Big Bend NP over Christmas '18 week?

[smlobx]

Hi everyone,
Every other year our kids spend Christmas with their spouses side of the family and Terri and I are on our own!
In 2016 we went to Costa Rica for two weeks and had a blast. In discussing what and where we would go this year Terri mentioned how much fun we had when we did a fly and drive camping trip to Death Valley and she asked me if I had any suggestions on another similar trip. My initial thought was possibly Big Bend NP and she asked me to tap into the braintrust here on WTW to get your suggestions...

Is BBNP a good location over Christmas or is there some other place that might be a better option....

Thanks!

 

[Ronin]

I can't say what it is like during Christmas but my wife and I went to BBNP mid-Feb 2016. The weather was un-seasonally warm, high 80s if I remember right and the 3rd day it rained. We camped there 3 nights ( a different cg each night) and day hiked each morning and night. We felt pretty satisfied with the time we spent there and never wished we had spent more time there. Driving from California we camped at Joshua Tree NP, Organ Pipe Cactus NM (very cool place), Gila Cliff Dwellings, stopped at White Sands NM, Lincoln Historic Site, Smokey The Bear museum, camped near Roswell and visited Carlsbad Caverns. From Carlsbad headed south, spent a night in Marfa Tx before entering BB. Leaving BB we camped at the Chiracahua's and Cochise Stronghold, spent 2 nights in Bisbee, went to Tombstone and then camped near Wickenburg Az. Making our final push back home camped at Berlin Ichtyosaur SP in Nv. Overall it was a great trip. Warm in the southern areas to low 20s in Northern N.M. You can fly into El Paso and the drive to BB is 4-5 hours. I don't know much about other place to visit around BB, but I do recommend checking out New Mexico or So Arizona.

 

[Foy]

Eddie,
My wife (also Terry, by the way) and I are also intrigued by Big Bend country. We postponed plans for a week to 10 day visit twice, each in late October/early November to coincide with the Terlingua chili cook off. Our plans involved me driving the truck and camper out there, picking her up at DFW at the end of day 2, and arriving on day 3. Spend a week to 10 days in the area of BBNP, cross over to Boqillas, Mexico, a couple or three nights camping and looking at rocks at El Solitario in Big Bend Ranch State Park (BBRSP), a couple of nights in a rustic cabin up at Chinati Hot Springs, a 60 mile canyon tour leaving there for a night in Marfa before heading back to NC via DFW.

While it can get cold, particularly at elevation, it's quite mild on average in Dec/Jan. For a fly-n-drive, I'd consider DFW in addition to El Paso, where the connections from VA/NC airports may be enough quicker to overcome the additional 4 hours' drive time to reach BBNP once you get on the ground.

A very enjoyable resource would be "Roadside Geology of Texas" by Darwin Spearing, with its entire chapter on BBNP, and Ross Maxwell's epic on the "Big Bend of the Rio Grande: A Guide to the Rocks, Landscape, Geologic History, and Settlers of the area of Big Bend National Park". The Maxwell piece is a magnificent work featuring a lot of fold-out maps. Maxwell was a PhD geologist from Oklahoma who had a lifelong interest in Big Bend and served as the first Superintendent of BBNP. I snagged the Roadside Geology handbook on Amazon and the Maxwell is available from the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, aka the Texas Geological Survey.

Enjoy the planning and the trip!

Foy

 

[smlobx]

Thanks folks!
It looks like a strong possibility. I'll have to do a little reading on the geology and look into the DFW option. I had not thought of that before....

 

[Foy]

Eddie, an Interwebs forum good for some info on the BB region is Big Bend Chat dot com.
Foy

 

[smlobx]

Eddie, an Interwebs forum good for some info on the BB region is Big Bend Chat dot com.
Foy

Thanks Foy!