summicron 35, perhaps not the ideal focal length for this shot but it was the only lens I took with me other than the one on the Voigtlander Perkeo II.

The Sotol Stands Alone

Ok, so not so alone. You can see plenty of others dotting the landscape in the background. This was in the Pine Canyon area of the national park. Sotol are plentiful in the Big Bend region, but they do give off a solitary feeling, especially with the wide-open sky as a backdrop. I love the flora of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Century Plant in Bloom

The agave is known as the century plant because the stalk that bears its flowers only emerges at the end of its life, which can be decades. This particular agave was just outside the lodge at Chiso Basin in Big Bend National Park. I don’t think I saw another one in bloom during our extensive wandering in the park.

The Yucca

A yucca is a common sight around the Big Bend region, but this particular sample along the River Road in Big Bend National Park caught our eye. It’s the same one seen in the post about the Sierra Mederas del Carmen a couple of weeks back, an image that fits the yucca into its environment.

I don’t know much about yuccas, and the ones I’ve noticed before are shorter. Last March, I was lucky enough to visit the Big Bend area when they were in full bloom thanks to a wet winter. I’m told that bloom was particularly magnificent and I was lucky to come across them.

Sierra Maderas del Carmen – across the Rio Grande

Big Bend National Park offers some spectacular landscapes, but just across the Rio Grande in Mexico, the Sierra Maderas del Carmen towers over the rive valley like a fortress. The range is part of a protected natural preserve, but far less developed and far less accessible than what we have on the U.S. side.

The first two images were made with the Leica M4-P and Summicron 35 on Cinestill BWXX, a film stock I love for its rich blacks and strong contrast.

The next two were shot on the Voigtlander Perkeo II 6×6 medium format camera, again on Cinestill BWXX. I messed up in developing this roll leaving a bit of staining on the negative.

Boquillas Hot Springs – Big Bend

Being a huge fan of onsen hot springs in Japan, I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the one in Big Bend. We stopped at the trailhead that leads to the Boquillas Hot Springs to cook dinner, then visited a few other sites before sundown before heading back to take a dip in the warm waters after dark.

At one time, these springs right on the banks of the Rio Grand were a huge attraction. There’s an old post office that’s been converted into a visitors center and the remains of a ‘motor court’ that housed visitors.

Today, they’re just the empty buildings.

Shot on Cinewtill BWXX with the Leica M4-P.

The dramatic cliffs seem to hand over the motor court but are actually a way down the trail toward the hot springs.

The post office looks like a movie set.

And a medium format shot taken on the Perkeo II, which looks even more like a still from an old-time movie.

Two takes on a skull in a creek bed in Big Bend

There was no way our little rental faux SUV was going to make it down even the first steep slope onto the Black Gap Trail, a high-clearance, 4×4 only trail – marked ‘primitive’ on the maps – off of the Glenn Spring Road.

Our car (a more accurate description than the subcompact SUV label the manufacturer likes to use) was already taking a beating on the relatively tame Glenn Spring Road. I was worried enough about what the rental agency would say when I turned it in at the end of the trip.

So we parked the vehicle and walked down the trail to see the actual Glenn Spring, which was flowing nicely but petered out onto a mostly dry creek bed. I decided to make my way down the creek embankment and follow the creek for a bit and came upon this:

This was taken on my Leica M4-P with the Summicron 35. I also made an image with my Voigtlander Perkeo II, a favorite travel medium format camera because it’s so compact. I think I like the square framing better. Here’s the shot:

I’m told it’s a deer skull. I figure someone place the skull on the rock. It was just too perfectly set and there were no other signs of where the rest of the body may be. Then again, maybe it was the work of some scavenging desert critter.

If I stood up, you could see anyone walking along the Black Gap Trail, but the creek bed was invisible from the road. Than and the fact that the National Park folks stress that it’s illegal to carry out just about anything you might find in the park probably explains why the skull was sitting there.

It just looked out of place

Big Bend Ranch State Park serves up grand vistas, more subtle than it’s better known counterpart in the National Parks system. The colors are muted, as you might expect of a desert, but still rich and varies within its selected palette.

So a cistern built of yellowish stones really stood out. This was different from the round concrete cisterns you would find at the base of windmills in much of the landscape. To begin with, it was square. And, again, the color, much paler than anything nearby, catching the light at sunset and sunrise.

I kept driving past this cistern which was relatively near my campsite and near the main park road. Finally, I stopped to investigate one late afternoon. Then I stopped again. I took a lot of pictures.

These were shot on the Leica M6 and Fujica GW690, on Cinestill BWXX, Kkodak Tri-X and Kentmere 400.