Big Bend Ranch

Chase was a big asset

Chase lives in the town of Presdio, around 30 miles west of BBRSP and contributed much local knowledge in the planning of this event, he also displayed a lot of patience with those that repeatedly referred to his Rans, with a four stroke engine and maximum gross weight of 1,100 pounds, and an N number, as an "ultralight." Chase posted a very nice WMV video on his website about the event (50 MB).

Chase (center) with Janie and Dave, flew home for epoxy to repair propeller dings

Tom Navar knows how to start a DC-3 with a mule

Diana and John were busy running back and forth to the airstrip shuttling people, but the truth is the strip is very close to the headquarters, and unless you were having to carry a bunch of stuff, it is a quick stroll. I tried to talk them into getting a radio, so we could tell them to not come out. The strip is so close you have to fly a very tight pattern to not fly over the headquarters.

Sunset on Saturday

Officially the Lodge, we called it the Bunkhouse

The Lodge is a dormitory style facility. On the east end there are two rooms, the mens and the womens sleeping areas. Each area is divided with partitions into several sleeping areas of two single beds each. Then there is a common room and on the west end is the kitchen/dining area. Use of the Lodge is $25 a night.

Sky unbelievable, company fascinating

Our small group was amazingly diverse and interesting. Just some of the day jobs I found out about are two guys in Law Enforcement, a Geologist, a NASA Flight Director, a retired Airline Pilot and a Medical Doctor/Rancher. Let me tell you, conversation around the bonfire did not lag.

Tom had brought his guitar in hopes, as he said it, of kind of strumming in the background with Doug and Jay. Well Doug and Jay did not show but Tom brought out his guitar at the fire. Noticing that it was a classical style guitar I said "you could play Malaguena on that." He sort of smiled, then started playing the piece quietly. Conversation did not die down so Tom quit playing, but he is way better than someone who is going to strum in the background.

Rumor is that caving ballads were sung on Friday night.

After the fire burned down I walked back to the bunkhouse by STARLIGHT. I'll bet there are plenty of city people that don't even know you can do that. Some people had been talking about how spectacular they expected the sky to be, but I didn't believe it. The elevation is not that high, at around 4,300 feet, and at sunset on Saturday it was almost overcast with cirrus clouds. Well there were a zillion little star spotlights. It was the kind of sky where it is difficult to recognize the dimmer constellations because there are too many stars, and they obscure the patterns. I considered bringing a small telescope, but I'm glad I didn't. It would be like looking at the Pleiades through a high-powered telescope; wrong tool for the job. The right tool this night was the naked eye!

There was discussion as to what the glow in the west was, after dusk. Most thought that is must be the Mexican town of Ojinaga, about 30 miles west; I'll stick with the zodiacal glow.

Water near Headquarters

Some thought this trip would not work out well, because "it is too far to the attractions." It turns out that there are many attractions within walking distance or bicycle distance of headquarters. Immediately northeast of the house is a draw that has water running intermittently along its course. To the northwest are the Cinco Tinajas and pictographs. There are numerous hiking and cycling trails and then the horses. The big attraction is that this place is isolated and quiet and the scenery is spectacular everywhere you look and there are many quiet little places.

High pressure schedule

Ranch Main House dining room

The entire Main House rents for $400 a night, including tiled bathtub

A Main House bedroom that goes for $100 a night

A big thing that made this trip great was Diana and John, our hosts. I don't know their last name, but they are volunteers and came to seem like family. They weren't making money off us, and their only concern seemed to be that we had a great time. I hate to make reservations and preplan everything, but Diana and John just wanted to be sure that there were enough beds and food. Victor was our cook and was all smiles and help. Sack lunches are available. Saturday night we had the perfect cowboy supper of tender brisket, beans and potato salad. Well maybe the two kinds of cake, German Chocolate and Banana, was a little fancy for a bunkhouse.

That is all the staff I saw, Diana, John, Victor and Raul, pictured later.

I asked our geologist, Louise, to write a brief summary of the geologic background of the area.

