Big Bend National Park, Texas
We arrived a few days before the orientation was scheduled to begin, and set up our RV in the Panther Junction Employee Housing Area, just behind the main Visitor Center, at Big Bend National Park in Texas. As volunteers in the Interpretation Division, we were to join the dozen new seasonal and permanent interpretive rangers for an intense two week training that would include the geology, the history, the flora and the fauna of this immense park. Together we would hike in the Chisos Mountains, trek across the Chihuahuan Desert and raft the Rio Grande through Santa Elena Canyon.
Of all the jewels in the massive crown of the National Park System, Big Bend was always our favorite. Its self-contained mountain range was only one of the three ecosystems present in the Park. It is a major flyway for migratory birds. The desert landscape, river basin and mountain range attract some 450 species of birds making it a paradise on earth for birders. When we were there the major excitement was the very rare sighting of a Ruddy Ground Dove. People came from all over the country (one visitor came from New Hampshire) to try to catch a glimpse of this unusual visitor to the US.
Crossing to Boquillas
after the border re-opened in 2013
In 1987 the border was still open, and Americans were free to travel five miles into Mexico without a passport or visa. Down past the Rio Grande Village, Victor had set up what my husband called his "leaky little rowboat" to ferry visitors across to Boquillas, a tiny village on the Mexican side of the river. One day, after a morning of desert hiking, we crossed over for a lunch (bean tacos and burritos, five for a dollar, the only difference being in the fold) y cervezas. Completely off the grid, Boquillas relied on propane generators for power. At Jose's the chiller was not always kept at optimal temperature and on this very warm October afternoon, the Carta Blanca that was put down in front of me was frozen solid. When I showed it to the owner/waitress, she picked it up, looked at it and put it back down saying, "It will thaw." She was right. As usual.
Part of our indoctrination included a visit across the Rio Grande to San Vincente, where we stood in the square which had been the site of a massive gun battle between the Federales and a gang of drug runners some years before. They were not called cartels in the 80s, and they lost the battle to the more heavily armed police. Ah, the old days.
Drugs were smuggled across the border into the states via the Park and a Border Patrol agent was assigned to area where he lived with his Park employee wife, who, although of Mexican descent, never visited Boquillas because of her husband's profession. While we were there, the Park finally got a drug-detecting dog, and before she and her Ranger/partner made it back from training there was a $40,000 bounty on the dog's head. Most visitors had no idea of any border or drug issues. Events were rare and usually contained quickly.
The highlight of our orientation was a day-long raft trip down the Rio Grande through the Santa Elena Canyon. Later, we took an independent overnight trip down with a couple of rangers/friends, but our first trip was the most enjoyable. The canyon walls are so sheer that they seem much higher than their 1500 feet. On our overnight, the moon appeared so suddenly that it woke me up from a sound sleep as it passed directly overhead and illuminated the tiny sliver of night sky.
Scouting the Rock Slide
Class III-IV Rapid
At a point a little more than half way through, rafters encounter the Rock Slide, a Class III or IV rapid depending upon river depth. It was high the day we travelled through it, and so our guides pulled over and scouted the rapids before proceeding. It was one of the most frighteningly exhilarating trips of my life. This video shows it as a leisurely float between big boulders. The day we rafted through it, there was nothing leisurely about it. The water was white and foamy and the rafts practically flew through the passages. The reassurance that we should have felt knowing we were in the hands of National Park Service river rangers, was somewhat deflated by the profanity that they used as they struggled to control both rafts.
We later floated through Mariscal Canyon in the company of another river ranger, and as beautiful as it was, it could not compare to that trip through the boulders with the sheer cliffs of the canyon towering overhead.
Big Bend National Park, nestled into the northbound turn made by the Rio Grande, is so isolated that it only gets 300,000 to 350,000 visitors a year. Which was one of its main draws for us. I loved the thought of a park that included complete river, mountain and desert ecosystems within its borders but lacked the hordes of tourists that lined up on the roads at the better known National Parks. From the northern boundary of the Park to the nearest town is 40 miles. When we were there, that town only had a gas station and a B&B.
