This was our longest continual camping trip in the Tourtoise and Hare since we’ve had them both. We did a much longer (two week) trip at Inks Lake for the 2024 total solar eclipse, but we had work and school during it, so we weren’t at the campground the whole time. And one of our very first trips in the Tourtoise was to RGV for 10 days. But that was without the Hare and surrounded by tons of amenities.
Overall, the trip and camping were easy. In his last post, Aneel mentioned the stress and concern about EV range between charging stations on one of our driving stretches, but really everything else about the trip was nice and relaxing.
Really the only difference in terms of prep/planning that seemed different was our tiny fridge space and length of stay. That fridge really only has easy capacity for 3-4 days. I can always default to meals that don’t rely on fridge food, but it does cut out options we usually have.
My first plan was just to do a grocery run to restock in the middle of the trip. After a little research, that seemed less than optimal because whoa are there very few stores within 1-2 hours of Terlingua and Big Bend. They have a grocery store… which was pretty good for your typical American basic staples. But as a vegetarian who wants protein, I guessed they wouldn’t have any veggie patties, tofu, etc.
If we planned on mostly eating out on drive days (2 there, 2 back), then that meant 5 days on the trip. I prioritized the harder to find items and made a short little list of things that I thought we could get anywhere (like their grocery store). So, I left those to buy later or brought only a small quantity of. It worked great. No problems at all. I wasn’t worried—it was a good reminder that I’ve gotten into a very useful routine of meal prepping and cooking during camping.
Amusingly, the slight challenge was finding food on the road. This slice of Texas is just more barren than I am used to. Not many towns off the highway. The towns that are there are mostly tiny. We had a good lunch in Alpine on the way there. Grabbed donuts one morning. And just ate snacks we had on hand for another meal.
The Park Itself
Big Bend was just stunning. It was a pretty perfect time of year to go. The weather was great—chilly late at night and in the morning but warm and sunny on hikes without getting too hot. It was apparently a very crowded time of year (Thanksgiving), but it really only seemed busy a couple of times. For a fair number of the hikes we saw people occasionally but not regularly.
The only downside to the time of year is it wasn’t peak animal time. Spring birds had migrated away but hadn’t really picked up the winter birds. Even the residents seemed few and far between. We saw some good highlights of mammals—black-tailed jackrabbit, bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyote. But there were a few common ones we didn’t—mainly peccary and gray foxes and then some less common to see ones that we also didn’t see—black bear, mountain lions, bobcats, ringtails, badgers.
Although the birds weren’t numerous… I did get some new ones to add to my life list!
- Scaled Quail
- Black Phoebe
- Brewer’s Blackbird (okay to be fair, I know I’ve seen them before but apparently hadn’t recorded them)
- White-throated Swift
- Mexican Jay
- Phainopepla
And the other birds I’d hoped to see (that would have been new or special to me) were off season or very rare in the park.
Our Hikes
We did about 50 miles of hiking in the 5 days we were there. I feel like maybe I’m missing one of them, but this is my list…
- Window Trail
- Balanced Rock
- South Rim
- Sam Nail Ranch
- Boquillas Canyon Trail
- Upper Burro Mesa Pouroff
- Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff
- Santa Elena Canyon
- Rio Grande Village Nature Trail
South Rim was the big challenge. It was just long. Around 13 miles of hiking. None of it particularly challenging, but I was really ready to be done walking by about mile 11. Such gorgeous views though. Really breathtaking at the lookout and for quite a while even after that. We also had a very friendly Mexican Jay encounter at a snack spot. They really wanted our pistachios.Our Hikes
We did about 50 miles of hiking in the 5 days we were there. I feel like maybe I’m missing one of them, but this is my list…
- Window Trail
- Balanced Rock
- South Rim
- Sam Nail Ranch
- Boquillas Canyon Trail
- Upper Burro Mesa Pouroff
- Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff
- Santa Elena Canyon
- Rio Grande Village Nature Trail
South Rim was the big challenge. It was just long. Around 13 miles of hiking. None of it particularly challenging, but I was really ready to be done walking by about mile 11. Such gorgeous views though. Really breathtaking at the lookout and for quite a while even after that. We also had a very friendly Mexican Jay encounter at a snack spot. They really wanted our pistachios.
Surprisingly, upper and lower burro mesa pouroff were some of the ones I enjoyed the most. Both pretty short, but fun scenery and great scrambling as part of them.
We only did Sam Nail Ranch for the birds, and we did it twice. And good thing we did because we had an awesome Phainopepla spotting there!
Boquillas Canyon Trail was also super fun… Window was beautiful forest. Balanced Rock was impressive. Truly… there wasn’t a bad hike out of the bunch. The only one I wouldn’t necessarily recommend is the Rio Grande Village Nature Trail.
Random Tidbits
- It’s SO nice to set up your camping space for multiple days. Just a relief to set it up and settle in knowing you don’t have to pack it all up again 1-2 days later. Luxury.
- Switching off driving between the two of us more made the drive go by much faster.
- I’d recommend staying at Big Bend Station for full hookup. It was so close to one of the main park entrances. Although it didn’t particularly have amazing vistas or scenery – it was handy. A great distance from stores, restaurants, and the park itself.
- The detours (on the way there and back) to Marfa were highlights on the trip as well.
- There is a SUPER cute quilt store in Terlingua that you MUST go to if you are there.
