Mesa De Anguila Hike - Big Bend National Park

We had an unbelievable river trip with my older son yesterday (7/3/2020), check out my other blog post here, so for our next day (7/4/2020) we picked Mesa De Anguila to hike. To give you a teaser, we ended up taking a route that I have not read anyone taken before and we were rewarded with an absolute thrilling 360 view from the top of the Mesa. Here is how it went down...

There are many valuable posts about this hike on TripAdvisor and AllTrails, plenty of info about the different options, but none described what we were about to see.

We stayed at the El Dorado Hotel in Terlingua Ghost Town, so it was an easy drive in the morning to the trailhead on the outskirts of Lajitas. However, none of the descriptions pointed out the exact location of the parking lot, so of course we missed on our first attempt. We had a local resident help us find it, but we didn't expect an empty lot capable of holding 500+ cars. You can see on these pictures where exactly the parking area is. Or you can use the long/lat figures: 29.258740, -103.767108

There were two posted signs under the little hut in the middle of the parking lot, but the trailhead sign was to the far side of the lot, it was not easy to notice. Once we found it we had no more problems. The cairns were well placed, we dropped into the dry creek bed and it was easy to find the official trail had 5 min into our walk on our left.

The first 20 min was through a flat area to reach the uphill part of the track. This is what we saw from the flats. On top of the mountain on the right is where we eventually ended up...

From the bottom, the climb was as difficult as rewarding and scenic all the way to the top. Beware, there is absolutely no shade here, the vegetation is low, there are no trees to hide under. Here are pics from the climb.

Looking down:

Looking up:

The most thrilling part came when the track reached the top of the mesa, there were at least 3-4 different ways to continue. We chose to cut 90 degree to the right and begin our U turn on top of the mesa. The views into Santa Elena Canyon were breathtaking, here they are:

Although, there were a few cairns initially, they only led the way maybe 2-300 yard, from there the navigation was simply following the edge of the mesa. The terrain was mainly flat on top of the mesa, we were stepping from one big rock to another, but not much elevation gain. Vegetation was not a problem at all, it was easy to navigate through it and proceed to the far edge, facing Lajitas. Here are the unforgettable views we got:

Maybe another way to experience the views is to check out the 360 shots I have posted on Google Map: 360-1, 360-2, 360-3, 360-4, 360-5, 360-6

Here are couple of pointers to help with logistics:

- the trip was about 5 miles round trip (2.4+ miles one way)

- it took us 3 hours and 20 minutes to complete it, including about 40 minutes of stopping for food, water and picture taking

- we took 2L/person of water in the 100 F heat and it was perfect amount for the trip. The temp measured 103F when I got back to the car at after 2 PM

- on top of the mesa the breeze was non stop and it made it much more pleasant

- on the mountain top, to our surprise, we had 4 out of 5 bar cell reception, so we were able to live video conference with relatives on the other side of the globe to share our experience

We have hiked several different Big Bend trails before, but this has become our absolute favorite. The zig-zagging Rio Grande, the view of the golf course and the surrounding mountains were an absolute treat, nothing we have expected. I highly recommend this 3-4 hour excursion.