Chihuahuan Desert (Big Ben National Park)

[Matthew Wells]

This trip was planned as 3 nights and the better part of 4 days, driving through the desert and ending in the much greener Chisos Basin. Our plan would eventually change a bit, as often happens.

Day 1

After driving 10 hours, my wife, daughter and I met up with my father and nephew at the head of Dagger Flat rd. Fortunately, my father already had our permits sorted so we could begin from there. The lady that assisted him with the back country permit said that we were too ambitious and that we should change two of our selected camp areas. As I always try to head the advice of locals we changed our plans. She also suggested that we change our route, but I'll get back to that.

Living in Arkansas, Southern Germany, New Hampshire and Mississippi, we had never seen scenery like this. It was immediately beautiful.

It wasn't long before we reached the head of Old Ore rd.

Most of this road was very rocky. I captured some of the changes in terrain, but once we realized we were racing the sun to our camp site at Candalilla, we were focused and didn't capture the more technical sections.

We tried to make up time as the sun began to set, but to no avail.

However, we were rewarded with a very nice moonless desert sky. The picture is unstacked/processed, but a nice indication of the darkness in the desert.
A small bit of the Milky Way

 

[Matthew Wells]

Day 2

Making some breakfast before we head out.

Any time we're stopped my daughter loves to perch on the Pelican case.

We continued through the last bit of Old Ore rd and hit the pavement down to the canyon near Boquillas del Carmen.

Enjoying some Mexican mineral water (Tope Chico) in front of a Mexican village (Boquillas del Carmen).:sombrero:

After a short hike down to the canyon.

A road to the historic hot springs site eventually splits into two one way roads on each side of a gorge. I didn't get a picture of those pieces but the were narrow indeed.

We took a stroll around a few of the old buildings. We didn't take pictures of the hot spring as it had nude elderly men in it....

At this point the changes to our route came in. We had planned, immediately after the hot springs, to pick up the river road and take it all the way toward Santa Elena canyon. The lady my father set up the permits with said that this would be too aggressive for us. After looking at videos from others I'm not convinced she was correct, but in any case I try to err on the side of caution with these trips. Instead we followed pavement for most of the day.

We stopped at the historic settlement of dugout wells for a short hike.

In her natural habitat.

We found more ruins, this time from an old farming settlement.

And near Santa Elena canyon, some "Mexican" cows and horses.:costumed-smiley-007

At this point we started onto Old Maverick rd. This road had some fairly severe washboarding at spots, but had very few larger rocks.

We arrived at Terlingua Abajo with plenty of time to relax before setting up camp.

The ground was made up of much finer gravel here which was nice. However, some type of flies were destroying us and I'm fairly certain they were gathering strength from the DEET they were ingesting.

 

[Matthew Wells]

Day 3

Just before the sun began to come up, my daughter wanted me to go hike a nearby hill with her.

This was the view back to our camp as we were walking back.

The sun was just beginning to come up.

We ate breakfast and set off down Old Maverick rd again. We came upon this rabbit seeking shade. Not many places to hide out here.

Then we came to Luna's Jacal. It's amazing to consider a whole family lived in this house. Just a reminder that true necessities are few.

The road changed a bit as we continued but was never too rough.

At times it was nice to have the reassurance of the chartplotter when it wasn't entirely clear which way the road went. This happened to a much greater extent on Old Ore road, when the road you were on didn't differ much from the wash you were crossing. This picture isn't that bad but illustrates the point.

After exiting Old Maverick rd, we followed paved roads to Study Butte to eat at a small Mexican restaurant.

I had never seen a restaurant you could bring your own beer in to. :friday:

Next we followed pavement to Grapevine Spring rd.

We hiked down to Balanced Rock. This was, to my mind, the prettiest hike we did.

Wife and daughter near the top of the trail.

View of the hiking trail from near the top.

Daughter enjoying the day..

Ready to head off again.

We then headed toward Chisos Basin.

Once into the Chisos Basin we hiked a few trails.