On the western side of the Park is the wide spot in the road name Study Butte (both "u"s pronounced the same) before one reaches Terlingua, best known for its annual chili festival. Further down the road, but closer to the Park via the river, is Lajitas, which now includes its own airport and resort with a golf course (that I choose not to think about).
It is on the way to no where else. Part of its charm and a factor that made it a perfect setting for Nevada Barr's Borderline.
Borderline
by Nevada Barr
Published by Putnam Adult
April 7th 2009 (first published January 1st 2009)
399 pages
This is the 15th in the Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr. Her first novel, Track of the Cat, introduced Anna Pigeon, who, running away from New York where her newly-wed husband had just died, decided to take a seasonal ranger's job at Guadaloupe Mountains National Park in West Texas. And stumbles upon her first murder. Each succeeding novel involved crimes at various other National Parks as she climbed the NPS (National Park Service) career ladder.
Although an early fan, it has been a long time since I have read any of her adventures, and when I started hungering for a plain, old-fashioned mystery, Nevada Barr and her intrepid Park Ranger, Anna Pigeon, sprang to mind. Each novel is set in a different National Park, and this one is set in my favorite, Big Bend.
Sunrise at
Santa Elena Canyon
Anna, suffering from PTSD from an event at Isle Royale in the immediately preceding novel,
Winter Study, is ordered to take some time off from her job at Rocky Mountains National Park. She and her husband, county sheriff and Episcopalian minister, Paul Davidson, decide that a float trip down the Rio Grande through the Santa Elena Canyon of Big Bend National Park would be just the thing to provide her with some much needed R&R.
Chisos Mountain Lodge
Meanwhile, the current Houston mayor is planning on announcing her run for Texas Governor from the Chisos Mountain Lodge high up in the mountain range at the center of the National Park. Hoping to make the environment and border security pivotal issues in her campaign, she decided that this remote destination will help her announcement get the press attention she wants.
Santa Elena Canyon
While the float trip down the canyon starts out peacefully enough, with a raft full of young college students from New York, a distant storm has caused the river level to rise making passage over the rapids a problem. Finding a stranded cow and a pregnant, dying woman, Anna attempts to rescue both. Although she cannot save the dying woman, she is able to preform an emergency C-section to save the baby. The raft, and all of their supplies are lost to the Rock Slide, and someone begins shooting at the rafters from the top of the canyon.
It is hard for me to judge this objectively as Barr does such a wonderful job of evoking the setting of Big Bend that I was enraptured at the virtual visit. The towns, the people and the Park itself were well described, including the uneven rock path between the lodge and the parking lot. I was flooded with memories of Terlingua, the Chisos Basin, the hikes and river trips of 25+ years ago. Much has remained unchanged.
But much was different, including the border closing between Mexico and the United States after 9/11 that provides a hook for some of the events in the novel. Nevada Barr's writing reveals a distinct environmentalist viewpoint and an overall progressive attitude:
“America no longer wanted anybody to give her their tired, their poor, and their huddled masses made people’s blood run cold.”
The relationship between Anna Pigeon and her husband appeared to be one of love and mutual support, a welcome relief from the earlier novels in the series. Both law enforcement officers, they meshed well. And he could kiss. He did not hover over her, attempting to protect her from any and all danger, but he was there for her when she needed him to be there.
Strong, independent and vulnerable, Anna is the most clearly drawn of all of the characters, although the Houston mayor, nicknamed "piranha" in high school, bore a striking resemblance to a certain public figure who was much in the media when this book was released in 2009. The college kids on the raft were fun, especially the twins. And of course, Big Bend is given a lot of time center stage. The Park, its hardships (unreliable cellphone coverage, gasp), and its isolation from the rest of the world all play a role in the novel.
The mystery itself is satisfying, with the requisite red herrings littered along the way. I found it an enjoyable read (listen). If you haven't read any of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series, I would suggest you pick a Park you like, read the novel set there and then, if you enjoy it, go back and read the rest.
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