Stone Cold Serenity: Finding Your Calm at Closed Canyon

Lens-Artists Challenge #389: Time to Relax

For this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Anne wants to know what relaxes us. She writes: “What gets you away from the stresses of daily life. What’s your passion?” The short answer for me is nature. Nowadays, when I’m out in nature, my camera is with me. Whether shooting landscapes or macro photography, nature is my passion. Check out her post to see her examples of how she finds time to relax.

My response to the challenge takes me back to Big Bend Ranch State Park. In the featured photo, the desert holds its breath just before I step inside a different world. Two ancient formations of dark igneous rock frame a narrow seam in the earth. The blue-toned monochrome strips away the warm tans of the Chihuahuan Desert, letting ocotillo skeletons, low scrub, and streaked cirrus clouds speak for themselves. The canyon is waiting. Come along and take time to relax.

Before diving into the photos, here’s what brings hikers to this remarkable place. Closed Canyon Trail is about 1.4 miles (2.25 km) round trip — manageable for most fitness levels in 45 minutes to an hour. Towering walls rise up to 150 feet (46 m), narrowing to just 10–15 feet (3–4.5 m) wide in places, with a smooth rock floor worn pale by flash floods. You hike until the canyon becomes inaccessible before reaching the Rio Grande, turning back whenever you like. After heavy rains, expect some deep water pools along the way.

Ancient igneous rock, polished smooth by millennia of flash floods, towers overhead — its layered textures reading like pages of geological time. In the cool shade, the air drops noticeably in temperature, a welcome gift after the open desert. The gentle wind and occasional birdsong will relax you more than you expect.

The sun cresting the canyon rim at just the right angle bursts into a perfect starburst — the kind of gift the canyon offers those patient enough to wait. The streaked clouds and jagged opposing wall create a composition that feels less like a photograph and more like a vision. I love hiking this canyon midday; with the sun high, you get striking light and shadow playing across every surface.

Every journey has a boundary, and Closed Canyon marks its own with quiet authority. The canyon drops steeply toward the Rio Grande, requiring rappelling gear to continue. This is where you stop, breathe, look back the way you came, and feel grateful for every step.

Tucked into a crevice between basalt slabs, a Turk’s Head Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus hamatacanthus) catches a shaft of sidelight as the sun angles low through the canyon walls. Its fierce spines — hooked, up to six inches (15.25 cm) long, ranging from white to red to yellow — become something almost luminous in this moment, each one a tiny torch. Even in the harshest corners of the Chihuahuan Desert, resilience finds a way to glow.

Against the canyon’s hard surfaces, this bloom is a revelation. The Roundflower Catclaw (Senegalia roemeriana) produces delicate puffball flowers along reddish-brown stems, its feathery foliage a soft contrast to fierce white thorns. A cluster of round green buds waits beside the single open flower — the canyon’s own quiet calendar.

The Desert Christmas Cactus — also called Tasajillo or Christmas Cholla (Cylindropuntia leptocaulis) — delivers the trail’s final flourish. Its bright red, grape-sized fruits, persistent through winter, explain the festive name. The shrubby plants grow up to 6 feet (1.8 m) tall on branches barely 0.2 inches (5 mm) wide. This single burning-red fruit is the last thing the trail offers before you step back into the wide open desert.

I am grateful for the beautiful images you share week after week, including those for your response to Ann-Christine’s Journey challenge. I hope you will join this challenge, too. Please don’t forget to use the “lens-artists” hashtag in your posts to help people find your wonderful challenge entries.

Next week, I will feature a new challenge. It will go live at noon EST in the USA. Tune in to find out more about the challenge then. Please see this page for more information about the Lens-Artists Challenge and its history. If you don’t want to miss any future challenges, please consider subscribing to the team members’ websites. Here they are:

• Tina of Travels and Trifles.
• Patti of P.A. Moed.
• Ann-Christine of Leya.
• John of Journeys with Johnbo.
• Anne of Slow Shutter Speed.
• Sofia of Photographias.
• Egídio of Through Brazilian Eyes.
• Ritva of Ritva Sillanmäki Photography.
• Beth of Wandering Dawgs.

That is the story behind the shots. If you liked this post, you may also be interested in others featuring Big Bend Ranch SP, Chihuahuan Desert, Closed Canyon, Landscapes, Lens-Artists, Macros, Monochrome, Monochrome Madness, Parks, Texas, and Wildflowers. Until the next time, keep clicking and capturing the beauty your eyes find.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness # 55: Walls, hosted by Margaret of From Pyrenees to Pennines.