Big Bend National Park

After driving through Kansas, Oklahoma and most of Texas we made it to Big Bend!

Texas! Yes, turns out Texas is big. It is also empty. There is a lot of Texas that has nothing to see. But, if you go far enough, you run into Big Bend National Park! This park is located in the very south of Texas on the western side. So, if you are coming from Kansas for example, you have to drive pretty much all the way through the state to get there. Which takes awhile. Like 10 hours. Or more.

The good news is that when you get to Big Bend National Park it actually has "mountains". I say "mountains" because I think the tallest one is about 5,000 feet tall, which is really kinda an oversized hill. But compared to the rest of Texas, I guess it kinda is a mountain. So yeah! Mountains! We arrived at the Persimmon Gap Visitor's Center, talked to the Ranger there, and formulated our plan. Due to our short time before Thanksgiving, we are planning to visit these parks at warp speed. So, we budgeted an hour to see a park that has about 1,200 square miles of space. Needless to say, we feel like we missed a few things and are planning to return and catch up on the areas we missed.

Our trip consisted of driving about 5 miles into the northern part of the park (which appears to be the most deserty and non-scenic) went for a short hike toward Dog Canyon, took some pictures, dodged some ant holes, and headed back to the car, sad that we had to leave so soon to stay on schedule. Based on our reading and the info from the Ranger there is a lot of things worth seeing that we just didn't have time for this trip.

Personnel:
The Ranger at the VC was definitely friendly and helpful, even though we had limited time, he was able to point us to a few options that we could explore in the nearby park areas.

Climate/weather:
We were expecting rain in the park (we drove through the rain to get there) but when arrived it was simply overcast and cool, but not raining. The hiking was especially pleasant in this weather even more so when the sun came out for a bit to add some beauty and warmth!

Facilities/signage:
The visitor's center we stopped at was quite small, and it had toilets in a separate small building (presumably without running water, but we didn't check them out.) It is likely that the more major areas have better toilet facilities. The main entrance sign was large but unremarkable, and there is only 1 road into the park where we came in with no side roads, so not too many signs to see, but the trail we hiked was well marked.

Hiking experience:
The Dog Canyon Trail that we walked was undeveloped and marked only by small cairns spaced every 20 to 50 feet along the trail. It was quite a pleasant walk and felt almost like backcountry exploring. (If it had been raining it would have been quite muddy, and if it had been in summer it would have been beastly hot... so choose your timing wisely if you are taking an unpaved trail.) Since this northern part of the park isn't as well traveled we  only saw 1 other person while hiking.

Driving experience:
The scenery while driving was pretty Texas typical, it wound through the valleys between mountains, but didn't itself change elevation a whole lot.

Camping options:
There are 3 frontcountry campgrounds, as well as backcountry camping allowed, but all require permits and all permits have fees associated. We did see a sign for camping just outside the park as well.

Hammockability:
So sad... we didn't see any trees that were hammockable within the park. According to what we read there are trees in the Chisos Mountains that may be viable for hammocking, though we will have to wait until our return to verify this!

Scenery:
Well, the northern part of the park is not very inspiring. It is pretty dry, and brown, and the surrounding hills ("mountains" as they call them here) are not featureless, but aren't spectacular. We definitely feel like we missed out on the beauty of this park and are looking forward to exploring it in the future.

Nearby food:
We didn't see any food options during our exploration of the park, and it is quite a ways from the nearest town, but there may be food options farther in the park.


So, we are definitely planning to come back here. From what we saw the park wasn't that spectacular, However, from everything we have heard elsewhere there is so much in this park that we look forward to exploring when we next we return. Stay tuned for a follow up blog post someday in the future!

Next up: Guadalupe Mountains National Park!