Goode's Guides © 2005
A Guide to Our National Parks for People Who Hate Nature

Big Bend National Park

(Texas)

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Big Bend is our nation's remotest National Park. (And that's saying a lot, considering eight of them are in Alaska!)

Located at the southern tip of southwest Texas, 100 miles from the nearest superhighway, Big Bend is a park that people don't visit by accident. 36% of visitors are returning customers.

WHAT'S COOL ABOUT BIG BEND
This park is about hiking. I know. It's nothing but miles and miles of desert for as far as the eye can see. It's like driving through the setting of every western movie you've ever seen. Big Bend is all about hiking. I know. This just became my least favorite park, too. The entire park is nothing but miles and miles of desert train. In fact, driving through it feels like driving across the set of every western movie you've ever seen. And that's what's great about Big Bend. you can have all the fun of hiking without actually doing any hiking! At any point on the park road, you can pull over and wander out into a scenic desert-scape for hours and hours.... OR you can pull over, wander for 5 or 10 minutes, get back in your car and move on to the next scenic desert-scape.

Sure, there are a couple of unique formations (attractions) in the park (Like Balanced Rock in Grapevine Hills) (or The Window at the end of the aptly named, The Window Trail) that require some hiking to get to. But for the most part, what you see is what you get. You want to climb a craggy outcropping of rock? Pull over next to a craggy outcropping fo rock. You want to wander through a field of yucca? There's a field of yucca right next to the roadway. You can spend as much or as little time as you need exploring nature at any given stop and be back to the car before you get bored. And never feel like you missed anything.

Another great thing about the park is that there are parts of it you can only reach with an all-terrain or high-clearance vehicle. So rent an ATV and feel like a real outdoorsperson when you can take a short cut and get to parts of the park that aren't accessible to avid hikers who brought only camping gear. Ha!

Another thing that's cool about the park is that the weather is warm year-round. This means that in the winter when Yosemite and Yellowstoe are offering reduced services, Big Bend is still warm and sunny and as hoppin' as it'll ever be. In fact, Big Bend's busiest time of year is November - April.


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