BY SHANNON KING

I ’ m happiest when I spend my nights around campfires . Hidden in the spotted hills of the desert . In complete control , and complete surrender .

Crossing Maravillas Creek south of Marathon , and approaching Double Mills , the ranches exceed imagination . Temperature rises fifteen degrees as we descend in elevation . A welcome change to this January weather .

With arm resting on the open truck window I drive , soaking in the wind and sun . Gallo del Cielo by Tom Russell plays in the background . An appropriate introduction to a land once terrorized by the infamous Mexican bandit Pancho Villa .

Comparable in age to the Appalachians , within the Ouachita Fold Belt , Los Caballos ( the horses ) forms a series of folded white rock bands along both sides of the highway – uplifted between 318 to 400 million years ago . A vision of horsemen riding in columns across the high desert . Tall in the foreground of the Del Norte- Santiago range , a much newer formation of only 40 to 60 million years . The combination of which marks a fusion of “ young ” and “ old ” mountains , unmatched in the rest of North America .

Opened in 1948 when Texas Parks acquired land from the Combs

Cattle Company , Black Gap Wildlife Management Area encompasses 103,000 acres of natural Chihuahuan Desert . Home to one of few re-established herds of desert bighorn sheep , and the largest WMA in Texas .

Once occupying multiple mountain ranges in the Trans-Pecos area , bighorn sheep were estimated to number around 2,500 prior to 1880 . By the mid-1940s they were sparce , and by the early 60s had been extirpated – rooted out and destroyed almost completely . Protective measures kicked in as early as 1903 , and in 1945 significant restoration efforts began in Texas .