So to bring it down to something you can cover in about 10 minutes, here’s an aerial tour with Joe Waltz and his buddies as they take off from the Austin area to fly over and through the Big Bend region. If you thought Big Bend was huge, this video will show you just how huge it is… or just how small we really are.
What great fun these guys have — just heading out to explore… in their planes!
Here are a few fun facts about Big Bend:
- Big Bend is the only national park to have an entire mountain range within its borders.
- Big Bend is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
- The park is named after the “big bend” in the Rio Grande in west Texas.
- The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848, ending the Mexican-American War and recognizing the Rio Grande as the official border of Texas and Mexico.
- Big Bend is one of the best places to go star gazing since it is a very open area.
- There are more species of birds found in Big Bend National Park than in any other national park in the U.S. with over 450 different species.
- Because Big Bend National Park is so remote, it is one of the least visited parks in the United States — only about 300,000 visitors each year despite being so large in size.
Video by Joe Waltz
