Lost in Lajitas 
Climb Every Mountain
Or at least the seven ranges in Texas that you can most easily explore. From hikes in the Guadalupes and bike rides in the Chinatis to cattle driving in the Bofecillos and bobcat spotting in Hueco Tanks, here’s a guide to the best activities our highest heights have to offer. And remember: It’s always cooler at the top.
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Chisos Mountains
Location: Big Bend National Park, southern Brewster County
Highest Peak: Emory Peak (7,835 feet)
Geology: The Chisos are mostly igneous rock formed roughly during the same geological remodeling spree that created the Davis and Chinati mountains. The Big Bend area marks the boundary of the Ouachitas (an ancient eastern mountain range) with the newer western Laramide system.
Resources: nps.gov/bibe; 432-477-2251.
To stay: Cabin 103 at Chisos Mountains Lodge (chisosmountainslodge.com; 877-386-4383) has the only unobstructed view of the Window but is often booked up to a year in advance.
Tip: The Lodge’s restaurant improved dramatically when Forever Resorts took it over and is now well worth a visit.
The view from Lost Mine Trail. Photograph by Laurence Parent
The jagged ring of the Chisos Mountains, the southernmost mountain range in the U.S. and the only one to be fully contained within a national park, is probably the state’s best-known natural landmark. Every year 350,000 people, most of them Texans, drive out to the Chisos Basin to hike along the paved Window View Trail and watch the sun set between Amon Carter and Vernon Bailey peaks. But that’s not to say the Chisos are too crowded or predictable. On the contrary, they offer rigorous—and jaw-droppingly beautiful—hiking in one of Texas’s most biodiverse regions.
Day hikes, like Lost Mine Trail, the South Rim, and Emory Peak, are justly popular, but they don’t really give a sense of the amazing ecological transition from desert to mountain. The best way to experience this is to hike Juniper Canyon Trail. Make your camp at Robber’s Roost or Twisted Shoe. The route begins with a long slog along the desert floor before ascending steeply to a forested pass under Townsend Point. From there it continues around Toll Mountain and up to the top of the Chisos. As you climb, look out for rare birds, like the Colima warbler and Mexican jay, and unusual orchids, such as the saprophytic coralroot or the Hidalgo ladies tresses. By the time you reach Emory Peak, there’s a good chance you’ll be walking through cool, misty clouds—even if it’s more than 100 degrees down at your campsite. From there, you can enjoy the best view in Texas—out over the rim of the range and across the desert for hundreds of miles in every direction. In the course of nine miles or so you’ll have gained four thousand feet; by the time you’re back at your tent, I bet you’ll have lost roughly the same number of pounds.
Although none of the other ranges in Big Bend are quite as noteworthy or as accessible, the park’s expanses are an open invitation to more-experienced adventurers. You can camp almost anywhere, and though the views may be less dramatic, you won’t have to share them with anybody. (I’m certain that fewer than ten people climb Rosillos Peak each year.) For starters, try the eleven-mile Dodson Trail through the scorching Sierra Quemada, or Burned Mountains, which are the southern foothills of the Chisos; this trail joins Juniper Canyon Trail to form part of the Outer Mountain Loop, a thirty-mile trek that usually takes three days. The most remote (and maybe toughest) trails in the park are Strawhouse and Telephone Canyon, which go up into the secret peaks of the Sierra del Carmen and Sierra del Caballo Muerto. Camp at one of the sites along Old Ore Road, a four-wheel-drive trail that passes points of historical interest, like an ore tramway, as well as natural features like Ernst Tinaja, a rock pool that is one of the few reliable water sources for wildlife.
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