Big Bend Ranch State Park: Closed Canyon Trail

The second hike the Texas state park ranger recommended was the Closed Canyon Trail. The trail is about 1.4 miles long and takes you through a narrow "slot" canyon toward the Rio Grande, but, according to the trail guide, river access is not possible without vertical climbing gear. 

I was about half way through the hike when I encountered an obstacle in my path - a tinaja, which is a depression in the canyon floor that catches water. I probed it with my hiking pole, and threw a large rock into the tinaja, and it was probably two feet deep at least. 

I thought for just a moment about scaling the rocky canyon floor on either side of the tinaja, but the sides were steep and were not ideally suited for hiking around the tinaja, and I knew that if I slipped and fell into the tinaja or worse, hit my head, it would be the end of me. There was no one for miles and miles, and there was no one who even knew I was there (except maybe the ranger at Fort Leaton but how would she know I hadn't gotten to where I was eventually headed?). I would have been a goner for sure. So I acted sensibly, for once, and I turned around, and then I got back in my rental car and drove to Lajitas Golf Resort, stopping along the way to take more photos of the beautiful scenery all around me.

The tinaja that thwarted my hike!