Boquillas Canyon -- Big Bend NP TX
N 29° 11.655 W 102° 55.428
13R E 701865 N 3231291
Amazing Boquillas Canyon impressed the WPA writers in 1940 and Blasterz in 2016
Waymark Code: WMV0WA
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/04/2017
Views: 1
Boquillas Canyon, a nearly impenetrable fortress of limestone, was carved over millions of years by the waters of the Rio Grande.
The waymark coordinates are for the overlook on the US side.
From Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State:
"The name Boquillas (little mouths) was applied because of the narrowness of BOQUILLAS CANYON, a great opening here in the rock of the mountain wall through which flows the Rio Grande. The river bed is at an elevation of 1,850 feet, above which the rim is at 3,500 feet, the depth of the canyon thus averaging 1,600 feet. (Directions for reaching the canyon should be obtained in Boquillas.) Arrangements can be made on certain days for a visit to Boquillas, Mexico, once a prosperous mining community. Still to be seen is the cable across the Rio Grande on which silver-lead ore was transported from the Puerto Rico mine in the 1890's. Plans contemplated by the governments of Mexico and the United States (1940) provided for the construction of a bridge here, which would be in the proposed international park."
An interpretive sign at the overlook reads as follows:
"BOQUILLAS CANYON
The massive cliffs of the Sierra Del Carmen appear unyielding, yet the Rio Grande is carved to Gorge 1300 feet deep directly through the escarpment. Boquillas Canyon is so narrow that the entrance is almost invisible at this distance.
From the trailhead 1 mile down the road, hike the short Boquillas Canyon trail to the canyon entrance. Beside the water, between towering walls, you can see and hear how water acts as a liquid rasp, grinding the gorge deeper with tons of silt and sand.
Canyon cutting
the Rio Grande established its present course on basin filling sediments that covered the rocks and faults we see exposed today. The river eroded through the surface layers and cut the steep sided canyons in the more resistant Lower Cretaceous limestones. Today you can see those ancient limestone formations exposed in the canyon walls.
[graphic]
2 million years ago
Ancestral Rio Grande
Today
Steep-walled canyon
Fault block"
Book: Texas
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 625
Year Originally Published: 1940
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