| There's nothing like
standing at the Santa Elena Canyon overlook at 4:00 in the morning. On
clear nights you can see forever, a perfect place to watch the stars set
as they slowly rotate behind the massive, mystical, monolith. Truly
surreal. Earlier that night I
decided it was time to try Santa Elena Canyon, I had already photographed
bluebonnets with the Chisos Mountains and Castellan Peak, I needed to get
them with Big Bend's other major attraction.
At 6:oo am I drove to the Santa
Elena trail head and started loading my backpack with camera gear, a
little food and enough water to last for a long morning. The light was
just bright enough so I didn't need to carry a flashlight, I hiked down to
the edge of the Rio Grande river but didn't spot any flowers.
From the river I could have followed
the trail up into the canyon for some spectacular views but since I was
looking for flowers I decided to hike along the creek beds and see if I
could get lucky. It wasn't long before I spotted several large patches of
bluebonnets mixed with other flowers on a small hill overlooking the
creek. Needless to say, it was an fantastic morning photographing more
flowers at Big Bend.
George Hosek |
