LFD2037
TEXAS LEXUS!
Planning a trip out there for late March/early April. Having never been out that way I have a few questions from those that have been to both. It will be 2 of us in my 80 & 2 other people in a Jeep Wrangler 4 door. We'll be staying 3-4 nights there. We plan on exploring each day in our rigs or hiking. What we want is:
primitive camping (running H2O would be nice but by no means required)
good off-roading (more aggressive than just dirt roads)
awesome views
seclusion
Is there any reason to pick 1 over the other? Best area to camp in for awesome views?
***EDIT*** Did the trip!
Ended up just being me & a friend go in my LX450 (spec's in sig). Left Waxahachie @ 8:30am Wednesday morning. Plan was to drive to the SP, camp 3 nights then drive to NP & camp 1 night then head home. Wasn't a hard plan so we ended up winging it! Found out about 5 hours into the trip that the SP ranger station closed @ 6pm & we weren't going to make it there by then. Decided since the NP was closer we'd reverse the trip a bit. Called the NP about 2 hours out, was told they close @ 6pm. Explained we wanted backcountry camping & we'd be arriving right @ 6 to get permits. Pull into the NP visitor center right @ 5:59pm. Talk to the lady I talked to on the phone & she says 'sorry, all back country sights are full'!!!!! I proceed to ask her why, after I called & told her we were driving from Dallas & we specifically want back country camping, she didn't tell me then. She says 'we rented them all in the last 2 hours'. BS. Anyways, we drive some thru the park & out to Terilingua. She said there's nice camping there which was TOTAL BS. Found some guy that looked like he was renting out the back of his property for tent camping so we stayed there. Nothing special but we didn't care. Terilingua was a cool, weird little town. Woke up the Thursday morning, packed up, ate @ the local diner & headed down 170 to the SP @ ~10:30am. 170 is an awesome highway!!! Lots of cool views, old relics, river views & winding road. Got to the SP entrance ~noon. Drove about 10 miles in & remembered we needed firewood & meat for dinners. Turned around & drove to Presidio, which is the closest town & closest place to the SP to get fuel (none in the park). Got meat, gas & tried to find firewood. Not many trees in the area @ all so nobody really selling firewood. Saw a bunch of wood by someone's duplex (house) next to a gas station (it was calles DJ's C Store or something along those lines), @ the Y in the road. Ask the guy if we could buy some & he said in his best English, 'you can have, no money. Free.' We loaded up some wood, gave the guy $5 & were on our way back to the SP. Entering the SP you hit a gravel road right off 170. It's ~9 miles & you arrive @ a little info. stand (unattended) & what they call 'late arrival campground'. Road to there is pretty smooth & graded gravel. Then it's ~17 more miles to the Ranger station. Road gets rougher the further you go but a car can easily make it to the station. It's ~1 drive from 170 to station. Paid our fees ($5 per person per day entrance fee & $8 PPPD camping fee). We camped @ La Motilla campground which is on a 4wd high clearance road ~1 hour from the station. If we wanted to leave camp & go get fuel it was a 2hr drive! Set up camp & went did some sight seeing on 4wd roads around camp. Made it back to camp ~8:30, cooked dinner, had some beverages & went to bed ~midnight. Up @ ~8:30 Friday morning, cooked breakfast (took 2 damn hours!) & headed out to do the north side unmaintained roads. The park consists of the main road (graded & decent), 4wd roads (mostly due to it might be muddy slick), 4wd high clearance (need 4wd but a stock 80 or Jeep can make it) then Road Unmaintained (seriously zero maintenance it many, many years if ever). EXPECT serious scratches, trimming small trees in roadway, washouts, roads no longer there, etc. Went up Casa Piedra rd. to go on one branch of Botella Trail, a guy on a bike told us the road was washed out, showed me a pic, & I agreed. He said we can take the other fork & can 'probably winch thru it'. He had no idea what my rig was capable of & that became obvious. Decided to take the other fork of it, which was 9.2 miles unmaintained (took ~3hrs!). Had to trim some road trees, got some scratches, saw some sights, had zero problems w/getting stuck. Made it back to the 'main' road & headed back to camp. Started pouring rain on the drive back to camp, which took ~2hrs. Arrived @ camp ~9:30, set in the truck till the rain lightened up, set up an awning under the rain, started the fire, started the steaks & beans, & started on the cold beverages. Rain kept us @ bay for awhile. Ended up eating ~11:30, jammed some tunes, had quite a few #6's & went to bed @ 4am. D'oh! Woke up @ ~11am Saturday morning, got some stuff loaded into truck & headed to station for a shower. Showered up, made some sammiches & headed out. Went out east on the main road towards Los Alamos unmaintained trails. Ended up doing the east side of Los Alamos (5 mi) to Solitario Rd to Tres Papalotes down to the <1 mile trails that lead to the Uranium & Magnesium mines/town. Drove 1/2 way up a WICKED switchback towards the big mine. Stopped 1/2 way due to it being extremely sketchy & if we would've slid another foot we may have been goners. I HIGHLY suggest to not drive this. Hiked the rest of the way up to the mine, saw some seriously big, unusual scat near the entrance & decided we didn't want to become bear/cougar food so we walked back down to truck. From there headed there headed back north on Solitairo Rd. to another unmaintained road on the left. Drove it 3.9mi. Got some serious scratches & went thru some deep washouts (no problems getting stuck). Took Solitairo Rd. north a bit more & did the west side of the loop we did earlier. It was 2 miles. SERIOUS scratches that were completely unavoidable. By now it was about 7:30 so we headed back to camp. That took 2 hours, & rained most the way, so had a late dinner @ ~9:30. Sat by fire a bit & turned in @ ~11:30. No #6's as we had ran out & had a 10hr drive the next morning. Woke up @ 8am Sunday morn', packed up, headed out for the ~1hr drive to the station. Made it to station @ ~10. Cleaned up a bit & made the ~1 hr drive to Presidio. Gassed up (were on E w/gas light starting to come on), got a homemade burrito & hit highway 17 north @ ~11:45. Made it back to Waxahachie @ ~9:15pm.
