South Texas Desert: Hiking Big Bend

Paul Schnieder, author of "The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket," is best known for writing about the coast of New England, but here, in this wonderfully descriptive piece, he walks us through the other end of the topographic spectrum: the desert trails of the Big Bend National Park. There, Schnieder writes, he hiked through cactus gardens under the gigantic cartoonish flowers of 16-foot-high century plants, saw mysterious Paleo-Indian paintings on canyon walls, found fossils, walked through ancient canyons, and admired the Chisos Range, looking like a "vision of Mordor when backlit and approached from the north. Big Bend, the writer observes, "celebrates the achievements of trilobites and bivalves more than those of mere humans, and is not therefore a place to tally your achievements and plan your personal impact on the world."  In the end, Schneider has just one warning: Big Bend is generally hotter than hell.