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Big Bend National Park
Desert, river canyons and mountains on the Texas-Mexico border
Where the Rio Grande swings in a great arc along the Mexican border, Texas holds its wildest corner. Big Bend National Park covers about 1,252 square miles (3,242 km²) of the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest protected expanse of that desert in the United States. Within it rise the Chisos Mountains, the only mountain range in the country entirely contained in a national park, topped by 7,832-foot (2,387 m) Emory Peak. Along the river, limestone canyons such as Santa Elena drop 1,500 feet (460 m) to the water.
The park's elevation range creates sky islands of oak, pine and juniper above the desert floor, and that variety supports more than 1,200 plant species and more than 450 bird species, more than any other national park. Fossils of dinosaurs and the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus have been found here, and archeological sites date back nearly 10,000 years. The state of Texas bought the land and deeded it to the federal government, and the park was established on June 12, 1944.
The park manages about 118 miles (190 km) of the Rio Grande, the international boundary, and faces protected areas in Mexico across the river. At Boquillas Crossing, visitors with passports can cross by rowboat to the Mexican village of Boquillas del Carmen. Remote and far from city lights, Big Bend is also an International Dark Sky Park, with some of the darkest skies in the lower 48 states.