Easy Walks
(See Dugout Wells and the Window Loop Trail in theBest Sights.) The Rio Grande Village Nature Trail, a three-quarter-mile loop that tracks through thick, junglelike vegetation up to an overlook, is one of the better birding locales in the park in the spring and fall. Other short walks, both on the west side of the park, lead into Tuff Canyon and to the Burro Mesa pouroff.

Short Hikes
These are moderate hikes that require some exertion but can be enjoyed by anyone in decent physical shape. In addition to Santa Elena Canyon, Boquillas Canyon, and Grapevine Hills from the Best Sights list, try the Pine Canyon and Chimney trails. The Pine Canyon trailhead is reached via the unimproved Glenn Springs road. The 4-mile round-trip hike begins in the sotol foothills on the eastern flank of the Chisos and climbs through grasslands about a mile before entering the narrow, lushly vegetated canyon. The trail, which rises abruptly at times inside the canyon, terminates at the base of a two-hundred-foot pouroff that turns into a spectacular waterfall following summer rains. This is a wonderfully cool and uncrowded location for a picnic. Allow two and one half to three hours round trip. The Chimneys Trail, a slightly longer, 4.8-mile round trip from the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, is notable for weird rock formations and the most interesting Indian pictographs in the park. Allow three to four hours.

Mesa De Anguila, reached from Lajitas, contains several ill-defined trails with absolutely no shade; it is recommended only during winter. So why bother? For knockout panoramas of Santa Elena Canyon from the top looking down. Allow two to three days.

The Mariscal Mountain Trails can be equally confusing and intimidating in hot weather but offer similarly rewarding perspectives of the least explored and the most remote canyon in the park. At the northern extreme of the mountain, eighteen miles from the eastern end of the River Road, is the Mariscal Mine, an abandoned quicksilver operation spread over two dozen structures, as well as the ruins of several houses. Watch your step here. The area is pocked with mineshafts, and construction materials may be contaminated with mercury.

Telephone Canyon, Strawhorse, and Marufo Vega Trails in the eastern extreme of the park are the roughest, toughest, most primitive, and most hard-to-follow hiking routes in the park. They wind through canyons, washes, and scrub brush in the moonscape tableau of the Deadhorse Mountains. For experts only.

The South Rim, Juniper Canyon, Dodson Trail, and Blue Creek Ranch Grand Tour is a three-day minimum, thirty-mile march dropping out of the Chisos onto the desert. The route follows poorly marked trails traversing rugged terrain with rapid variations in elevation and no water or shade.

River Route: Every year, a few hardy long-distance trekkers walk along the river from Brushy Canyon at the park's eastern extreme all the way to Santa Elena Canyon on the west. This requires several ascents and descents of up to two thousand feet. Allow ten days.