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[Sleddog]

We had the pleasure of starting out the year with 49 days in the camper. The only planned portion of this trip was 2 weeks of camping at primitive backcountry sites at Big Bend National Park. Everything else we decided as we went based on weather, our moods, etc. 

 

This was originally written as a live report for another audience.....

 

Day 1 - Today was planned as a travel day with no sightseeing stops. We left Pocatello, Idaho around 9am aiming for Green River, Utah for the first night. My (human) navigator took us on a 3 hour detour so we ended up stopping for the night at the Temple Mountain BLM area near Goblin Valley State Park. Courtesy of the detour, we pulled in after dark. There were a few free range cows, but they all had reflective ear tags and were easy to spot and avoid hitting while driving. There was maybe 8 to 12 inches of snow on the ground, and roads were a little icy in places, but we had no problems and easily pulled off to camp without getting stuck. Not the ideal campsite with temps dropping to about 10 degrees overnight, but it sufficed.

 

Day 2 - With the overnight temp around 10 degrees, we decided to get an early start on day 2 and hit the road around 6am. I have never seen so many rabbits as I saw between Temple Mountain Road and highway 24 this morning. If the idea of hitting a rabbit is too much to handle, then avoid this road just before dawn in late December, they will be difficult to miss. We had no issues and the sun was soon up.

Today was another planned driving day with few stops and no sightseeing. We stopped for the night at San Lorenzo BLM Recreation Area near Socorro, New Mexico, found with the help of www.freecampsites.net. Nothing special here, just a free place to camp on the way.

 

Day 3 - Another driving day, stopped for the night at Valley of Fires Recreation Area. We got there around 3pm and had time to walk the two short trails and take a shower. There were maybe a half dozen others camped here. Nice hot showers. A recent snow left a blanket of white on the lava flows and the desert landscape

 

 

 

 

 

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[Sleddog]

Day 4 - Last driving day before a stop for a day or two at Carlsbad Caverns. Spent the night at a BLM primitive site, again courtesy of www.freecampsites.net, only 5 minutes from Whites City. The BLM site was nothing special, but super easy access to the caverns.

Day 5 - New Year's Day, one of only 3 days the caverns are closed all year. So we drove to Rattlesnake Springs, Sitting Bull Falls, and Dog Canyon Campground in Guadeloupe Mountains National Park. Nice location, but it It was a little colder here than we wanted and it was a long drive back to the caverns in the morning, so we went back and spent the night at the same BLM site as Day 4.

 

 

 

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[Sleddog]

Day 6 - Today we toured the caverns, arriving around 9:30am. The parking lot was about half full when we arrived, but almost completely full when we left a couple hours later. We took the Natural Entrance and walked the Big Room loop. My traveling partner recently had knee surgery and had enough walking, so we took the elevator back up. The caves were fascinating and we may make reservations for a ranger guided tour of a different section of the caverns on our return trip north. After the cavern tour, we drove on to Davis Mountains State Park to camp for the night and get another shower.

 

 

 

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[Sleddog]

Carlsbad Caverns - Whales Mouth

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[Sleddog]

Neat formations everywhere you look.

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[Sleddog]

Day 7 - The Davis Mountains were beautiful, but it was cold, rainy, and snowy so we didn't do any hikes (we will return here on the way home). We took a scenic drive around the mountains and decided to head on to Big Bend National Park, our main destination for this trip. I had made reservations at Chisos Camground for the first 3 nights, but we arrived a day early. We decided to try for a first come site. There were over a dozen sites available in the park at 1:30pm, but by the time we got there at 3:30 they were all taken. We took a short scenic drive then went out to Terlingua to find a commercial RV park. Everywhere we checked had vacancies, we went for the cheapest at $20 for the night for dry camping with access to bathroom and shower.

