Marfa Flights: Aerial Views of Big Bend Country

by Paul V. Chaplo, T. Lindsay Baker (Foreword by), Lawrence John Francell (Introduction)

Overview

Take an unforgettable sky excursion over Big Bend with photographer Paul Chaplo as he captures the shapes, textures, and colors of the craggy, weathered landforms people usually see only from the ground—and some places no photographer has gone before. Flying from Marfa, and hanging precariously from the open door of an aircraft, Chaplo shares a hawk's eye view of a fiercely beautiful region, revealing the stark and magnificent landscapes carved by the force of eons of wind and water on the arid, mountainous country along the Rio Grande.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623491789
Publisher:	Texas A&M University Press
Publication date:	08/20/2014
Series:	Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities , #26
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	119 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

PAUL V. CHAPLO is a professional photographer specializing in corporate and architectural photography. His creative work  has been exhibited in museums around the country, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. He lives in Arlington, Texas.

Read an Excerpt

Marfa Flights

Aerial Views of Big Bend Country

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By Paul V. Chaplo

Texas A&M University Press

Copyright © 2014 Paul V. Chaplo
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-178-9

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CHAPTER 1

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

The Flight from Marfa, Texas

1. Marfa Flats and Haystacks

West of the Marfa Municipal Airport

The shadow of the Cessna 172 used to take all the photographs in this book glides over the desert floor below us at low altitude as we cross the Old County Road between Marfa and Bloys Camp, where the famous religious cowboy camp meetings were held. In the distance are the twin peaks known locally as the Haystacks.

2. Departing Marfa

Flight to Pinto Canyon

Flying from Marfa, we follow Pinto Canyon Road southwest across the Ryan Flat. The road appears like a ruler–straight line drawn by an engineer to make the most efficient route across this open country heading toward Pinto Canyon. In the distance are Long Draw and the Oak Hills. The open country clears my mind of Dallas worries. This is another world to me, the beginning of a journey. My old world of tall buildings and big roads is fading in the prop wash of the Cessna. Here the landscape begins to overpower the rectilinear marks of mankind. Texas Ranch Road 2810 shrinks in artifice against the canvas of the Marfa Flats.

3. Marfa Yacht Club

West of Marfa

A wise person once said that to understand water, go to the desert. Near Marfa are these playas, or dried lakebeds that temporarily hold rainwater. As I see the dry earth below, I am starting to think about how I take water for granted. Some locals told me that this dry playa was the Marfa Yacht Club. I still don't know if that was an inside joke. The sharp lines of ranch roads and fences cut across these large organic pond shapes. A muddy brown water hole for cattle punctuates one of the green lake beds. The tiny lines are trails formed by the hooves of cattle wandering around what is left of the water hole. I've never been in a desert before and I learn from my pilot, much to my surprise, that Marfa gets most of its rain in the summer, especially July. It is April now and the skies are clear. In the mornings, the temperature hovers around freezing, then warms as the sun rises.

4. Marfa Flats

West of Marfa

Dirt roads geometrically divide the plane of the Marfa Flats in the ranchland surrounding Marfa. Here ranchers still raise Highland Hereford cattle, much as their ancestors did generations ago, but the country is changing—Marfa is a contemporary art outpost with national notoriety and the borderlands are the focal point of intense federal law enforcement presence.

5. Diverging Road and Railroad

Marfa, Texas

Texas Highway 90 (left) makes a northwest beeline for Valentine, Texas, across the high desert. The Union Pacific Railroad runs parallel to the road, then veers away to bypass difficult terrain. Marfa was founded in the 1880s as a Southern Pacific Railroad water stop for steam locomotives. Hanna Marie Strobridge, a railroad executive's wife, named the town after a character in a novel that she had read, most likely The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

6. Velvet Hills

Twenty-seven miles southwest of Marfa

Pinto Canyon Road cuts a graceful winding line as it follows the contours of the Oak Hills, which look like undulating velvet. Even on this approach heading southwest, the aerial view begins to reveal the varied textures of the land in Big Bend, which is foreign to my eyes. I already feel the wonder of leaving my ordinary world as my aerial "road trip" begins. I begin to snap images with my two digital cameras to get ready for what lies ahead. One camera has a normal lens, the other a very wide zoom lens.

