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In the most rugged corner of Texas, the desert is full of surprises.
Byline: Patricia Rodriguez
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas _ Daylight was failing fast as we hiked the last quarter-mile out of the Grapevine Hills. The early evening sunlight was bouncing beautifully off the ocher-colored cliffs, masses of granite boulders rising dramatically over a sandy wash. We'd gone slowly along the lightly defined desert trail, stopping to take photographs, to watch tiny lizards and just to gawk.
Finally, as the sun appeared ready to disappear over the horizon, we reached the dirt-and-gravel road that signaled the end of the trail.
Except it wasn't the same part of the road we'd started from.
We paused briefly to panic _ and to mentally kick ourselves.
In the car, earlier, we'd been chuckling over the dire warnings in every piece of Big Bend National Park literature we'd picked up. There were cautions about taking enough water, about watching out for bears and mountain lions, about staying on the trails and not taking shortcuts, about making sure someone outside the park knew where you were going. We were in a national park, we thought then. How "rough" could this really be?
And then, within three hours of driving into the park, here we were: lost, without water, food, a compass or a flashlight, with darkness coming on and no other hikers in sight.
That is Big Bend for you _ bigger and wilder and lonelier and even more of an adventure than advertised. No matter what you expected before you got here, this place will surprise you.
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At just over 800,000 acres, Big Bend National Park is one of the largest parks in the national…
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