Big Bend National Park

The largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, 801,163 acres named after a great bend in the Rio Grande. It holds more than 1,200 species of plants, over 450 of birds, fifty-six reptiles and seventy-five mammals. The Chisos Mountains stand inside it, the only range in the country contained entirely within a national park’s boundary. Sea fossils, dinosaur bones and volcanic dikes sit in the same ground, and the human record runs back nearly 10,000 years through pioneers, ranchers and miners.