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Our trip to the Big Bend area was intended to acquaint us with the tremendous natural beauty of the area. However, we began and ended the trip with visits to art -- both in unusual "museums" but both as different from each other as can be. Maybe. First we visited the rock art sites in the Lower Pecos River Valley where the Pecos and the Devil rivers flow into the Rio Grande. Wind and rivers continue to carve huge caves from the porous limestone deposited 300 million years ago. Here nomadic hunter-gatherers would find shelter -- and cave walls for the art that would enhance their shaman trances. To get an idea of the size of these overhangs, look carefully and you will see Jane to the center left of this picture.
More than 200 sites in this region have been found where inhabitants lived in such caves and made pictographs on the walls. However, in 1969, much of the canyons where the three rivers meet was flooded into a permanent lake called the Amistad Reservoir. Part of the funding for this massive US/Mexican joint project paid to have the archaeological sites surveyed. Still, some are underwater and some are reachable only by boat. We hired a guide and his skiff to take us to two of these.
Of the caves on the Amistad Reservoir, Panther Cave is one of the best known. It's named after this drawing. Feline hunters are often paired with the art of Shaman hunter-gatherers, perhaps because these cats are such efficient hunters. This cave has at least 4 drawings of cats of various sizes, along with drawings of shamans, some of whom carry prickly-pear cactus -- a dietary staple. While this rock art was made with many colors, the red pigments have survived the three millennia better than the other hues.
Another archeological site whose access has been flooded by the Amistad Reservoir is the Parida Cave along the Rio Grande arm of the Reservoir. Besides being used for religious purposes, these caves would typically shelter the hunter-gatherers during their nomadic journeys starting around 10,000 B.C.E. Perhaps they were in use when the Spanish first explored here about 1600 A.C.E. These nomads would typically leave behind piles of garbage that would be compacted by mud layers as the river periodically overflowed. The dry desert air would allow much of that "midden" heap to remain intact -- a huge boon for the archaeologists who came here in droves starting in the 1930's.
The Amistad Reservoir did not submerge all of the 200 or so archeological sites found in this area. We visited two more caves at a Texas state park which does an excellent job of presenting its archeological sites with both static displays and guided tours of its extensive pictographs. Fortunately, it can be reached easily along paved highways.
The red pictographs are in caves in the center, up the sides of the Seminole Canyon. The first humans arrived here about 12,000 years ago and hunted now extinct elephants and camels, primarily by driving them over cliffs similar to these. Today layers of bones define their killing fields -- and provide samples for carbon dating. While this appears to be desolate country (and is), it is at the junction of three major ecosystems and thus has an abundance of wildlife and flora. The park provides a self-guided nature trail to see these plants. To see the rock art, you need to take a guided tour with a ranger.
These paintings were most likely created to support the trance-like states that facilitated the shamans who served as the priests of the Coahuiltecan religion. Most likely, these people came under stress as other populations retreated into their territory. Their refuge was the religion of their shamans.
Unfortunately, the increased humidity from the nearby Amistad Reservoir along with the air pollution of modern life in the US and Mexico continue to damage these paintings which had long been stable in the arid environment. These pictographs have clearly deteriorated since their first documentation by a Dallas commercial artist who would spend his vacation creating watercolor copies of this rock art. Future generations will probably not even see what we look at today.
If you'd like to see more, we've posted many slides at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/RockArtOfTheLowerPecosRiverTexas#slideshow . (But don't touch that "X" button, we'll tell you how to access supplementary pictures at the end of this slide show.)
We arrived for our 4-day visit of the spectacular Big Bend National Park area in late March, 2010. Distances here are vast and shelter is scarce for those of us no longer into hunting-gathering. So we planned our trip and our lodging to start in the Southeast. Above we view the high Chihuahuan Desert with Mexico's Sierra del Carmen mountains in the distance. The park's 5 paved roads were put in place here during the depression as part of the "shovel ready" stimulus program called the Civilian Conservation Core (CCC). Here young Hispanic men worked under harsh conditions from 1934 through 1942 -- until WWII provided just about full employment. Before that happened, the CCC built over 800 parks around the country. This National Park is huge (about 81% the size of the state of Rhode Island). But you'll find more people in Rhode Island as only 300,000 to 400,000 people visit here each year, making this one of the smallest national parks in attendance. This place is far from even the middle of nowhere.