Things I learned/would change:
the unmaintained roads take a lot longer to do than I imagined
make reservations
take more #6
it's a long ways to get fuel
we saw a tornado right in front of us, & hail but had no means of getting a weather report
cell phones don't work anywhere in the SP
bad, bad scratches on the east side unmaintained roads
going anywhere takes a long time
we never saw the Rio Grande after we got into the SP (could've but never went that way)
no fear of stuff getting stolen where we were
saw no illegals or felt in danger @ any time
the park rangers are nice people
saw a muley, bunch of javalina's, bunch of quail
saw no spiders, snakes, etc.
NP had better views than the SP even though we only drove thru the NP
SP is extremely desolate & you are on your own
NP was way more civilized, touristy, maintained, populated
stars were amazing!!!
If I were to do it all over again, which I probably will:
camp closer to main road in SP
more #6
more provisions for rain & cold
bino's &/or telescope
spend more time in SP down south near Rio Grande
stay a night or 2 in NP near the Rio Grande
have some sort of weather report device that will receive signal there
it'd be nice to have another vehicle but not required
air compressor to air down & make roads smoother
YMMV. If you have any ?'s feel free to ask. Pic's on 2nd page. Thanks.
primitive camping (running H2O would be nice but by no means required)
good off-roading (more aggressive than just dirt roads)
awesome views
seclusion
Is there any reason to pick 1 over the other? Best area to camp in for awesome views?
***EDIT*** Did the trip!
Ended up just being me & a friend go in my LX450 (spec's in sig). Left Waxahachie @ 8:30am Wednesday morning. Plan was to drive to the SP, camp 3 nights then drive to NP & camp 1 night then head home. Wasn't a hard plan so we ended up winging it! Found out about 5 hours into the trip that the SP ranger station closed @ 6pm & we weren't going to make it there by then. Decided since the NP was closer we'd reverse the trip a bit. Called the NP about 2 hours out, was told they close @ 6pm. Explained we wanted backcountry camping & we'd be arriving right @ 6 to get permits. Pull into the NP visitor center right @ 5:59pm. Talk to the lady I talked to on the phone & she says 'sorry, all back country sights are full'!!!!! I proceed to ask her why, after I called & told her we were driving from Dallas & we specifically want back country camping, she didn't tell me then. She says 'we rented them all in the last 2 hours'. BS. Anyways, we drive some thru the park & out to Terilingua. She said there's nice camping there which was TOTAL BS. Found some guy that looked like he was renting out the back of his property for tent camping so we stayed there. Nothing special but we didn't care. Terilingua was a cool, weird little town. Woke up the Thursday morning, packed up, ate @ the local diner & headed down 170 to the SP @ ~10:30am. 170 is an awesome highway!!! Lots of cool views, old relics, river views & winding road. Got to the SP entrance ~noon. Drove about 10 miles in & remembered we needed firewood & meat for dinners. Turned around & drove to Presidio, which is the closest town & closest place to the SP to get fuel (none in the park). Got meat, gas & tried to find firewood. Not many trees in the area @ all so nobody really selling firewood. Saw a bunch of wood by someone's duplex (house) next to a gas station (it was calles DJ's C Store or something along those lines), @ the Y in the road. Ask the guy if we could buy some & he said in his best English, 'you can have, no money. Free.' We loaded up some wood, gave the guy $5 & were on our way back to the SP. Entering the SP you hit a gravel road right off 170. It's ~9 miles & you arrive @ a little info. stand (unattended) & what they call 'late arrival campground'. Road to there is pretty smooth & graded gravel. Then it's ~17 more miles to the Ranger station. Road gets rougher the further you go but a car can easily make it to the station. It's ~1 drive from 170 to station. Paid our fees ($5 per person per day entrance fee & $8 PPPD camping fee). We camped @ La Motilla campground which is on a 4wd high clearance road ~1 hour from the station. If we wanted to leave camp & go get fuel it was a 2hr drive! Set up camp & went did some sight seeing on 4wd roads around camp. Made it back to camp ~8:30, cooked dinner, had some beverages & went