MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·MTJP Corps
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MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·
A place we watch

Big Bend National Park

Timing

Nothing is open on this one today. It is a place the Corps keeps an eye on, so we see the paperwork the day it lands.

What is worth photographing here

Anywhere you can reach the Rio Grande inside the park, photograph the bladed ground and new vehicle tracks left by last August's clearing, with the untouched desert right beside it in the same frame.

Why we watch it

The Rio Grande bends through ancient limestone canyons, and the Chisos Mountains rise from the Chihuahuan Desert like a fortress. Big Bend's remoteness is both its greatest asset and its deepest vulnerability. Out of sight, out of budget. The staffing cuts hit hardest where no one is watching.

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Find where the road is supposed to start. Photograph it from the junction, with anything that identifies the spot (a sign, a gate, a milepost).
  2. 02Walk it. Photograph the surface every few hundred meters and at anything that would stop a vehicle: a washout, a slide, a fallen tree, a stream with no crossing, trees growing in the road.
  3. 03Photograph the far end the same way.
  4. 04Let your phone record a GPS track if it can (any tracking app). A screenshot of the track is fine.
  5. 05Write down whether a pickup could drive it today, and why or why not.
What would count
  • Start, middle and end, with the track. A single photo of brush isn’t a road that doesn’t exist.
  • The reason a vehicle could not pass, in a photo.
  • The date. Roads change with a season.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Nothing to answer yet

Nobody is asking you to go here today. We watch this place so that the day a decision opens on it, the people who already know it hear the same week. If you are out here anyway, what you photograph now is worth more later than anything taken after the paperwork lands.

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.