On our first day, we took 3 hikes, the first along the Boquillas Canyon where rock cliffs appear to swallow the shallow Rio Grande. Flat areas such as this at the edge of the Boquillas Canyon provide spots for interaction between tourists and the few Mexicans who try to scrape a living here. Much more was going on before 2002 when pretty much free access across the border was tolerated. (We won't even ask how we stop terrorists from hijacking planes by protecting rivers that people wade across.) Suffice it to say that no longer can you cross the river for lunch. The canoes at middle right give some idea of the scale of these canyon walls.
While this appears to be a box canyon, in fact the channel continues -- but the hiking trail stops abruptly when the steep cliff and pernicious salt plants overcome the path. The trickle of river at the lower right edge of this picture is part of the 244 miles of river -- and US/Mexican border -- that edge this park. The park service supervises about 25% of the total river border, a river made quite shallow by the American states that steal most of its water before it gets here.
This being spring, even the dry Chihuahuan Desert smiles with flowers.
Besides our fellow hikers, we see other signs of human life such as these pot-holes used by pre-historic populations who have lived here for at least 9000 years. These holes were made to grind flour which the hunter-gatherers derived from the wild sotol (or desert spoon) plant. Settlements were always near water and so such grinding holes are often found near springs and accessible river areas.
Another example of human life. Notice the jar in the foreground and the canoe across the river.
The canoe belongs to Victor who has been serenading tourists from this perch for years. For thousands of years, the 118 miles of river in this park have been defining a common community on each side -- not dividing people into separate groups. Lately what was a border has been made into an obstacle. So Victor sings loudly across the river and hopes you'll put an offering in the milk carton because...
...well armed border patrol agents like this keep Victor on his side of the river. Maybe. I suspect he has a deal with Victor to be an additional pair of eyes and, in turn, he allows him to collect the donations from the milk jug we saw on the previous pages. If so, let's hope they keep this up rather than raising a fence on this beautiful landscape. Where's Lady Bird when we need her? While we saw many border agents outside of the park and were stopped at checkpoints several times, this is the only one we saw within the park. (While this park has 244 miles of Mexican-US border, there are only a few paved roads that move through the inhospitable desert to civilization -- or whatever you call this part of Texas.) If a wildfire hits the park, the border disappears as most of the firefighting force comes from three Mexican villages just across the river.
Next we hiked one of the most popular trails in this part of the Park. It goes through the Hot Springs Historic District first developed by an Alpine (Texas) undertaker as a spa during the early 20th century.
Many of the spa's buildings survive in various states-of-repair. Here we are in the undertaker's cabin built around 1930. While the roof is long gone, some of the wood survives in the window casings. Humidity here is very low and helps preserve such wood, just as it preserved a lot of carbon-based artifacts left in nearby caves by the pre-historic peoples.
Here we see some of the barest of red traces of pictographs left by nomadic hunter-gathers thousands of years ago. The Big Bend area claims over 10,000 archeological sites and the B&B where we stayed on private land sported dinosaur bones retrieved from its ranch. The Spanish came in the 16th century, but the great Comanches who pretty much ran the Great Plains throughout the 1800's did not give up the area until late in the 19th century. This land appears so barren that it's a wonder people would fight over it. It wasn't always like this though; before 7000 BCE, this was a fertile plain populated by now-extinct versions of bison and even camels.
A typical view at this corner of the park: striated limestone cliffs hover over scrawny shrubs that are gradually overtaking the abandoned settlement. While this started as sea bottom 300 million years ago, subsequent smashing of tectonic plates has created such visuals -- then came the volcanoes to finish off the job.
Mexico is on our left and in the distance we see the nearly dry Tornillo Creek trickling into the Rio Grande. In the foreground we see hot springs bathers and the river -- all of 2 feet deep here. These 105-degree hot springs are what put the spa here early in the 20th century. Its developer drank the water for a month and it cured him of a host of ills including malaria (but apparently not hyperbole.) Would you buy a cure from an undertaker?
