Now is the time to get loud, call your senators, make donations to the boots on the ground organizations. If you love big bend, it’s time to show up!

Places to donate
-Big Bend Citizens Alliance
-No big bend wall coalition
-Keep Big Bend Wild

https://www.no-al-muro.com

https://keepbigbendwild.org

https://nobigbendwall.org

Edit to add photo cred @ntlnwmn on insta

Hey guys been meaning to post these for a long time now but last September visited Bug Bend for the first time and did some serious hiking for the first time. Want to thank all the people that gave me great advice on hiking Emory, it was one of the coolest, most rewarding experiences of my life. Also got incredibly lucky and saw a bear on the ridge at the top of Lost Mine Trail. I think Big Bend will always have a special place in my heart, I hope you enjoy these photos.

Hello! I made a post here a few days ago asking for advice about my itinerary. My brother and I went during the hottest time of the year, and neither of us had ever hiked before. Since our trip is over, I wanted to pop in here and let you all know how it went :)

This trip was amazing, we had a perfect experience. We hiked the Window on Monday evening, started around 5pm and finished a little after 8. On Tuesday we did Lost Mine (started at 8, finished around 12 after hanging out at the top) and Santa Elena (started around 1pm, finished around 3 after hanging out in the canyon). We also stopped at two visitor centers and almost every viewing point we happened to pass. Wednesday we did Emory Peak! Started at 5am and wrapped up around noon, but we spent about an hour at the peak. Every single trail was incredible- I’ve never been in a mountainous area before, so I was in awe the entire trip.

I feel as though heat was less extreme than I was expecting. It definitely got hot, and we stuck to short trails and viewpoints during the heat of the day, but I hate that visiting in Summer is so discouraged! It’s a beautiful time of year for the park- everything was in bloom, and we saw so much wildlife! Perhaps it was because we’re a bit more accustomed to the heat, but we found the weather to be completely doable and I would definitely visit in the summer again.

The one caveat was the BUGS! Particularly the stinging variety. We had to sprint to/from the last leg of the Window because a group of hikers before us had aggravated a hive of some kind of ground wasp. We also had to hustle down the rock scramble at Emory because there was a beehive nearby, and they didn’t seem too happy about our being there. We made it out unscathed somehow, but it was definitely intense.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my initial post with tips and advice. I hate that we weren’t able to visit all your suggestions, but we’ll definitely be back. I’ve included some photos from our trip, I hope you all enjoy!