Sight · Big Bend National Park
A low stone jacal with an earth-and-ocotillo roof.
Overview
Luna's Jacal is a preserved low stone dwelling on Old Maverick Road, at the foot of Peña Mountain. If you want the human story behind Big Bend's remote homesteads, stop here; the visit is the shelter and a nearby wayside panel.
Parkwolf’s verdictA brief but worthwhile history stopMap
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Big Bend Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Big Bend National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Big Bend audio tourRecorded for this place
Luna's Jacal“You're nearing Luna's Jacal, a low stone shelter tucked against a large boulder. It's a short history stop: I'd give it ten or fifteen minutes to look at the building and read the nearby panel.”
Plays as you drive up to Luna's Jacal in the Parkwolf Big Bend Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
The walls sit against a large boulder, and the low roof used ocotillo branches weighted with earth and stones. For a photo, include the boulder and rocky slope around the shelter; the low roof can blend into the ground when framed by itself.
Gilberto Luna arrived around 1916, raised a large family, herded goats, and farmed near Alamo Creek. The family's fields covered up to about nine acres, mostly corn and livestock feed. A rock-and-brush dam diverted creek floodwater into a feeder ditch and small field borders.
The familiar story that Luna lived to 109 is disputed by later record-based research, which points to a 1869 birth and a 1948 death, about age 79. Even that reconstruction has some uncertainty, so treat his exact age as unsettled.
Getting here means gravel Old Maverick Road, about six miles from its southern end. The road can be rough and may become impassable after rain, so check current park road conditions before setting out; this is not a quick paved-road detour.
Wildlife
377 sightingsBlack BearMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
329 sightingsCollared PeccaryMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
500 sightingsWhite-tailed DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
985 sightingsRoadrunnerMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
228 sightingsRavenMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
264 sightingsTurkey VultureMost seen around noonSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Big Bend. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Parkwolf’s Big Bend ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