Another view of the old spa bathhouse through Ocotillo blossoms. This plant is leafless except immediately after a rain when it puts out 2 inch oval leaves in bunches above its spines. Spines can rise 20 feet. The geothermal water comes from "fossil water" -- as it travels to the surface, it picks up various minerals.
Another view of the Ocotillo which is happy to bloom even if it has no leaves. A single plant may have 75 stalks each bearing such a flower. Locals make living fences by cutting these stalks and putting them in a tight row in the ground.
This cactus is a bit more stubby than the Ocotillo.
Our last hike of the day was the well-documented and placid Rio Grand Village Nature Trail.
The nature trail starts in a most unusual spot in the Chihuahuan desert: a beaver pond. The trail proceeded with a walkway across the entire pond; however, a recent flood wiped it out and only this platform was rebuilt. We see here the lush greenery near the water's edge which is quickly replaced as the desert rises around it.
At the end of the day, we headed back to a new hotel on the other side of the park. If you're interested in seeing more of this area of the park, we've posted many more slides at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/SoutheastBigBendNationalPark#slideshow .
The next morning we headed out of our B&B and into the west side of the park, down the 30-mile long Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. Our destination was the massive St. Helena canyon -- that gap in this picture.
This 30 mile drive lives up to its name; it's spectacularly scenic and provides a variety of geological forms of many shapes and colors. Above we look at Mules Ears Peaks. These were created by volcanoes about 42 million years ago -- since then, the winds have been shaping them. This type of formation is called a "dike" or "dyke." These are igneous rocks formed when cooled lava wedged itself into rock fractures. Most of the rock itself has since been eroded, leaving these dykes more-or-less freestanding.
One of the five paved roads built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive was named after the park's founding director. Many of the sites are just a few yards from the pavement. Cars were sparse here even though the weather was very pleasant and this was the park's high season.
Beige tuff (volcanic) rock formations confronted us at nearly every turn.
This dramatic formation near Tuff Canyon is called Cerro Castellan or Castolon Peak. This ain't butte ugly.
Here the top layer of rock is granite. Breccia and tuff layers support it.
The 100 foot (30 meter) deep Tuff Canyon was formed by a small stream -- and a lot of time.
Here we look south towards the iconic Santa Elana Canyon.
Here's a stitched view of the Santa Elana Canyon where the Rio Grande flows into the floodplain after passing through the nearly vertical Sierra Ponce cliffs. A great canyon hike walks across this wide floodplain and then up the side of the right rock (which is on the US side.) The sheer rock on the left is Mexico. We don't need no stinkin' border fence here.
The Santa Elana Canyon is 8 miles (13 km) long. From top-to-shallow bottom, it's 1500 feet (450 meters.) A hiking trail runs only about a tenth of its length once you cross the spill plain for the Terlingua Creek (foreground) which feeds into the Rio Grande.
The CCC has built a switchback to get us started into the ledge that parallels the Rio Grande below.
Here we actually found other people, maybe 50 in all along this easy trail. Most fashionably dressed of the bunch was this REI-chic chick who I found to be quite friendly even if newly sun-adverse. Turns out the pole was for maneuvering, not defense. Big Bend National Park has over 200 miles of hiking trails. In 3 hiking days here, we may have seen 5% of them. Guide books well document the more popular trails.
We've posted more pictures of this side of the park at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/BigBendNationalParkSouthwestArea#slideshow .
Our last day in the park was spent at the park's lodge which was a good kickoff for some spectacular hikes which deal with the iconic "V" in this picture at middle right. Big Benders call this "the window." You can hike high up and see these mountains -- or you can hike in the valley and walk to that gap. We did both.
The high hike starts at the pavement and winds up a mountain trail built by the Civilian Conservation Corp. It's the ultra-scenic Lost Mine Trail.
Here's another Big Bend landmark: Casa Grande Peak peaks at 7,325 feet -- about 1600 feet from the bottom of the trail. The trail, however, leads beside it as it does for most of the Chisos peaks. That results in moderate hiking while maximizing the opportunity for spectacular views such as this.
