Big Bend National Park
River Road Day - April 12
We started out the day after breakfast with loading all the necessary supplies and gear into our 'new to us' Suburban. Ella sported her headlamp all morning. We filled up the back end with coolers of food and drink, emergency gear, and blankets. When you venture this far away from civilization you need to be ready to fend for yourselves in the event of an emergency. The only way to get help out here is to wait for someone else to come past you.
Starting at the campground we headed southwest parallel to the Rio Grande down River Road East. The majority of the day was spent on well traveled, but unpaved roads. For anyone interested this requires a high clearance vehicle in good weather. The Rangers describe this as tall enough to get under if needed. In bad weather these roads are not recommended to most. We drove straight out to Mariscal Mine and returned past Glenn Spring detouring around the big drop off on Black Gap Road in between the two sites. Our Garmin GPS had these roads built in so we easily kept track of our location. Don't expect to use a smartphone as GPS out here unless you download off network maps.
Driving these roads is a must for anybody that visits Big Bend. The kids entertained themselves bouncing around the car and we were able to just stop anytime and explore. Don't expect to find a rest stop and toilet out there folks.
Over every hill and around every corner was another impressive view.
Ella driving and Ava navigating.
The high clearance is recommended on this road mostly due to entering and exiting dry river beds. It can be a little sandy in spots.
Mariscal Mine
The miners out here 100 years ago had a rugged life. The earthen stone homes they lived and worked in must have been a shaded respite from this desert. Our car running near the mine for a while showed a temperature of 140 degrees. It was probably somewhere near 110 which was easily 20 degrees warmer than other areas of the park the day before.
Glenn Spring
Check out this link for some interesting history: http://www.nps.gov/bibe/historyculture/glsp.htm
In 1916, there were nearly 80 people living here in a busy little village.
We took the roads really easy around 5mph most of the day, but you could easily do 15+ to cover more ground. The Chisos Mountains we hiked the day before were in the distance as we headed North near Glenn Springs. This was certainly one of the most adventurous days we've had since our camping days began.
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