Terlingua and Big Bend
March 26, 2022
We drove south from Marfa for 60 miles on US-67 toward the Mexican border town of Presidio. The route was empty, with a good view of the Chinanti Mountains to the west. Oh no, as we approached Presidio, the “check tire” light came on. We stopped in Presidio and put air in the tire. We could not see that it was damaged, and knew we would be in very remote places over the next five days where we would not likely find a replacement “run flat” tire. So we soldiered on, fingers crossed, and noted that we should probably not go too far on unpaved roads.
From Presidio, we turned east on Texas FM-170, the “River Road Scenic Drive.” We wanted to visit Historic Fort Leaton, but it was closed for restoration. The road soon entered the Big Bend Ranch State Park where it meandered and followed the Rio Grande, more or less, up and down canyons with great views. The river had less water and was not a wide as we pictured, but the green contrast with the surrounding desert was nice. We stopped for a hike at the hoodoos, before it got too hot. Our lunch was in the park at a picnic area with another great view of the mountains.
Where we walked amongst the hoodoos.
We made a brief stop in Lajitas, a very small town…with a large golf course…to look at the cemetery and mission church.
Top, the Lajitas Mission Church, and bottom, the
Lajitas Cemetery.
We stopped at the Barton Warnock Visitors Center (part of the Big Bend Ranch State Park). It has a terrific exhibit about prehistory, geology, plants and animals of the area, including some fossils. We took a short walk behind the visitor center through a cactus garden to a view point. Our last stop before our destination was the old movie set at Contrabando.
Our destination for tonight was the ghost town of Terlingua, population 110, where we are going to spend the next three nights at a cabin with views south and east toward the Big Bend National Park. Our cabin was just across the FM-170 from the entrance to the ghost town.
After complaining about the cold for several days, temps were now in the high 90’s! The next two days it would reach 100F near the river.
After checking in and getting the lay of the land, we decided to explore Terlingua. It was a quintessential desert town, with funky art, old school buses, an old cemetery, airstream trailers, an old jail, but very few businesses and no gas station
After looking at the three restaurants, we got more BBQ and brought it back to our house. Not quite as good as in Marfa, but still very tasty. We enjoyed the dark sky of the desert that night.
March 27, 2022
After breakfast, we left Terlingua and headed east to Big Bend National Park. The park has three main tourist areas, the Santa Elena area we would see today in the west, the high country of Chisos Mountains, and the eastern Rio Grande Village area. We thought it might be the biggest national park, but alas, it is only #15 (or #8 if you omit Alaska parks).
Our drive took us through the settlement of Study Butte, about 10 miles from our lodging, and the only place with a gas station and grocery store. From there, we took TX118 to the park entrance. We spent most of the day seeing the sights along the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. The highlight was the Santa Elena Canyon walk, which goes deep into the canyon, just under a two mile hike.
Here are some photos of Santa Elena Canyon.
We also visited the historic Castolon District, (where it would reach about 100 degrees today) parts of which had recently been destroyed by fire and which were being restored. Most of the old buildings were intact, only the store being completely burned. We made other scenic stops, including the Sam Nail Ranch nature trail, but it had grown too hot to take any more hikes, so we returned to Terlingua mid-afternoon, making a stop at the Cottonwood market on the way. We drove a total of about 110 miles today and enjoyed relaxing in the shade behind our cabin in the afternoon.
Tall cliffs along the Rio Grande.
We had dinner that night at the second of the three restaurants in Terlingua, the taqueria. It was still hot out, but they have a nice shaded patio.
March 28, 2022
Because of our concern about our tire, we elected to forgo the 40 mile dirt road we had planned to take today into the State Park. Instead, we retraced our steps from Terlingua into the National Park and went to Chisos Basin, about 33 miles. This is the second main area of the park, and much cooler at 5,400 feet (about 2,500 feet higher than Terlingua and 2,000 feet higher than the river at Santa Elena).
We took a turn off Rte 118 to head up into the mountains. The terrain changed a lot in the six and mile Chisos Basin Road up to the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, from desert to big, rugged mountains, some forested. We took a two mile hike on the Chisos Basin Loop Trail, from which we had a nice view of “the Window” back toward Terlingua and Santa Elena. After that, took the short spur to the Window View.
Heading into the Chisos Mountains.
From the start of our hike.
Window view back toward Terlingua.
We then went to the Visitors Center at Panther Junction and had a picnic lunch in sunny heat at Dugout Wells which has a half-mile nature trail. We drove about an hour back to Terlingua and relaxed for the afternoon with the desert view from our cabin.
Later in the afternoon, we went into the Ghost Town to check out the third of the three restaurants, and learned if we got in line at 5 p.m. we would have a two hour wait for a table. The other two restaurants were closed on Mondays. So we went to the grocery store in Cottonwood and bought food for dinner. Luckily we had a full kitchen in our cabin.
We enjoyed the last night relaxing at our cabin looking out to the vast dark sky.
Tomorrow we will move on to our next lodging and explore more parts of the park.