7. Juniper-Dotted Valley

Stream bed west of Marfa

Juniper and cedar congregate along a stream bed where the tributaries reach for the hills to catch the water from occasional rain showers. The green of the conifers is a striking contrast against the sandy color of the rolling hills. The distribution of the trees seems like polling results for the presence of water. Since Marfa's founding in the 1880s, ranches, which needed water for cattle, and the railroad, which required water for steam locomotives, vied for water rights.

8. End of the Road

Texas Ranch Road 2810

In the foreground, the road to Petan Ranch headquarters (right) intersects Pinto Canyon Road, which continues toward the hills. Petan Ranch is still a working operation, founded by W. H. Cleveland, who ranched in the area from 1885 until his retirement at age eighty. Ahead lies an abrupt change of landscape where the paved road that sped across the flatlands becomes a winding dirt road that vanishes into the badlands. A high-clearance vehicle is recommended for the breathtaking drive beyond this point. In the distance (top, center) is Chinati Peak.

9. Into the Abyss

Pinto Canyon

Pinto Canyon Road enters the frame (lower right), then plunges off the edge of the plateau into Pinto Canyon, where it traces a serpentine path descending into a hobbit-like landscape. Farther below, to the left of where the road straightens, is the site of a defunct gold and silver mine. Just to the right of that is a ranch airstrip. Old Mexican cedars create shade along Pinto Creek in the valley. In the distance are the Rio Grande and the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1914 Texas Ranger O. C. Dowe almost shot Millie Wilson, the daughter of a local rancher, while tracking smugglers in this canyon. Ranger Dowe drew a bead with his rifle, then realized that his target was a beautiful young woman. The two were married a year later, and Dowe often recounted that the first time he met his wife he almost shot her. Today Mexican smugglers, or mules, bring drugs into the United States through this rugged area. Locals advised that when I drove there to "be out by dark."

10. Chinati Mountains

East of Texas Ranch Road 2810

This scenic area is in the Chinati Mountains State Natural Area, which is Texas state land that is closed to the public. The buildings (lower left) are a law enforcement radio facility to allow communications over the mountains. A helicopter pad nearby allows the site to be serviced. The Chinati name is derived from the Apache word for mountain pass, ch'íná'itíh. A hint of Pinto Canyon Road is visible (far right) as it descends into the Rio Grande valley.

11. Chinati Peak

Twenty-five miles southwest of Marfa

Chinati Peak is the 7,723-foot snaggle-toothed remnant of the largest volcano in Trans-Pecos Texas, which was formed about thirty-two million years ago. The rock is mostly ancient lava that flowed and contorted in strange claw-like shapes visible from the air. I chose this image for the fantastic shape of the peak. The ragged edge seems like a child's seashore castle cast by dripping sand; yet here is a sleeping supervolcano that would impact the world if it erupted today.

12. Precipice

Detail of Chinati Peak

The miniscule white dots are buildings that sit on the precarious edge of the massive Chinati Peak. The scale of these mountains dwarfs mankind's tiny marks as we fly over this remote restricted area where hikers are not allowed. Here is where lava flowed from a massive volcano until the chamber under the mountain was emptied, then the volcano collapsed into the hole under its own weight, creating a caldera. It is the grave of a volcano that fell into the earth. The Chinati Caldera is on the list of the world's largest supervolcanoes. I included this closeup view to show better the detail of the monstrous shape of the mountain that seems ready to swallow the tiny buildings near its gnarly crag.

13. A Thousand Mount Saint Helens

Chinati Mountains

Representing the calm after an ancient geologic storm, the Chinati Mountains are a small souvenir of the most violent volcano that ever erupted in Texas. The cataclysmic eruption sent out an estimated 262 cubic miles of superheated ash that exploded miles into the air, then raced across the surrounding land at about one hundred miles per hour, for forty miles in all directions, burning and burying everything in its path. The Chinati volcano, about thirty-two million years ago, exceeded any eruption in modern times, including Krakatau, Indonesia, and Vesuvius, Italy.

CHAPTER 2

ALONG TEXAS HIGHWAY 118

Heading South from Alpine, Texas

14. Cathedral Mountain Silhouette

East-southeast of Marfa

Cathedral Mountain rises like a Gothic ruin from the One-O-One Flats. Haley's Peak, the 6,800-foot summit, is named after Lawrence Haley, who operated a 15,000-head sheep ranch on 37,000 acres of land there in the mid-1880s. Early explorers described the Trans-Pecos plains as land covered with luxuriant grasses. High stocking rates of livestock, wildfires, and erosion led to rangeland degradation. Currently Cathedral Mountain Lodge operates a restaurant in this area that offers scenic views of the legendary ranch.