 

Day 8 - We drove to the Panther Junction Visitor Center and got our permit for primitive backcountry campsites. Some of these sites can be reached with most any car or RV while others require 4x4 and high clearance. We chose 13 nights at 7 different campsites, spending 2 nights at each site except for the last one on our departure day. Permits for primitive camsites cannot be reserved and are first come only (this changes February 1, 2020 to a reservation system for some sites). I reserved 3 nights at Chisos Camground just in case. Turned out it was easy to get the sites we wanted, so I ended up cancelling 2 nights at Chisos in favor of backcountry camping. We spent this first night at Chisos for easy access to the Lost Mine Trail the next morning (the popular trailhead has limited parking and this would position us nearby for an early morning hike). We checked out the Visitor Center and went for a short walk before heading to the campsite for the night. One night would be enough time at Chisos campground for us, it was a tightly packed campground with small sites very close together, no privacy at all.

 

 

 

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[Sleddog]

Day 9 - We got an early start and were on Lost Mine Trail just a few minutes before 8am. There were only 3 other cars when we arrived, but the lot was full by the time we pulled out around 9:30. Next we drove to Persimmon Visitor center to check road conditions to our campsite at McKinney Spring, stopping at the fossil exhibit on the way. After we got our road report, we headed to our campsite. It was just over 9 miles on a rocky backcountry road that definitely requires 4x4 and high clearance, a Subaru AWD won't cut it. Took us an hour and forty five minutes to get there after leaving pavement, slow and rocky, but not too technical. McKinney Spring is a nice, isolated location with a single campsite, meaning no neighbors, and we only saw 5 other vehicles the rest of the day. There are definitely easier backcountry sites for those in RVs or regular automobiles.

 

 

 

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Edited by Sleddog, 24 February 2020 - 04:12 AM.

[Sleddog]

Day 10 - Tonight is the 2nd of 2 nights we had reserved at McKinney Spring. Since the road in was so rough and slow, and considering that we were advised the road got much rougher after that, we spent the day in camp taking it easy. We took a short walk to the spring first thing in the morning while it was cool enough to leave the dogs in the truck. Dogs are allowed to be anywhere an automobile can be in Big Bend, but are not allowed on trails or offroad in the backcountry. After lunch and a nap, we walked the dogs along the dirt road, there is little to no traffic on the upper end of Old Ore Road, so it is safe to treat the road as a hiking trail. We took it easy soaking in the sun for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

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[Sleddog]

The road out of McKinney Spring.

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[Sleddog]

Day 11 - Today we changed campsites. We got started around 9am and took about 2 hours to drive out of McKinney Spring. Next was a stop at the general store near Rio Grande Village to do laundry and take showers. There was a large parking lot with room for any size RV setup that was mostly empty while we were there, though several people came and went. The laundry has 2 washers and one dryer, all looked a little rough, but were clean and worked fine. The washer was $1.50 per load and the dryer was 25 cents for 8 minutes. The dryer gets super hot and we dried two washer loads with only 4 quarters. Things were pretty quiet when we arrived around 11am, but it got busier after lunch with a line for the men's shower. Showers were decent and cost $2 for 5 minutes. Be sure to pay attention to which one you go in. My partner had a lukewarm shower because he accidentally chose the only stall that purposely does not have hot water and is signed as such. My shower was plenty hot. Not the nicest showers , but good enough. The store was small but decently stocked with the basic camping needs, some food, snacks, soft drinks, beer, maps, and a few souvenirs. There was gas for sale, fairly reasonably priced considering the location at just under $3 per gallon. They also had ice, so I refilled the ice in the food coolers and the 5 gallon water cooler before heading for tonight's campsite. I'm partial to cold drinking water and always add ice to refill the water cooler instead of water. There is a drinking water faucet convenient for 5 gallon jugs available at the nearby visitor center that I used for the water cube.

We camped the night at the Candelilla backcountry site. The site itself is nothing special, but it is only about a mile from pavement and easy access to the Rio Grande area of the park.

 

 

 

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