La Sal del Rey does not give up its secrets easily. Surrounded by a tangled web of thick vegetation, the salt lake in central Hidalgo County is as inhospitable as it is beautiful.
In spring and fall the brush country is alive with flowers, butterflies, birds, and animals. The trails lead through a rugged wilderness of tall grass, thorny vines, and gnarly trees.
La Sal del Rey was once part of an extinct inland sea, says Bryan Winton, refuge manager for the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. “It is an integral part of the area’s ecology,” Winton says. With only about 5% of the wildlife habitat remaining in the region, the lake is valuable territory to endangered coastal birds and mammals such as the ocelot.
No one knows for sure how the lake was formed. The milelong and 5-mile-wide lake covers 530 acres and averages a depth of approximately 4 feet. It can rise to 10 feet deep or become bone dry during weather extremes.
Even to untrained taste buds, the water is saltier than sea water. The lake bed is a large deposit of rock-crystal salt of undetermined depth. Estimates say that the lake holds at least 4 million tons of salt. Cargill operates a salt plant at the site.
Spanish explorers claimed the salt deposit for the king. Tracks left by heavily laden wagons headed for Mexico City can still be seen around the lake. During the Civil War, camels were used to carry the salt to Confederate troops. Soaking in the pool is said to be therapeutic for arthritis sufferers.
Today, the lake is one of 125 parcels of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge that stretches from Falcon Dam to the mouth of the Rio Grande. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service hopes to create a wildlife corridor along the last 275 miles of the river. “We’re trying to connect the string of pearls,” Winton says of the scattered parcels of land.
Home to 1,100 types of plants, 700 vertebrate species, and more than 300 kinds of butterflies, the region is one of the most biologically diverse in the nation. Winton says the border fence being built by another federal agency has severe implications on the refuge. “It’s not the best situation,” he says, “but there are still opportunities to connect the land parcels.”
La Sal del Rey is a natural anomaly even for an ecological crossroads as diverse as the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Access to the salt lake is a 15-minute walk from a small parking lot off U.S. 186, four miles southeast of Linn. Winton also recommends a shorter hike on the north side of the lake from Brushline Road. Trail maps are available from the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge near Alamo, 956/784-7500.
920th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of “Day Trips” 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
This article appears in February 20 • 2009.
