he air is rare at the top of Big Bend National Park, an 800,000-acre expanse of towering mesas and deep archival photograph by Jack Lewis shows a pair of Austinites enjoying one of Big Bend’s most popular features: the South Rim Trail through the Chisos Mountains, a 12.6-mile trek that gains 2,000 feet in elevation. Richard Craig (left) sits on a rocky outcropping and peers through a pair of binoculars, taking in the mesmerizing vistas visible from the trail. There’s an astonishing variety of native wildlife to see here, too, including Carmen Mountains white-tailed deer; Mexican jays with electric-blue plumage; and the Colima warbler, a rare songbird that, in the U.S., can only be found in the Chisos. Craig’s buddy, Kirt Kiester, stands among the rocks and catches his breath under the shade of a bucket hat. That makes sense—this is a hot, hostile environment where temperatures can exceed 100 degrees in the summer. Craig and Kiester’s hike continued to Emory Peak, the highest elevation in the park at 7,832 feet.