Casa Grande is at left in this stitched picture.
Bailey Peak at center is 6,670 feet (2033 meters) high. At its left base is "the window."
A typical switchback up the Lost Mine Trail.
Here the Junipers frame Big Bend National Park's famous "window," formed by Bailey's Peak at right and the pointed Carters Peak at left. OK, it's really a "V" -- not a window. In the afternoon, we were to take a different trail to the edge of that gap.
The trail climbs high and abruptly stops, providing views such as these.
Casa Grande.
The V of the Window (at middle right) is about 2000 feet (600 meters) high and is the lowest point in the Chisos Mountain basin. It drains the Oak Creek onto the desert. At its bottom, it is only 10 feet ( 3 meters) wide.
Big Bend National Park's Window. The 5,688 foot (1734 meter) Carter Peak at left and a bit of Bailey's Peak at right. The road in the distance is the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive that links the west side of the park with St. Elana's canyon.
While the Lost Mine Trail is all about climbing high to see great vistas, the Windows Trail stays relatively level and walks through the gulch that leads to the famous Window opening. We spent our afternoon here.
Another trail allows you to look down on the Windows Trail. We've put more pictures of this trail in with our overflow slides.
The trail starts dry -- in fact, both our Camelbacks were drained of water by the time we returned.
This stitched picture shows the end of the trail: the bottom of The Window is polished smooth by water, sand, and wind, Warning: it is slippery even when dry -- with no guardrails to keep you from shooting through to the ground many meters below.
But along the way the river wash burst with blooms. This rope cactus transplants itself when pieces break during floods when rushing water deposits starter shoots downstream.
Even though we were in peak season and this is one of the most popular trails, we only saw three couples besides ourselves. Big Bend National Park is larger than Yosemite -- but gets only a tenth as many visitors. Most Yosemite visitors crowd into a 7 square mile area. If you want lots of room, come here instead. (And then check out our Yosemite pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/YosemiteNationalParkCalifornia2008#slideshow .)
As the canyon narrows, the creek that created it becomes more obvious. The CCC added these steps when they developed the trail. While they have altered nature's hand, the trail would be nearly impassable without their help.
This water flows through the V of the Window -- and then is returned through pumps and pipes to the lodge area.
Gradually we move toward the V.
The couple here provides some scale. Hiking sticks and good boots are a must, even with the CCC's stone steps.
Soon Oak Creek will join this water and all will flow over the V.
Cream colored and smooth, the rock channels Oak Creek as it picks up momentum approaching Big Bend's famous window.
We are now near the end of the canyon, just before it plunges over the V. A hiker before us has abandoned his pack so he could navigate over the slippery rocks more easily. Or maybe so his survivors could use it unscathed.
Here we are at the end. We are looking down. What rises in this picture is actually a downward slope ready to hurl us to the Chihuahuan desert far below. No signs, no guardrails. Just you vs. gravity.
A tornado frozen in stone.
Rock on down.
Little did we know that the V of the Big Bend Window has a trapezoid right in its crotch!
Here we look over the V of Big Bend's Window at the creek that carved it. The water from the creek is collected in the tank (that aspirin-looking object at center) and pumped back uphill to meet the needs of the lodge and visitors' center.
We've put many more pictures (including those from another Chisos Mountain Hike) here: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/TheChisosMountainsAtBigBendNationalPark#slideshow .
We stayed at the Chisos lodge -- a tough place to get into so if you plan to come here, make a reservation years in advance. The lodge does provide a great location for morning and evening photography.
Let's end our Chisos Mountain slides with this Moonrise over crazy Terlingua, Texas, where we spent two nights. Our full moons were no surprise as we timed our trip to Big Bend to allow for a program at the McDonald Observatory. (The program runs when the moon is out and spoils the view for the astronomers who would otherwise hog the telescopes.)
After several days of long hikes in the National Park, we took a restful raft tour down the Rio Grande as it meanders through the Columbia Canyon. All the people we saw that day are in the above picture: none. We and our guide had the river to ourselves, except for a few critters.