to bed ~midnight. Up @ ~8:30 Friday morning, cooked breakfast (took 2 damn hours!) & headed out to do the north side unmaintained roads. The park consists of the main road (graded & decent), 4wd roads (mostly due to it might be muddy slick), 4wd high clearance (need 4wd but a stock 80 or Jeep can make it) then Road Unmaintained (seriously zero maintenance it many, many years if ever). EXPECT serious scratches, trimming small trees in roadway, washouts, roads no longer there, etc. Went up Casa Piedra rd. to go on one branch of Botella Trail, a guy on a bike told us the road was washed out, showed me a pic, & I agreed. He said we can take the other fork & can 'probably winch thru it'. He had no idea what my rig was capable of & that became obvious. Decided to take the other fork of it, which was 9.2 miles unmaintained (took ~3hrs!). Had to trim some road trees, got some scratches, saw some sights, had zero problems w/getting stuck. Made it back to the 'main' road & headed back to camp. Started pouring rain on the drive back to camp, which took ~2hrs. Arrived @ camp ~9:30, set in the truck till the rain lightened up, set up an awning under the rain, started the fire, started the steaks & beans, & started on the cold beverages. Rain kept us @ bay for awhile. Ended up eating ~11:30, jammed some tunes, had quite a few #6's & went to bed @ 4am. D'oh! Woke up @ ~11am Saturday morning, got some stuff loaded into truck & headed to station for a shower. Showered up, made some sammiches & headed out. Went out east on the main road towards Los Alamos unmaintained trails. Ended up doing the east side of Los Alamos (5 mi) to Solitario Rd to Tres Papalotes down to the <1 mile trails that lead to the Uranium & Magnesium mines/town. Drove 1/2 way up a WICKED switchback towards the big mine. Stopped 1/2 way due to it being extremely sketchy & if we would've slid another foot we may have been goners. I HIGHLY suggest to not drive this. Hiked the rest of the way up to the mine, saw some seriously big, unusual scat near the entrance & decided we didn't want to become bear/cougar food so we walked back down to truck. From there headed there headed back north on Solitairo Rd. to another unmaintained road on the left. Drove it 3.9mi. Got some serious scratches & went thru some deep washouts (no problems getting stuck). Took Solitairo Rd. north a bit more & did the west side of the loop we did earlier. It was 2 miles. SERIOUS scratches that were completely unavoidable. By now it was about 7:30 so we headed back to camp. That took 2 hours, & rained most the way, so had a late dinner @ ~9:30. Sat by fire a bit & turned in @ ~11:30. No #6's as we had ran out & had a 10hr drive the next morning. Woke up @ 8am Sunday morn', packed up, headed out for the ~1hr drive to the station. Made it to station @ ~10. Cleaned up a bit & made the ~1 hr drive to Presidio. Gassed up (were on E w/gas light starting to come on), got a homemade burrito & hit highway 17 north @ ~11:45. Made it back to Waxahachie @ ~9:15pm.
Things I learned/would change:
the unmaintained roads take a lot longer to do than I imagined
make reservations
take more #6
it's a long ways to get fuel
we saw a tornado right in front of us, & hail but had no means of getting a weather report
cell phones don't work anywhere in the SP
bad, bad scratches on the east side unmaintained roads
going anywhere takes a long time
we never saw the Rio Grande after we got into the SP (could've but never went that way)
no fear of stuff getting stolen where we were
saw no illegals or felt in danger @ any time
the park rangers are nice people
saw a muley, bunch of javalina's, bunch of quail
saw no spiders, snakes, etc.
NP had better views than the SP even though we only drove thru the NP
SP is extremely desolate & you are on your own
NP was way more civilized, touristy, maintained, populated
stars were amazing!!!
If I were to do it all over again, which I probably will:
camp closer to main road in SP
more #6
more provisions for rain & cold
bino's &/or telescope
spend more time in SP down south near Rio Grande
stay a night or 2 in NP near the Rio Grande
have some sort of weather report device that will receive signal there
it'd be nice to have another vehicle but not required
air compressor to air down & make roads smoother
YMMV. If you have any ?'s feel free to ask. Pic's on 2nd page. Thanks.
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