GEOLOGIST'S PARADISE

Every spring, geology classes from across the country trek to the Chihuahuan Desert to visit the Big Bend region. They come to learn in one of the world's most diverse geologic terrains, blessedly little cluttered with vegetation or soil. The geology represents about 500 million years of regional history and displays a remarkable variety of igneous and sedimentary rocks.

An inland sea deposited sandstones and shale between about 500-100 million years ago. Some of the sand and clay came from the nearby ancestral Ouachita mountains, which rose up when the South American plate crashed into the Gulf Coast of North America , forming Pangaea. Later, in the Cretaceous Period, the Big Bend area was covered by a warm, shallow sea with no mountains nearby. These conditions led to deposits of limestones, including oyster reefs. These massive limestone deposits are the northernmost extension of the huge Cretaceous reef complexes that dominate the full-length of Mexico and are exposed in the walls of Santa Elena Canyon.

Near the end of the Cretaceous, the sea withdrew and the sedimentary rocks contain petrified wood and remains of the Quetzalcoatlus northropi (a giant flying reptile). The Rocky Mountains rose and the Big Bend area was compressed, folded, and faulted.

About 42 million years ago, volcanism began to dominate the region and continued through the late Tertiary. The range of chemical composition (mafic to felsic) and rock types (lava flows, ash-fall, and pyroclastic flows) contribute to a stunning landscape. Extensional (normal) faulting began about 26 million years ago. The most dramatic example is the Terlingua Fault with 3000 feet of displacement. The fault trends along the Rio Grande as it exits Santa Teresa Canyon. Earthquakes still occur in the region, including a nearby magnitude 5.6 earthquake in 1995. The development of tensional basins led to the organization of the Rio Grande river drainage, the youngest major river system in the U.S.

The Solitario provides, perhaps, the most compact display of the region's geologic history. Only a couple RV-minutes east of the BBRSP airstrip, the Solitario is a large structural dome pushed up by an Eocene (~35 million years ago) magmatic intrusion. This uplift caused all the overlying (Cambrian to Cretaceous) sedimentary layers to tilt away from the intrusion. Erosion exposed the concentric bands of sedimentary rocks around the outside of the dome. Intrusive rocks comprise the interior of the dome.

Louise Hose

Solitario, just east of the BBRSP runway, doesn't come across in the few photos I have seen or taken. I've never seen anything like it. In the photo above, you see the rock layers pointing to the left, which is toward the center of the crater. It is just like that all around the edge of the approximately 10 mile wide crater. The rock points to the center. Paraphasing what Louise said above, hot rock came up from below and made a big bubble of magma, then the hot rock partially receded causing a collapse of the center of the dome. When you see it, it makes sense.

Wrangler Raul at one of the Tinajas L.Hose Photo

I've had some bad experiences with riding stable horses. I'm told, that although some of the horses were in their golden years (gramps horses?), they were excellent and the overall ride was interesting and scenic. I kind of wish I had gone on the ride, even though I associate horses a bit more with work than pleasure.

While Louise, Paul and Garrie were riding and Tom and I were hiking around, Dale and Mike made an aerial tour of the magnificent Big Bend scenery. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the amazing windshield and tail fairings that Mike fabricated for "Mighty Mouse" out of aluminum.

John (right) and Diana were our very gracious hosts L. Hose Photo

Best story of the weekend: I was chatting with Tom and discovered he used to fly DC-3s in Mexico. Displaying my vast knowledge, I told him about a case I knew of where a Mexican DC-3 had dead batteries in an isolated area and El Capitan hand propped it. Then he told me his story of being in a similar situation in Mexico, but there was a mule. He used the MULE to start the DC-3. Ask him about it!

The Van's Cavalry, Paul (Ramrod), Garrie and Louise

I'm real glad that Paul Dye got this thing going. This isn't a place that can handle a lot of people, about ten airplanes would be optimal, but the amazing Big Bend attractions are here, we fulfilled the pilot fantasy of easily flying into a very hard place to drive into and it is unbelievably cheap. I gave them a couple of twenties and a ten and got change back. Bicycles are one to two dollars an hour. When you are ready to leave you just tell Diana what you did and she tells you what you owe. Really neat!

Larry Pardue

Carlsbad, NM