The mostly gentle raft trip allowed us to see a Rio Grande canyon from river height. Like the Boquillas and Santa Elena canyons that we hiked through, the Columbia River canyon is a channel where the current has spent ages cutting into the multi-layered igneous rock.
Like this turtle, most visitors stay close to the river and the road that follows it: Texas 170 which many feel is the most scenic road in this huge state.
Besides seeing a lot of turtles, wrens were in abundance. For some reason, they quickly vacated their neighborhood when we took this picture of their mud nests. Something to hide?
Not all the critters here are completely wild. The park has the word "ranch" in the title for a reason. Herds of horses and cattle flourish here and move through side canyons to graze on the verdant vegetation on the river banks. These horses are on the U.S. side. Across this shallow river on the Mexican side, vaqueros sometimes come to round up cattle and horses that stay at the river too long.
This state park is huge at nearly 270,000 square acres! It gets about 2500 visitors a year. Do the math: If they all came at once, they'd each have 100 square acres to themselves -- and would probably be lost.
We'd stretch our feet by exploring some of the side canyons where the force of water has pretty well pulverized the rock on the canyon floor into gravel. As our travel plans do not, for the moment, include conjugal visits, please don't tell the border patrol, but this canyon was in Mexico. We couldn't find the passport control kiosk.
We were a little skeptical of the wisdom of leaving the nearby National Park to spend a day in the state park. However, we found the scenery every bit as spectacular as what was found in the National Park -- and sufficiently different from what's in the park to make the trip worthwhile. In addition, the river was too low inside the National Park to allow raft trips.
Access to the state park from the National Park is by the river road which provides great views of the Rio Grande as it wends its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Over 60 miles of trails start from this road's paved edge, some with elevation changes of 2000 feet.
Some of the hiking sites are just at the edge of the road as we see here with this funky tuff formation being explored by a tuff guy.
We've added many more pictures of this state park at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ColumbiaCanyonRaftingBigBendRanchStatePark#slideshow .
At the very end of March, we left Big Bend National Park and headed north to Fort Davis, named after the fort depicted above. This is one of the best restored/maintained frontier forts. While the US established the first fort in 1854, what we see here was built later after the Civil War. Typically, just under 200 soldiers would be stationed here.
Above are the enlisted men's barracks, now converted into a museum. The fort was named after a famous West Point grad who, as the U.S. secretary of war, sent cavalry on camels to this area. (Camels once roamed this area but had gone extinct 9000 years earlier.) But he's known more for what he did after his cabinet post. Today we remember Jefferson Davis for his service to the Confederacy.
These were the officers quarters. The original quarters were laid out on the true north-south line. They all but disappeared after the fort was abandoned during the Civil War when the Comanche nation took advantage of Anglo confusion and pushed their frontier back over 100 miles. Rebuilt by the U.S. Army after the war to protect the trail between El Paso and San Antonio, these buildings went up on the magnetic north-south axis. Among those who served here to protect the trails from Indians were the Buffalo Soldiers. These were former Black slaves and freemen formed into units starting in 1866. One minority was to fight another.
Officers lived here with their families; bachelors were housed together or sometimes in a spare room with a family. The fort was deactivated in 1891 after the great Comanche nation was finally moved from this area. For years, three great nations warred here: The U.S., Mexico, and the Comanches. Finally the Comanches great chief, Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved onto prosperity as a cattle baron on the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma. Theodore Roosevelt became his hunting buddy. When he surrendered in 1875, Quanah Parker's Comanche people were 30% Anglo or Hispanic -- so successful were kidnapping raids and the integration of those captives into his horse-centric culture. Quanah's mother was a women captured as a 9 year old girl who eventually starved herself to death after Sul Ross returned her as a grown woman to her Anglo family. Her reason: they would not let her return to her tribal family. She failed to greet them as liberators.
