Big Bend Ranch State Park

It was a Christmas eve filled with Spectacular scenic drive, breathtaking sunset, mesmerizing night sky and truly magical sunrise!

This blog is a continuation from our post “A day in Marfa”. Feel free to check it out. After enjoying the delicious Marfa burritos for breakfast, we headed to Big Bend Ranch State Park taking the US-67 highway.

We chose to visit the Big Bend State Park instead of the national park to avoid the long weekend holiday crowd. First, we stopped for filling up gas at Presidio, which is the last town before the state park. It also has a border crossing checkpoint to Mexico. Then we spent some time at the Fort Leaton state historic site, where we also got our entry passes to BBRSP and book a camping spot for the night.

We chose to visit Big Bend Ranch State Park instead of the adjacent National Park to avoid the Christmas Holiday crowd. And that is exactly what we got – only 10 visitors in the whole 330,000 acres of park area!!!

Fort Leaton has a little museum to learn about the local flora, fauna, human settlements and culture . The structure is built with adobe walls, very interesting wooden windows and doors.

From there, we headed into the BBRSP. We expected the road to be paved atleast until the ranger station, but it was just graded. So, time to lower our tire pressure from 35 to 26. we always lower our tire pressure when we are driving on washed out/rough graded roads to make the ride smoother and reduce the possibility of blowout. We did carry a full size backup tire as well, but luckily we did not had to use it. The ranger station inside is about 27 miles from FM170 through “Casa Piedra”. Miles may be less, but you will definitely need at least 2 hours to reach the ranger station due to the road terrain. So plan your trip accordingly.

Watch where you step as the Cacti spines are long needle like sharp. Be careful when walking or taking photographs. Naveen stepped on a cacti! The photo doesn’t show much but trust me, bunch of thorns poked all the way inside.

In above picture, you could see the damaged plant with exposed green area. The plant is camouflaged with ground most of the time. So be careful guys…

These were the other interesting plants that you could find here.

We reached the Sauceda ranger station by 4pm approx. and had a good informative chat with a friendly Ranger there. She was very helpful and we loved her energy! After getting all the necessary info, we decided to head to our campsite directly and spend some time before sunset.

[themify_box style=”yellow announcement”]  The ranger station has clean restrooms, drinking water, ice and shower, which is accessible 24/7.[/themify_box]

Camping At Big Bend Ranch State Park

The camp site is called “Fresno Vista”. It is a 9 mile drive from the ranger station. After driving 7 miles on the main park road, there is a small road which goes up the the site. It is 1.2 mile very rough gravel road which will make the park gravel road seem like a paved highway. It took us 15 mins to travel 1.2 miles and get to the campsite. You would definitely need a high clearance vehicle. This site is interestingly situated on top of the hill with grand views to “THE SOLITARIO”.

 

Seemed like we were ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!. Had our dinner while watching a spectacular sunset , spent our night gazing at stars and woke up to a beautiful sunrise. Let our pictures and video speak for itself.

 

 

 

If this is not life, then what is! Nature is so magical and healing in its raw form. Places like these is what makes us travel more… Happy trails!

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