Water In the Desert
Looking at the vast expanse of desolate and forbidding terrain in a place as remote as the Chihuahuan desert that includes Texas’ Big Bend National Park, it seems as though water was never there. Yet the effects of water are everywhere if you look for the signs, and water is there in the desert if you know where to look. For the hard people who lived and worked in this vast expanse, the only thing more valuable than the infrequent rain was a reliable spring, a place to fill a canteen, water livestock, prepare food, and even hunt other animals attracted to a known water supply. Mule Ears Spring is one of these reliable springs.
The trail to Mule Ears Springs is one of the more accessible yet desolate hikes in BBNP. The trailhead is just off the main road through the park, and the trail meanders a few miles along a hillside strewn with 35 million-year-old volcanic rock and ash that, but for the scraggly brush and ocotillo, could be on Mars. But even hiking through that rough landscape, the path tracks across several gullies, dry channels created by rushing water from the infrequent deluges that come to the desert.
Walking this trail is silent except for my footsteps, the calls of a few birds, and the occasional scampering of lizards running for cover. On this bright and sunny day, a day I started a bit too late, there was no breeze, and the sun was brilliant in a cloudless sky. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t too hot, only in the upper 90s F, and as they say, it’s a dry heat. Still, I’m thankful for the extra water I’m carrying.
Eventually, the path drops into a dry creek bed, evident from the sand molded by rushing water and the light green mesquite growing throughout the channel. While there is no water on the bone-dry surface, lingering moisture underground allows the hardy mesquite trees, spread throughout the region by cattle that munched on the sweet seed pods, to thrive. Here, a few miles away from the foothills of the Chisos Mountains, the wash is shallow; as you move up the wash towards the hills, it deepens, and there is more water underground as a few cottonwood trees appear in the wash. Cottonwoods are always a sign of moisture, as they require far more water than the scrub or mesquite and typically grow in or near creeks and rivers.
Continuing along the trail, a smudge of green appears at the base of the nearing foothills, standing out clearly against the dark brown and grey rocks. Water that fell last year or ten years ago in the Chisos Mountains trickles down through a fault in the granite that forms the mountains and percolates out of the ground here, creating a spring marked by the green growing up out of the desert floor, a neon sign advertising “water is here!” to anyone paying attention.
The spring is an oasis of life. After the silence and brightness of the trail, as I enter the spring area, birds are chirping, wasps and bees are buzzing, and the soft green shade of trees and reeds surrounds me. Lush vines grow on huge boulders surrounding the spring, and I can hear splashes: Rio Grande Leopard Frogs, startled by my approach, jumping off the rocks into the spring-fed pond. This population is entirely isolated; they cannot spread from this spring, although they are found in other areas of the park.
Early settlers knew of this spring; a large stone livestock pen has remained here for over 100 years, when the climate was milder, and ranchers ran cattle, sheep, and goats in the region. The rusted remains of pipes used to move water from the spring to the livestock pen also remain. Before Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo settlers, Native Americans who lived in and moved through the Big Bend region no doubt knew about this spring.
Up until the 1940s, the Big Bend region was cooler and wetter. While it’s been a desert for about 8,000 years, up to about 100 years ago, there was enough grass and vegetation to sustain cattle, sheep, goats and enough water for subsistence farming. Over-grazing in the years before and just after the opening of the National Park resulted in soil loss and allowed desert plants to replace grasses. The entire region is in a 24-year megadrought, the driest period in the last 1,800 years. The Rio Grande River, which forms the southern border of the park and the US with Mexico, often slows to a trickle in the park and sometimes even dries up completely.
The trail is much more quiet on my way back to the trailhead. Even the lizards have decided the sun is too warm and are hiding under brush. Because the trail curves around the large hill near the trailhead and dips down the hillside, you can’t see the end of the trail until you come up and over that last rise before the trailhead parking area. My buddy had turned back early and was sitting in his pickup with the air conditioner on blast, and we had a jug full of ice water. It’s good not to have to dig under a cottonwood tree to find water in the desert.
