Prairie dogs live in large communities that spread for acres on the shortgrass prairies of Texas, their heads popping up from the circular dirt mounds around their burrow entrances.

An innovative archaeological dig has revealed the park's original wet prairie, buried by years of farming and development.

A fierce battle is under way to vanquish invasive grasses and restore the prairie's native landscape.

An early morning visit to the breeding grounds of the endangered Attwater's Prairie Chicken.

On a visit to the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, I gazed at Jupiter and the Orion Nebula and traveled in the footsteps of Galileo.

The Fresno Rim trail offers a taste of a solitary desert hike - without the difficulties of most of Big Bend Ranch's more primitive routes.

The West Rancherias Canyon Trail climbs slowly through the flowering Chihuahuan desert, a collection of pristine ponds and weathered volcanic canyon walls to reach a steep, though often dry, waterfall. The trek through the southern Bocefillos Mountains is much shorter ...

The Cinco Tinajas Trail gets its name from a chain of small ponds in the otherwise parched Chihuahuan desert of Big Bend Ranch State Park.

The Hoodoo Trail takes you past a gathering of impassive natural rock monuments overlooking the banks of the Rio Grande in the southern arm of Big Bend Ranch State Park.

The Closed Canyon Trail offers a rare escape from the heat that bakes most of the trails in Big Bend Ranch State Park.