The Chihuahuan Desert is mostly covered in vegetation—bunchgrasses, creosote bushes, cactuses, lechuguillas, yuccas, sotols, and more. But the Rio Grande, with its lush floodplains and steep, narrow canyons, creates what feels like its own little park. The same goes for the Chisos Mountains, where temperatures can be up to 20 degrees cooler than the desert below. Up there, you’ll find pine, juniper, and oak trees, along with deer, mountain lions, bears, and other wildlife. When heavy rain hits, the desert comes alive—dry creek beds turn into rushing streams, and long-dormant seeds explode into fields of wildflowers.
Big Bend’s rocks tell a complicated story. Hundreds of millions of years ago, two different seas flowed and receded across the region, leaving behind thick layers of limestone and shale. The mountains we see today (except the Chisos) rose alongside the Rockies about 75 million years ago. Around the same time, a 40-mile-wide trough—most of what’s now the park—sank along fault lines, leaving the towering cliffs of Santa Elena Canyon to the west and the Sierra del Carmen to the east, both rising over 1,500 feet above the desert. Meanwhile, volcanic activity filled the skies with layers of ash and pushed molten rock up from below, forming the Chisos Mountains roughly 35 million years ago. Some of that molten rock cooled underground, only to be exposed later by erosion.
Thanks to its varied landscapes, Big Bend is home to an incredible mix of life, including 1,200 plant species—some of which exist nowhere else on Earth.
People have been moving through this area for at least 10,000 years. Over the centuries, it’s seen everyone from Apache and Spanish conquistadores to Comanche, U.S. soldiers, miners, ranchers, farmers, Mexican revolutionaries, and even international outlaws and bandits.
Did You Know?
Big Bend hosts at least 450 bird species—more than any other U.S. national park.