Nature Notes Previous Episodes

It doesn’t take an archeologist to recognize it was an important place for prehistoric peoples. In a limestone cliff near the Chinati Mountains, two openings give on to a hundred-foot-wide chamber. For thousands of years, people returned to this cave … Continue reading →

From places as distant as present-day San Angelo and Albuquerque, the first Spanish expeditions encountered one particular Native tribe throughout the plains and deserts of West Texas and New Mexico – a people known as the Jumano. The Jumano traded … Continue reading →

There is “an involuntary hunger for greenness which lies at the heart of all desert-lovers,” novelist Lawrence Durrell claimed. He saw it in North African Bedouins. It’s true in West Texas, too. In our area, there’s no better cure for … Continue reading →

No place can more quickly erase a vision of the desert as monotony than Big Bend National Park. From canyon to summit, there’s a 6,000-foot range in elevations, and the park’s 1,200 square-miles are a labyrinth of arroyos, washes, mesas, … Continue reading →

If, as Emerson said, “the health of the eye demands a horizon,” Big Bend National Park is the ultimate tonic for the eyes. Visitors are awed by expansive desert-mountain vistas. The story that landscape tells about the history of life … Continue reading →