In Chisos Basin we had cell service and the weather called for thunder storms that night. Rain we're fine with but I would rather avoid storms, so we decided to stay in one of the old cottages there. They were very cool and were built in the 40's with not much changing since then.

As we were not camping that night we ate at the restaurant near the Chisos Basin visitors center, which was very good.

 

[Matthew Wells]

Day 4

We awoke to the clouds having descended onto the mountains around us.

We took a short hike in the early morning.

I'm fairly certain there were dragons up there.

Level with some clouds as we descended out of Chisos Basin.

On our way heading out we went by the future fossil exhibit and saw this guy hanging out.

With that, we began our 10 hour drive back home and the depression immediately began to set in.

We really enjoyed this trip. Looking back, I see no reason why we couldn't have done the river roads and stayed almost entirely off pavement, but in the end it was still a great time. Very scenic and remote. Now we just have to keep good cheer by beginning to plan the next one.

 

[NMC_EXP]

Fine report. Looks like an interesting place.

Thanks.

 

[Maxcustody]

Great pictures and trip report. I am headed there on 11/18. I am going to hit Big Bend National Park first, then Big Bend Ranch State Park. I will be there over Thanksgiving until 11/27...........

 

[Matthew Wells]

Maxcustody,

I could honestly spend a couple weeks there and not get tired of it. There is such a variety of terrain. Great views everywhere you look.

 

[mep1811]

Great trip report. I'm headed to Big Bend and Big Bend State park in Feb.

 

[Desert Rat 1]

Very nice report and pictures! It's an awesome place, we were there just three weeks ago and even though we just went through following the river in our way to the gulf, it was enough to make us start planning a future trip with more time to explore.

 

[Maxcustody]

Maxcustody,

I could honestly spend a couple weeks there and not get tired of it. There is such a variety of terrain. Great views everywhere you look.

Looking forward to it.....

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[ljrunner05]

Great report! Thanks for sharing

 

[Martinjmpr]

We really enjoyed this trip. Looking back, I see no reason why we couldn't have done the river roads and stayed almost entirely off pavement, but in the end it was still a great time.

.
You really should set aside a full day to do the River Road. There are so many little side trips that are worth taking it just seems a shame to rush through it. We didn't do all the side trips when we did the river road last year and it still took us a good 4 - 6 hours.
..
Also, it's worth it to spend some time in Terlingua. Neat little town.
.
The good news is that now you have an excuse to go back! :wings:

 

[noeltykay]

Great trip report! Great family vacation!

 

[Ace Brown]

Our group was there about the same time and did a lot of what you reported on including the little restaurant with the "carry-in" beer. We did do the River Road and it had a few spots that would have been difficult or impossible for your rig. I can't tell what it is but it looks pretty low. We continued on to BBSRP leaving there Nov 12.

Good report and photos.

 

[Matthew Wells]

It's a Porsche Cayenne. If you're not familiar with them, the earlier versions (before 2010 or so) including mine (955 chassis), included a low range transfer case, locking center differential and optionally, air suspension, locking rear differential and electro-hydraulic disconnecting sway bars. Ours does not have the off-road package so no rear locker or disconnecting sway bars, but from a traction stand point it's very capable. It does use independent wheel braking to make up for the lack of front and rear lockers and, in conjunction with the locking center diff, this works fairly well. You're right about ground clearance. With our non-air suspension Cayenne ground clearance isn't great, being the same as a stock wrangler unlimited, LR Discovery, etc. Changing from 29" to 32" tires helped some with that but it's never going to be a rock crawler. It just makes you pay more attention to the lines you take.

A word about independent wheel braking just in case someone isn't aware of what it is:
If one wheel begins to turn much faster than the other on that axle, such as when you have one wheel off the ground, it brakes that wheel to match it's speed to the slower wheel on that axle. So, in essence it works a bit like a limited slip diff, but with much finer control as it is reading the abs signal from each wheel and deciding how to use the brakes.