Big Bend Canoeing

March 23-24,1999

This document is miscellaneous trip notes – things that were not covered in chapter 35 of our big Travelogue.

We departed Rio Grande Village in Big Bend National Park – at the marked boat launch, beyond the group camping area.  A vehicle can be backed all the way to the water's edge at this point.

We were on the water at about 9:30 A.M., having left Stillwell Ranch at about 7:30.  The shuttle was arranged with Stillwell's, and we were camped in their RV Park.  Stillwell Ranch is located about six miles south on FM 2657, which joints US 385 a few miles north of the National Park entrance.  They drive us, in our vehicle, to the starting point, then drive our vehicle back to the ranch.  They will deliver the vehicle to the takeout point on the day of takeout, either leaving it at a time specified, or waiting for a phone call and then driving down.  Along the Mexican border, it is unwise to leave a vehicle unattended.

The end of our trip was at La Linda, where FM 2657 terminates at an unused border crossing bridge  At this point, Andy Heath runs a tourist facility (restaurant, rooms, etc), provides a boat launch site (for a $4.00/person fee), and provides supervised parking (also for a fee).  There is a pay phone at the end of the road, at the river.  We chose to call Stillwell's when we arrived there, waiting the half hour it takes to drive from the ranch.

The total river distance from start to finish is 33 miles.  By road, it is 76 miles.  Stillwell's charged $50 for the shuttle, plus $8.00 for the boat launch fee at Heath Ranch.

We stopped for the night at about 5:30 PM, at approximately mile 792, about half a mile upstream from Cow Canyon.  We camped on a level sandy shelf perhaps 20 feet above river level – a bit of a climb to carry our gear up, but giving a nice view up and down the river.  There was also a grassy shelf only a few feet above the river which would have been comfortably large enough to hold our tent.  There are many acceptable campsites along both sides of the river.  The Mexican side is more populated than the U.S. side, and we were slightly worried about possible theft of equipment, so we chose to camp on the U.S. side.

The next day, we got underway at 9:30 and arrived at La Linda at 5:00 PM.

This was much slower paddling than we expected.  The river is very low (13 months since the last significant rain, and several dry years before that).  We frequently had to paddle very slowly, picking our way through boulder gardens.  Quite a few of the little rapids were so shallow that we had to walk through, towing the canoe behind us.  A few narrow constrictions of the river resulted in fast water in a twisty channel, where we could not paddle through, but guided the canoe through from shore using long bow and stern lines.  There were no portages, a few chutes of mildly fast water, and no significant white water (class I at most).

Part way through the second day, we shipped quite a bit of water when when ran a narrow, fast chute with a sharp turn in the middle, and couldn't make the turn quickly enough, getting slammed sideways into a clump of dirt and reeds, rolling the upriver gunwale under water briefly.

The center 15 miles of the trip is in Boquillas Canyon, often with sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high on both sides of us.  The rock was quite varied – sometimes eroded into very interesting patterns, sometimes smooth cliffs.  We saw many caves in the limestone.  Dave climbed up to explore one large cave, and found extensive bird droppings on the floor.  The ceiling was so high that I couldn't tell if there were currently bats in residence.

The first day was somewhat hot – temperature probably in the mid-80's, but dry and with a pleasant breeze.  The second day was cooler – perhaps high 70's.  Both days were cloudless.

The river water is very thick with silt – a rich brown color.  We brought all of our water with us.  We used about 2.5 gallons in total for the two days and one night – less than we expected (we carried five gallons).  For these weather conditions, I would plan on one gallon per person per 24 hour day.  For hotter weather or harder paddling, we'd take more – some references recommend twice this much.

The only significant wildlife we saw were burros, horses, and an occasional cow – semi-domestic animals kept by Mexicans.  We saw many turtles, one small snake swimming across the river, and heard loud splashes in the reed along shore several times – we speculate that it was beaver, which live in holes in the mud cliffs along this river.  At the campsite, we saw many tracks. In addition to tracks from the domestic animals, we saw raccoon tracks and tracke from small split hoofs – javalina?  Many varieties of ducks were swimming and flying along the river.  A couple of great blue herons and several smaller herons appeared, and their huge tracks were often visible in the mud along shore.

This is a dirty, muddy trip.  We often stepped out of the canoe into thick sticky mud, which sometimes had jet black layers.  Even where there was sand, it wasn't clean, but rather had significant amounts of fine silt which stuck to everything. 

Hiking along shore in shorts and sandals is risky.  Many of the plants have vicious thorns. 

Given the current river conditions, this trip should probably be done in three days and two nights.  We paddled more hours than we would have liked, and had little time to explore on foot.  The entire Big Bend trip, from Tally to La Linda, is 61 miles, and is often done in five to six days.

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