15. Mountain Ridges at Sunrise

North of Cathedral Mountain, looking southeast

On my first flight, we took off from Marfa in the early-morning darkness, headed east toward Alpine, then south along Texas Highway 118. As the sun rose near Cathedral and Goat mountains, I could see the layered ridges of the Del Norte Mountains to the east, looking over Calamity Creek, which takes its name from disastrous flash floods. The peaceful, dreamy mood of the dawn light of this scene appealed to me.

16. Goat Mountain

Southwest of Alpine

Viewed from the southeast in the morning light, Goat Mountain, a layer cake of volcanic ash and lava, rises to an elevation of 6,750 feet, about 1,750 feet above the surrounding lowlands. On the other side of the mountain is an old smugglers' route coming up from Mexico, still in use today. The low-angle light accents the soft texture of the rippled terrain as seen from the air.

17. Canyons on Nine Point Mesa

Sixteen miles west of Persimmon Gap

The high-contrast side lighting reveals the ruggedly beautiful terrain of this remote part of Nine Point Mesa. From left to right are Pipeline Canyon and Cartwright Canyon. In the distance, looking south across Nine Point Draw, are the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. Here the ridges lead the eyes into the distance, expressing the vastness of this uniquely Texas land.

18. Looking into Pipeline Canyon

Nine Point Mesa

Away from the tourists driving on Texas Highway 118 are these dramatic escarpments and valleys on the southeast corner of Nine Point Mesa. I captured this dramatic view as we dipped the left wing of our Cessna to look almost straight down into the canyon below. Details such as this photograph are part of the visual narrative of this book, much like a close-up of a person's face in a movie, to reveal an expression.

19. A New Home for Bighorn Sheep

Nine Point Mesa Ranch

In a joint venture of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Sul Ross State University, the Texas Bighorn Society, and Nine Point Mesa Ranch, this mesa is being stocked with desert bighorn sheep. The animals are being captured on Elephant Mountain, thirty miles away, and then transported by helicopter. The bighorn reintroduction effort in the Big Bend region has been a particular success. I felt wonder seeing the titillating shape of the mesa top from the air, especially the ribbonlike edge.

20. Corazones Mountains

Terlingua Ranch

East Corazones Peak (center) rises 5,045 feet above East Corazones Draw, looking southwest toward the Christmas Mountains. To the left of the mountains near the shadow of Whitehouse Mountain is Terlingua Ranch Lodge and the gravel runway of the Terlingua Ranch Airport. In the farthest distance (top), twenty-seven miles away, is the downstream mouth of Santa Elena Canyon where it emerges from the cliff face of Mesa de Anguila and the Sierra Ponce.

21. Marfa Lights, Backstage

West of Texas Highway 118

Cathedral Mountain is toward the north, with the OT Mesa in the foreground. Goat Mountain (upper center) forms the backdrop for people viewing the nighttime Marfa Lights, the mysterious phenomenon seen across the flats behind the mountain.

22. Kokernot Mesa in Morning Haze

South of Alpine

This is the view looking southeast down Dark Canyon toward Texas Highway 118 and Calamity Creek. The haze seen here caused problems during the aerial photography for this book. Most of the haze is pollution from coal-burning power plants in the United States. There are also two plants in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, that burn low-grade coal, putting 250,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per year into the atmosphere. Some coal-burning power plants located in Texas, by their age, are exempt from use of scrubbers on their smokestacks.

CHAPTER 3

INTO THE HEART OF BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK

Exploring the Chisos Mountains

23. Chisos Mountains Vista

Big Bend National Park

Emerging from the surrounding arid flatlands, the Chisos are a mountain island in a sea of desert. Dynamic geologic forces of sedimentation, deformation, and volcanism formed the peaks such as Pummel Peak (left) and Pulliam Ridge (right). The Chisos Mountains form the centerpiece of Big Bend National Park, which covers 801,163 acres. I selected this as the first photograph of the Chisos Mountains in the book to help orient viewers to the aerial viewpoint. This approach is from the direction familiar to visitors, with Panther Junction visible in the foreground.

