After Big Bend National Park, we went to check out Big Bend Ranch State Park. I had never been to this state park and I was eager to see this scenic area of the border. After stopping at the park visitor center, we headed down FM170 also known as the Texas Mountain Trail.

Our first stop was the Hoodoos area that sits right on the banks of the Rio Grande. Hoodoo is apparently an African word that refers to large oddly shaped rock structures. The hoodoos occur when there is a hardened capstone that lies atop some softer material. The softer material erodes at a faster rate than the harder capstone and you get neat looking rock formations. The trail down to the hoodoos is very short and you can see most of the area from the parking lot. Below is one of the larger hoodoos with a few boulders and plants in the foreground. I used a polarizer as it was a bright sunny clear day.

The road that goes out to this location is nice and paved. but I have read that the old trail that was here before the paved road was called Muerte del Burro or Death of the Donkey as it was very difficult and rugged terrain to travel. There are a lot of steep grades on this road and if your brakes are not in good order, it could be muerte del coche.

Below is a photo of some boulders that I found interesting because they reminded me of the Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons in which he would try to pry a boulder loose to fall on the roadrunner who would be distracted by birdseed.

I navigated the stones and boulders and made my way down to the river. The photo below shows the the Rio Grande and the boulders and mountains in the distance. The river and boulders in the foreground are supposed to lead you to the desert mountain in the distance.

There were plenty of desert plants to be found and a few lizards to see, but I didn’t see any of the mountain lions that I was warned about. I tried a few long exposures of the river running rapidly over the rocks, but I was not incredibly pleased with the results. I included one in the gallery below though along with some other shots of the hoodoos and cacti.

This might be a good place for a nice sunset one evening, but as you can see there were no clouds in the sky and we had other sunset plans for the evening. More on that later. Thanks for reading.