Originally posted August 19, 2026
Last spring, when drought had slowed the flow of the Rio Grande through Big Bend National Park to little more than a trickle, I slung a daypack over my shoulder and headed into Santa Elena Canyon with a friend.
We hiked upstream from the mouth of the sheer-walled canyon in the sprawling West Texas park, slogging through stretches of knee-high mud and swimming across neck-deep pools of green water. We stopped to shout into the wild, then listened to our voices echo off the bluffs. A few hours in, we flopped onto a riverbank, gazing up at the 1,000-foot rock curtain surrounding us, and reminded ourselves how lucky we were to have access to this place.
I’ve visited Big Bend more than 40 times over the years, and like many others, I go there to immerse myself in nature and escape the stress of the city. Texas is 95% privately owned; places where you can roam for hours without seeing a road, building or man-made structure are rare.
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