Chisos Mountains

About the Chisos Mountains

The rugged, blue-hazed heart of Big Bend National Park, the Chisos Mountains rise like an island of cool, wooded high country out of the vast Chihuahuan Desert that surrounds them. It is the only mountain range entirely contained within a single national park, and climbing into it feels like stepping into another world - oak, pine, and maple replacing cactus and creosote as the elevation climbs.

That island of high-country habitat is why the Chisos hold birds and wildlife found almost nowhere else in Texas - the Colima Warbler, the Mexican Jay, and, in recent years, black bears returning from Mexico. The Chisos Basin, ringed by jagged peaks, and the trails climbing to Boot Canyon and the South Rim offer some of the most dramatic scenery in the state.

For a photographer, the Chisos are endlessly rewarding: the light on the rock walls at sunrise and sunset, the famous V-shaped notch of the Window framing the desert beyond, and weather that can wrap the peaks in cloud one moment and blazing clarity the next.

A note from behind the lens: work the edges of the day, when low sun sets the cliffs glowing and the Window frames a burning horizon - the Chisos reward those out before dawn and still shooting after sunset.