Boating: How to Boat: Advanced: Paddle Sports

The Rio Grande River is a border between Mexico and the United States, but also is the life-blood of Big Bend National Park. Technically, the dividing line between nations is the center of the main channel, but the border once fought over by nations is ignored by Nature.

Ironically, most of the water in the Rio Grande flows in from the south, from Mexico. The American tributaries of the Rio Grande are tapped so heavily for irrigation they offer just a trickle to this landmark river. This is tough country, long inhabited by tough people.

Big Bend National Park offers desert adventure for paddlers willing to venture to the remote park. The Rio Grande-or the Rio Bravo del Norte, as it's called in Mexico-carves through 118 miles of Big Bend. The park itself is 800,000 acres but sees a mere 300,000 people a year, making it one of the largest, yet least visited, parks in the National Park system.

The park includes the canyons of the Rio Grande, a sweeping desert plain rising to modest, isolated mountain ranges. All of it lies under a vast, blue sky. As you might easily imagine, summer temperatures in Big Bend can be blistering. Daytime highs can surpass 100 degrees for weeks. This makes Big Bend a prime off-season destination.

The banks of the Rio Grande form an abrupt contrast between desert uplands and the lush riparian corridor. Both are rich habitat, but are strikingly different. Because of that variety, Big Bend hosts some 450 species of birds and more than 1,200 species of plants. That's more varieties of birds and cacti than any other national park. Whoever said a desert is lifeless? There are even a few black bears living in those isolated mountains.

Besides the living creatures, Big Bend visitors ponder fossils from the dinosaur eras. Paleontologists have found enormous, fossilized pterodactyls here. With a little imagination, it's not difficult to transform circling black vultures into flying dinosaurs.

The Rio carves through limestone, cleaving steep-walled canyons 1,500 feet deep. River trips can be one-day, 10-mile trips, or longer journeys of 33 miles or more.

Just outside the national park is Big Bend Ranch State Park. Access to the river can be arranged on neighboring ranches as well, with a few phone calls and a little diplomacy.

Wow Factor? Reading Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses by flashlight, after a camp dinner and a cold beer along our nation's southern border.

Contact: Superintendent, PO Box 129, Big Bend National Park, TX, 79843. Phone: (915) 477-2251.

No wonder the rest of the world thought America's national parks were such a good idea. But National Parks are victims of their own popularity. Crowds of people have resulted in long lists of rules to protect the parks' wonders for future generations. The Land of 'Wow!' is also the Land of 'No!' Rules vary from park to park and it's the visitor's responsibility to know and follow them.

Fees and permits also vary widely. Congaree Swamp, for example, charges no fees for boating and camping. Yellowstone Park, however, requires a park sticker on every "floating craft," including a float tube.

Thanks to some recent legislation in the United States and Canada, both the US National Park Service and Parks Canada have gone on a fee-spree. The bad news is that services like backcountry camping permits that were free a few years ago may now cost money. The good news is that the money goes toward projects that better serve visitors and the park.

But who can complain? Our National Parks are still the best adventure value in the world. Where else can you experience wonders like this? No where but the Land of Wow!

Ben Long is a regular contributor to RIVER Magazine, a national magazine dedicated to moving water and the activities surrounding it. For more information on Paddling the Land of Wow and a list of more National Parks that feature outstanding rivers, look for the June 1999 issue of RIVER in Barns & Noble, and specialty outdoor shops in your area, or contact RIVER at 877-582-5440.