24. Panther Junction

Big Bend National Park

Panther Junction is the headquarters for Big Bend National Park. In the foreground Lone Mountain, with its erosion-resistant igneous rock cap, dominates the view. In the background, just to the right of center, is Pummel Peak, shaped like the pummel (or pommel) of a saddle. This view appealed to my photographer's eye because of the composition in which Lone Mountain points to the peak in the distance, leading our eyes like an arrow on a road sign.

25. Green Gulch

Chisos Mountains

Basin Road, the main access into the Chisos Basin, winds uphill through the high desert grassland and woodlands of Green Gulch to Panther Pass. On the right is the sheer igneous rock face of Pulliam Ridge. In the distance at left is Lost Mine Peak, the supposed location of a lost secret Spanish gold mine. The Civil Conservation Corps built the historic road in the 1930s.

26. Northwest Side of Pulliam Ridge

Chisos Mountains

Pulliam Ridge was formed when magma filled a cavity in the earth. When the magma cooled and the surrounding material was washed away by erosion, the ridge was revealed. This formation is named after Bill Pulliam, a legendary Big Bend rancher who cut pine trees from the ridge and lowered them by cable to build a log cabin for his wife.

27. South Rim and Emory Peak

Chisos Mountains

The hike from the Chisos Basin trailhead to the South Rim is widely considered the most strenuous and spectacular day hike in Big Bend. Emory Peak (center) rises an additional 1,000 feet above the rim. The twelve-mile loop takes at least eight hours to complete, with a vertical ascent of 2,000 feet, and hikers have reported mountain lions along the trail. The South Rim trail is closed at certain times of the year when peregrine falcons nest on the cliffs.

28. Lower Juniper Spring

Chisos Mountains

Townsend Point (left) and Upper Juniper Canyon (right). According to Native American legends, ancient spirits inhabit the Chisos Mountains. Hikers have reported unexplainable glowing lights on the mountainsides. This is one of my favorite images of the series due to the beautiful palisades on the upper rim and the sculptural shapes of the lower foothills that seem to guard the mountains above.

29. Fresno Creek

Sierra Quemada

The mountains at the base of the Chisos are called Sierra Quemada, which means "burnt mountains" in Spanish. The hills are covered with highly flammable grass, which is periodically ignited by lighting strikes, then rejuvenated after rains.

30. Approach to Pine Canyon

Chisos Mountains

The verdant valley of Pine Canyon leads upward toward the grassy saddle of Smuggler's Gap (top center), which forms a natural pass through the mountains. Pine Canyon was also known as Wade Canyon, named for Lloyd Wade, who hauled the first bathtub into the mountains for his cabin there. To the right of Smuggler's Gap is Panther Peak. Mountain lions still roam the Chisos Mountains, and there are over 150 sightings of the big cats each year in Big Bend National Park. There have been four attacks on humans since 1984. These big predators naturally regulate the deer and javelina populations.

31. Over the Dodson Trail

Sierra Quemada

Just below the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains (upper right), Fresno Creek flows twenty-one miles southeast to the Rio Grande. Dodson Spring (lower right) was the water source for Harve Dodson's ranch, which was located nearby. The cabin ruins are still visible along the Dodson Trail, which he used to transport supplies through the mountains for his family. Recreational hikers now utilize the trail to explore the Sierra Quemada.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Marfa Flights by Paul V. Chaplo. Copyright © 2014 Paul V. Chaplo. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword, by T. Lindsay Baker,
Photographer's Preface,
Introduction, by Lawrence John Francell,
Flight Routes Map,
I. The Journey Begins: The Flight from Marfa, Texas,
II. Along Texas Highway 118: Heading South from Alpine, Texas,
III. Into the Heart of Big Bend National Park: Exploring the Chiso's Mountains,
IV. Looking for Water: Across Tornillo Flats to Ernst Tinaja,
V. The Rio Grande: Flying Upstream to Smoky Creek,
VI. Canyons and Drug Lords: The Rio Grande Upstream from Santa Elena Village to Lajitas,
VII. In Search of Ghost Towns: Flying Inland to the Lone Star and Mariposa Quicksilver Mines,
VIII. Into the Devil's Playground: Flying North from Terlingua to Alamo de Cesario Creek,
IX. Over the Land of Plenty: Orbiting Green Valley and Paradise Valley,
X. Stepping into Enchantment: Crossing the Threshold of the Sierra Vieja to Magical Capote Falls and Candelaria,
XI. Up the Starry Stairway: Exploring the Pristine Davis Mountains and McDonald Observatory,
Epilogue,
Index,