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Adam Sawyer

6 Revelations While Paddling the Rio Grande

Named for the large shift in course that the Rio Grande takes as the border with Mexico in West Texas, Big Bend National Park (BBNP) encompasses over 801,000 acres of historically and culturally significant land. Additionally, it is home to the largest protected Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States.

My partner had wanted to take a multi-day paddle through the park for years. Timing and calendar availabilities allowed us to put a checkmark next to that life list line-item last December. We went with the outfitter whose social media video enticed my partner in the first place, Big Bend Boating and Hiking Company, on a four-day, three-night paddle into the heart of the park. In hindsight, it was an excellent decision. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I knew precious little about BBNP. Next to nothing, actually. So, there would be a lot of real-time revelations for me, and having a trusted outfitter running the show and disseminating details made good sense. Plus, they do all the cooking.

Based on the time of year and water levels, we would be paddling through the park’s legendary Boquillas Canyon. Well, I would come to discover its legendary status. But first we had to get there. It turns out that BBNP is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. The night after the paddling trip, we stayed in the charming town of Alpine. A warm and welcoming place with some great amenities—museums, boutique lodging, excellent dining options, etc. I highly recommend it. The place we stayed at the night before the trip, however, was the town of Terlingua.

Terlingua is a Mad Maxian outpost with an artist’s soul about an hour’s drive outside of the park and serves as a basecamp for most Big Bend visitors. It also happens to be where our outfitter resides and where we would all meet up to begin the trip. I wish we would have gotten there a day earlier and had more time to explore. I’ll say this for now—the High Sierra Bar & Grill is a magical dive where all of your bar dreams can come true. Go there.

Our group met on a perfect Texas December morning. All guests on this trip were issued two-person canoes. My partner and myself, a father/daughter duo, a husband and wife and a pair of guides. For my money, a very desirable size and demographic blend for a river trip. We geared up, loaded up and drove to the boat launch in the park. There was another group putting in at the same time that we arrived. We also saw some day hikers and a man on a burro that morning. And that would be the last time we encountered people until we got picked up at the takeout four days later.

That shocked me. I’ve been on a number of trips down iconic rivers over the years, and not encountering other humans is something that has never come close to happening. So revelations numbers one and two for me were: This is a headliner of a National Park where true solitude can still be had, and you’ll also occasionally see burros, horses and cows, just kind of watching you float down the river. After canoeing for a few hours, we enjoyed lunch on a beach and then reloaded, turned a corner, and beheld the entrance to Boquillas Canyon. Revelation three: This place isn’t normal.

Entering that canyon felt like a transition into another world. There was an immediacy to the towering vertical limestone cliffs that bordered on intimidating, but instead topped out at awe-inspiring. The water was shallow, crystal clear or opal where it collected in pools. The sky was azure, the sun was warm, and my mind was blown. I was slightly surprised that there wasn’t an epic orchestral soundtrack announcing our arrival. Also, revelation four: The water of the Rio Grande was cleaner and clearer than I envisioned.

If you’ve ever been on a trip like this with an outfitter, you know how the late afternoons and evenings go. You set up your tent and enjoy your happy hour beverage of choice while the guides set up camp and get dinner cooking. Then, sit around a campfire, recount the highlights of the day, get to know your new river family and sleep under the stars. We would enjoy three nights of this standard protocol.

It was our first night beneath those aforementioned stars, however, that I was gob smacked by revelation number five: At night, BBNP gets very, very dark. The park is part of the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve, with the “International” part being a critical component. South of the border, the newly protected reserves of Maderas del Carmen and Cañón de Santa Elena, along with Big Bend, cover a combined total of over 15,000 square miles, and it is measurably the darkest place in the lower 48 states. How dark is it? So dark that it’s light. What I mean by that is when I needed to water a tree in the middle of the night, the starlight was all the illumination required. That dark.

It turns out BBNP is also a place where canyons have their own canyons. We explored on foot a handful of remarkable slots that were tighter, hikeable versions of the canyons we were floating through. Revelation six: The Boquillas has hikes that are reminiscent of Zion or the Grand Canyon that you can only access from the river. And nobody’s there.

I won’t try to tell you the trip was perfect. Mother Nature gave us a brutal headwind on one of the days. And our group may or may not have been haunted by the caterwauling of a canyon cow one evening. But this was a time and a place that now hovers near the top of my all-time favorite outdoor experiences. And I’m sure there’s more than a handful of revelations left to be had out there.

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