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Yes another classic example of how the US is being Mexicanized. The problem with violent attacks on campers in the Big bend National Park began back in the 80's, around 1983 I think. Even before that there were occasional incidents in which campers and hikers were robbed and woman sexually assaulted by muchachos who were probably pretty much locals from either side of the border. However, in the 80's drug traffickers started using the Big Bend country as a corridor for moving product. Freepers with far better knowledge of West Texas than I can explain in detail why this region became favored as a drug smuggling corridor. I suspect it is the combination of thin settlement combined with small Mexican towns on the north shore to provide pickup crews of thugs and the numerous long deep canyons that run from the river inland so that large stashes of drugs can be easily hidden until transportation is arranged. That is the other part of the equation is the availability of good highways (US 385 runs directly into the park and Texas 118 is a good well graded hard surface road connecting to the end of US 385. From there it is an easy ride either to I-10 or US 90 the contraband highway.)

When these reports first started appearing I mentioned to a number of individuals that this was a very bad omen as Mex bandits always started operating in the Big Bend when the State and Federal government in Mexico became really rotten and dysfunctional. I stated it was only a precursor of much worse to come both with throngs of alien criminal trespassers entering the country almost at will and the decay of basic public safety in the border zones. I was considered pretty eccentric at best and evilly racist at worse for saying such things. Today, as you point out, the US government basically tells Americans that they are taking their own risks to use a US National Park. Effectively the US government has abdicated to bands of drug smugglers and other criminal gangs and the Big Bend country has been 'reconquestaed' already with the muchachos from Ruidosa and Castolon and Terlingua knowing who really rules the roost in the Big Bend.

Interestingly back in the 1920's, during Prohibition,this area was favored as a smuggling route for rum runners. Texas authorities know where such unchecked contraband smuggling could lead and sent a part of Rangers led by the redoubtable Frank Hamer to make the rum runners life less easy. Hamer captured a large mule train loaded with liquor. I presume he inflicted some rough and ready curbstone justice on the armed goons with the convoy and then had the mules shot and the liquor bottles unloaded and smashed. For many years thereafter the whitening bones of the mules and the broken shards of the whiskey bottles were a visible monument to discourage contraband smuggling. This is covered in a rather sanitized way in the chapter on Hamer in Walter P Webb's classic history of the Rangers. Where is Frank Hamer now that we really need him?

Personally chilling stuff.

I drove east to west cross country alone in 1984 taking a way southern route.

One of the places I'd planned to stop was Big Bend National Park. By the time I got there, I'd thought better of it because the area was so desolate. I distinctly remember having the feeling that if I went into the park no one would ever hear from me again.

In my youthful naivete, I had NO IDEA of any of what you report was going on and originally thought I'd drive around a national park to see what I could see just to break up the monotony of the long distance drive.

~ heavy sigh ~