Ovrlnd Rd
Adventurer
After a year of planning and everyone in the group bailing on me the week before the trip I finally made it back to Big Bend National Park. This is a 7 hour drive from home and I already live in Central TX so can see why not as many folks make it out there compared to some of the other National Parks.
The original trip was going to be for 7 days with my wife driving over for the last 3. Since the remainder of the group dropped out it made more sense to pare it down and Juli just ride with me for a shortened stay. We left the house early Thursday morning and got there about 20 minutes ahead of ExPo member fike who is on an extended overlanding trip from MD. At the Panther Junction Ranger Station we found out 2 of our 3 primary Back Country camp sites were already taken but fortunately our alternates were available. Night one would be at Glenn Springs 2.
I had hoped to do Black Gap Road with a group of vehicles as I had heard it could be dicey in spots. Unfortunately while fike's vehicle is pretty sturdy we could tell from the start of the road he probably wouldn't be able to make it. At this point we split up and agreed to meet at our second camp site.
While Black Gap is not outrageous it does have some technical spots to it and I wouldn't recommend doing it solo. However I only had the choice of going alone or not going at all. Since this was what I had been planning for the last 12 months I decided to give it a shot. There were a couple of places I questioned that decision although my wife didn't (she knew it was a mistake from the beginning
).
I have over an hour of raw video from the road and as soon as I get it edited I'll post it. In the meantime here's a couple of shots although we were busy trying to get the Osmo to run right so don't have hardly any stills.
Once we were off Black Gap and heading back towards River Road East we came across a Cadillac Escalade with a flat tire. It turned out to be a Finnish couple and while they spoke and read English they weren't able to decipher the Owner's Manual to figure out how to locate the tools and get the tire down. I have to admit that it wasn't crystal clear to us either but we finally figured out where things were and moved on from there. Luckily I had some cribbing blocks in my truck to set under the jack and it was fairly sandy where the vehicle was stopped. Just an example of having the right equipment for the given situation.
We stopped in at Rio Grande Village and got a couple of ice cream cones, a bag of ice, and topped off the fuel (at $2.82 a gallon) then drove the hardtop to our campsite at Grape Vine #4.
We had wanted Grape Vine 5 as it's at the end of the road but #4 wasn't too bad. The biggest draw back to it is that it's also the turn around spot for anyone driving the road. Fortunately we only had a couple of vehicles show up after we had camp made.
The morning of our final night we checked out the Cottonwood Camp Ground. Fike decided he thought he'd stay here as there had been reports of a Great Horned Owl and he wanted to try and get some photos of that. We wound up leaving his car there and headed into Terilingua to check out their famous Chili Cook Off that takes place the 1st weekend in November. We got there via Old Maverick Road which was also the route to our last campground. It turns out the Chili Cook Off wasn't what we were expecting and luckily they gave us our money back as were there for about 5 minutes tops.
Getting back to Cottonwood after lunch we found out a bobcat had been wandering through the campground. Fike jumped out with his camera and got some good pics although the cat was too far away for me to get with my iPhone. Hopefully he'll see this thread and add a pic or 2.
After the excitement we said our final good-byes and headed to Octillo Grove. This was fairly close to the road to a couple of other campsites (Terilingua Abajo 1-3) yet still felt secluded.
This was our 2nd trip to Big Bend and I think when we go back we'll probably hit some of the same spots again. All 3 campsites were great and I think Glenn Springs 2 was actually a better spot than our original choice of GS 1. We'll definitely try to go during a New Moon versus a Full Moon. It was so bright at night that we could take pics without a flash so the star gazing wasn't what it could have been.
The original trip was going to be for 7 days with my wife driving over for the last 3. Since the remainder of the group dropped out it made more sense to pare it down and Juli just ride with me for a shortened stay. We left the house early Thursday morning and got there about 20 minutes ahead of ExPo member fike who is on an extended overlanding trip from MD. At the Panther Junction Ranger Station we found out 2 of our 3 primary Back Country camp sites were already taken but fortunately our alternates were available. Night one would be at Glenn Springs 2.
I had hoped to do Black Gap Road with a group of vehicles as I had heard it could be dicey in spots. Unfortunately while fike's vehicle is pretty sturdy we could tell from the start of the road he probably wouldn't be able to make it. At this point we split up and agreed to meet at our second camp site.
While Black Gap is not outrageous it does have some technical spots to it and I wouldn't recommend doing it solo. However I only had the choice of going alone or not going at all. Since this was what I had been planning for the last 12 months I decided to give it a shot. There were a couple of places I questioned that decision although my wife didn't (she knew it was a mistake from the beginning
).I have over an hour of raw video from the road and as soon as I get it edited I'll post it. In the meantime here's a couple of shots although we were busy trying to get the Osmo to run right so don't have hardly any stills.
Once we were off Black Gap and heading back towards River Road East we came across a Cadillac Escalade with a flat tire. It turned out to be a Finnish couple and while they spoke and read English they weren't able to decipher the Owner's Manual to figure out how to locate the tools and get the tire down. I have to admit that it wasn't crystal clear to us either but we finally figured out where things were and moved on from there. Luckily I had some cribbing blocks in my truck to set under the jack and it was fairly sandy where the vehicle was stopped. Just an example of having the right equipment for the given situation.
We stopped in at Rio Grande Village and got a couple of ice cream cones, a bag of ice, and topped off the fuel (at $2.82 a gallon) then drove the hardtop to our campsite at Grape Vine #4.
We had wanted Grape Vine 5 as it's at the end of the road but #4 wasn't too bad. The biggest draw back to it is that it's also the turn around spot for anyone driving the road. Fortunately we only had a couple of vehicles show up after we had camp made.
The morning of our final night we checked out the Cottonwood Camp Ground. Fike decided he thought he'd stay here as there had been reports of a Great Horned Owl and he wanted to try and get some photos of that. We wound up leaving his car there and headed into Terilingua to check out their famous Chili Cook Off that takes place the 1st weekend in November. We got there via Old Maverick Road which was also the route to our last campground. It turns out the Chili Cook Off wasn't what we were expecting and luckily they gave us our money back as were there for about 5 minutes tops.
Getting back to Cottonwood after lunch we found out a bobcat had been wandering through the campground. Fike jumped out with his camera and got some good pics although the cat was too far away for me to get with my iPhone. Hopefully he'll see this thread and add a pic or 2.
After the excitement we said our final good-byes and headed to Octillo Grove. This was fairly close to the road to a couple of other campsites (Terilingua Abajo 1-3) yet still felt secluded.
This was our 2nd trip to Big Bend and I think when we go back we'll probably hit some of the same spots again. All 3 campsites were great and I think Glenn Springs 2 was actually a better spot than our original choice of GS 1. We'll definitely try to go during a New Moon versus a Full Moon. It was so bright at night that we could take pics without a flash so the star gazing wasn't what it could have been.
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