Both sides of the 50 year Texas Indian wars were newcomers here during the 18th century. Europeans and their descendants began moving in around 1721, followed by the Plains Indians three decades later. At that time, the area held as many as two million feral horses descended from livestock brought to the continent by the Spanish conquistadors. The Wyoming-area Shoshone tribe spun off a group of superb horseman who, like many Northerners, found their opportunity in Texas. These Plains Indians mastered horsemanship and integrated the animal into their culture -- and moved into the area to exploit it. They were called the Comanches. Before 1800, their biggest enemy was smallpox which may have wiped out half of their population. Then came the White Man's army.
In back of the officers' quarters, we find many foundations excavated from the previous set of quarters that ran along the true north-south axis. This alignment would maximize the number of hours that sunlight would illuminate the interiors. Porches ensured that the full thrust of the mid-day sun would not make those interiors intolerably hot. Texas was settled by Anglos after the Mexican government could not convince enough of its own people to settle in this area. Those Texan rascals revolted when Mexico abolished slavery. They thought they should have the freedom to enslave others and formed their own nation. The Comanches found these Texans easy pickings. Rather than form a standing army, Texas hired small bands of armed men on fast horses and called them the Texas Rangers. Texas joined the US in 1845 and traded off what is today parts of 5 other states in exchange for its considerable debt relief. The US with its army had the resources to defeat the Comanche. The Indians moved to reservations...
...where the Anglos would attack THEM! Finally, three decades after Texas joined the union, peace was established in 1875. In 2010, we found Fort Davis extremely quiet, no doubt because we Texans can pack heat if we keep it hidden. (We are all burning inside which explains the summertime highs here.) Like many small Texas towns, Fort Davis unfolds in a grid centered at its court house where justice is served for Jeff Davis county.
The timing of our trip to the Big Bend area coincided with our scheduled visit to the world-class McDonald Observatory on the far outskirts of Fort Davis. Astronomers keep this place pretty much to themselves; but when the moon is full, they can't see much -- and turn the place over to tourists. Currently researchers here are working on (among lots of other things) the Kepler Mission, trying to find life on other planets. On March 31, 2010, instead, they contented themselves with the likes of us. Four major telescopes are on two adjacent mountains and further boost Texas bragging rights. The first opened in 1939 and was the 2nd largest in the world. In 1968, the Harlan J. Smith Telescope was opened, the 3rd largest in the world at that time. When the Hobby-Eberly Telescope opened in 1997, it was not only revolutionary in design, but also the 2nd largest in the world. OK, none was the biggest when built, but where else will you find so many big ones in one place?
Four very serious research telescopes rise almost 7000 feet atop the Davis Mountains where light pollution is minimal and the arid weather rarely clouds the skies. All of this started when a banker left most of his fortune to the University of Texas in the 1930's with the express intent of creating an observatory. But, even though the stars shine bright deep in the heart of Texas, UT had no astronomy department and enlisted the University of Chicago to help run the place until the 1950's.
The winner of the best dressed award of the four telescopes is the geodesic dome of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. One of the world's largest optical telescopes, its 30 foot mirror can see inside your soul (if only it knew where to point!) Like several of the telescopes at this institution, it's run by a consortium of universities in the US and Europe -- and shares lens times with their researchers. Currently the telescope is studying dark energy; maybe you'd like to contribute some of yours. Supposedly dark energy exists because the universe is expanding (at least for everyone else.) We have here more than just a pretty dome. The Hobby-Eberly's revolutionary design allowed it to be built for under 20% of the cost of comparably sized telescopes. Both design and manufacture were über high tech...
...but the observatory's 130,000 annual visitors are greeted by some beautifully executed low tech items such as this sundial which...
...is about the most accurate I've ever seen. (Daylight savings time is in effect and so you must subtract one hour from this wristwatch. We're about 10 days after the vernal equinox when this picture was taken.
Designed by the Midland, Texas, Rhotenberry Wellen Architects, the visitors' center itself is modern and high functioning -- but has the warm feel of buildings in this area long ago constructed with local materials. Some of the design constraints were extraordinary. Think about it: your visitors come at night and need external lighting to get around this strange and steep place -- yet the astronomers can't have that light polluting their work. And we thought Michelangelo struggled with the separation of light from darkness. While not quite the Sistine Chapel, we see here mortar-less stacked red sandstone from Pecos. Such precise piles form much of the veneer of this building (over a poured concrete shell).
