Pine Canyon Hike & Dinosaur Exhibit ~ 200ft High Waterfall 10Apr25

We headed out 7 miles on 4WD Glenn Springs Rd, to the Pine Canyon trailhead. Crusher Too was fine for the travel but we crossed many dry washes that if filled would make the road dicey. Today we hiked into the Chisos Mtns from the outside, rather than from the basin. 

Pine Canyon trail was offered an awesome hike up about 1Kft over ~2.5mi from high desert floor to a gorgeous canyon filled with Ponderosa and juniper and culminating in a 200ft waterfall. The trail actually led right toward Lost Mine Pk, to which we'd basically climbed yesterday from the other side!

The Mexican juniper here is different than ours in CO & AZ... it's droopy. There are lots of other pines here too like those above and the 1st one we saw on the saw up.

The canyon became tighter and more rugged as we climbed into it. We didn't see water till right at the end as is careened over the sheer rock face of a cliff onto the rhyolite rock debris below. We did scramble up to get our faces in the drops. 

On the way down the canyon we did notice a fire in Mexico and noted that even at the TH here we were 3Kft above the 1Kft elevation of the Rio Grande, and our campsite. I frankly thought this was the coolest hike we did in BBNP though Kala thought that was Lost Mine... many fewer people here (just 2 other cars in the lot) and reminds me of hiking the Chiracahuas near Tuscon... a sky island like the Chisos ~ from desert to alpine.

We downed some Gatorade and headed out to the Fossil Discovery Exhibit north of Panther Junction. It too was a blast. It was getting hot and it was an outside exhibit but well worth the trip. We learned that Big Bend is the largest and most prolific place in the US to find dinosaur fossils ~ we did not know that. Kala is shown with another bird brain (heh heh), which is a skeleton of fossils of the largest flying living being ever (it's bones are hollow).

After a great day in BB we headed back at camp we made tasty skottle fajitas.