Cenizo Journal Summer 2016 | Page 23

T he world is made of nooks and crannies. Traveling the broad rivers of concrete, to and fro, day to day, it’s easy to forget that the majority of real estate is still devoid of homes, offices, identical stores and manmade objects. We wear channels through the world with our feet and wheels, but outside the familiar paths there are different patterns worn by wind and water; there are living histo- ries and vibrant traditions still being written. When your family is young, it’s all the more important to show your children that the world is more than an endless repetition of macadam and manicured parks. When I was young in New England, we used to explore the New Hampshire woods and streams. I loved the old stone walls that crisscrossed the forests—reminders of the old farms now covered by young growth. It made me think of the settlers who built them two and three centuries before, clearing the old-growth trees by hand, ploughing rocky soil, piling the stones to mark their fields. I still love to find traces of long-vanished footprints, and the Trans-Pecos is full of them, human and geologic. Now that I have my own children, I think a lot about the places I want to show them, the landscapes that will shape and inform their con- cepts of history and the earth. I often tell visitors to go see Ernst Tinaja. It’s a familiar conversation: I say the name, and they struggle to wrap the unfamiliar words into a pack- age that will mean something to them. I write it down, then explain that a tinaja is a naturally-occurring hole eroded into rock by the swirling eddies of passing water. Ernst Tinaja is an arroyo, a watercourse that remains dry in the absence of rain. When it rains, the local topography funnels the water to create a temporary river (or, for those from less arid climates, a creek). Sometimes the water hits a bump. The bump makes the water swirl. The swirl, over time, erodes the limestone, creating a bigger bump. Eventually, a hollow place is carved out of the bed of the arroyo, which holds water when it rains, a precious rarity in the Chihuahuan desert, and an important ecological boon for plants, animals and humans. Ernst Tinaja is not so much a trail in Big Bend National Park as it is a pleas- ant scramble up the arroyo (check the weather forecast first, lest a distant storm place you in danger of a flash flood). The walls of the wide, shallow canyon are strongly layered bands of cherty limestone and sandstone, mark- ing the ebb and flow of ancient oceans. The crazed hump and tilt of these bands are a remembrance of tectonic plates beneath our feet, slow behe- moths floating like bumper boats on a sea of magma. The power of the quiet earth is such that massive sheets of stone buck and ripple. Purple and red sandstone swirls reveal fossils every- where, to the most casual observer. Whole cliffs of swallows’ nests are rem- iniscent of stone-age cities. It is surreal. Timeless. Forty minutes or so from Panther Junction. For me it’s a perfect place to bring children, because there are few places I’ve been where geologic time and the awesome forces of earth movement are laid so plainly bare to the naked eye. It’s one thing to explain to a little one about eons and extinctions and the powers that make and destroy moun- tains; it’s quite another to be able to point to a stripe of rock, wiggling crazi- ly, and explain that the space between it and the one below it is a million years or an ice age or the receding of a great inland sea. Not very far to the west of Ernst Tinaja lies the Chisos Basin, and there near the lodge is the Lost Mine Trail. For older children, capable of a some- times-challenging day hike, the Lost Mine offers mystery, education and sweeping vistas of the desert. The hike takes its name from Lost Mine Peak, which in turn is so called because of the legend of a secret mine whose location was lost when the workers were all killed by Comanche. Many have sought the treasure, but it has yet to be found. The hike is about five miles long, and the way up to the top can be a challenge; but the walk back to the car is delightfully downhill, and the views of Juniper Canyon and the sur- rounding peaks and forests of the Chisos are well worth the effort. There is a trail guide available at the continued on page 24 THE BEER FROM OUT HERE Cenizo Third Quarter 2016 23