The walls enclose circles -- a common layout for ancient peoples as they study the stars. Sandstone and circles also define the interior space of this museum, cafeteria, and (of course) gift shop.
A modern view of the circles used to watch the stars and sun: The Texas desert's answer to Stonehenge.
Before we started our viewing, we took the opportunity to catch the west Texas sunset at 6,791 ft (2,070 meters) above sea level.
Our twilight appointment was with the 107-inch Harlan J. Smith telescope atop Mount Locke. Our timing was a little late as last year marked the 400th anniversary of Galileo first trying to separate light from the dark with a telescope. Built partially with NASA funds to support planetary missions, the Smith telescope was the third-largest in the world when it opened in 1968.
When astronomers shun this place because the moon is full, visitors get to peek at the universe through this magnificent piece of hardware. Galileo, we are here!
We ended our spring in the Big Bend area as it began: by looking at art in unusual places. While we started with prehistoric art painted on cave walls, we finished in Marfa, Texas, where we visited the Chinati Foundation, named by the minimal artist and über-art critic Donald Judd after the nearby mountains. Judd stopped in Marfa once on his way to Baja -- and kept coming back. The Texas light and the remoteness from New York city were the two great attractions. Finally he scraped together funding to create a most unconventional museum -- one dedicated to showing the work of three artists in permanent exhibitions they helped to design. For instance, the above two artillery sheds hold 100 identically sized aluminum boxes conceptualized by Judd specifically for this space.
Our two-day visit started, appropriately enough for viewing modern art, on April's Fools Day. The two sheds we saw from the outside on the previous slide contain brushed aluminum boxes which interact with the constantly changing west Texas sunlight -- and the audience trudging through on a fixed tour schedule. The 100 untitled sculptures each are 41 X 51 inches by 6 feet wide. Every outside is the same, every inside is different. Besides being a sculptor, Judd was an influential critic who argued that art should be installed carefully. He viewed this museum as a collaboration with two of his best artist buddies that would allow their work to have a permanent exhibition -- and show future curators how they would want their work displayed.
Judd's work is also displayed in long barracks buildings that provide interesting views of both the art and the west Texas world blazing just outside the windows.
Here's another of Judd's boxes displaying a piece of work used to thinking inside the box. The box at upper right describes the subject's typical thought process. Then again, maybe it's an excess of dark energy leaking out of the McDonald Observatory.
Besides the old army base that Judd purchased for the Chinati Foundation, the museum also uses an old textile factory in Marfa to display the chrome and fender works of John Chamberlain. Chamberlain's colorful chaos is the antithesis of Judd's controlled and often monochromatic boxes.
The other artist friend featured in permanent exhibition at the Chinati Foundation is Dan Flavin, master of the fluorescent light. Several of the barracks are dedicated to his work.
Besides the big three of Judd, Chamberlain, and Flavin, others are funded to be temporary artists in residence and given exhibition space. For instance, the Russian Ilya Kabakov populated an entire barracks building with an integrated sculpture or "installation," which recreated an abandoned Soviet Union era elementary school. This demonstrates Kabakov's "conceptual art" where the idea is all important and such things as aesthetics, materials, and even execution are secondary.
If you're into this kind of stuff, we've posted a much longer slide show on the Chinati Foundation at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ChinatiFoundation#slideshow. (Some of you may have already seen this show.)
Thanks for visiting. To see more detail on this park, click on the "X" to get out of the slide show, then click on these links: Pecos Rock Art: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/RockArtOfTheLowerPecosRiverTexas#slideshow . Southeast Big Bend National Park: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/SoutheastBigBendNationalPark#slideshow . Southwest Big Bend National Park:t http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/BigBendNationalParkSouthwestArea#slideshow . Chisos Mountains: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/TheChisosMountainsAtBigBendNationalPark#slideshow . Big Bend Ranch State Park: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ColumbiaCanyonRaftingBigBendRanchStatePark#slideshow . You have previously been invited to see the Chinati Foundation slides at http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/ChinatiFoundation#slideshow. Check out all of our travel pictures at: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels.htm .
