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Dual Sport Adventure - Big Bend National Park Texas
Day Seven, November 17th |
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We settled up the bill with Rod for 8 nights of camping and took pictures of him in his map room as he described the last day's planned route which included delivering mail to one of the property owners who lived some 20 miles away. Rod snickered as he pointed out the route, so we knew it would be another challenging ride. We would stay on the Ranch property all day. We headed north on Terlingua Ranch Road and took a right at a sign labeled "LTM" which Rod told us stood for Little Texas Mafia...hmmmm. Took a left at the next intersection and a right at the next onto East Cedar Springs Road. This was easy riding with only a few washes. We stopped at Cedar Creek, a deeply eroded rock formation, and found evidence of animals coming there to drink. Continuing north on East Cedar Springs Road we found good dual sport riding. We came to Cedar Springs Ranch gate and took a GPS reading. It showed we were at our destination, but couldn't see any signs of life. The ranch we were looking for was just over the hill. We did note electric poles that indicated life so we continued to crest the hill and eyed the small ranch below. The ranch owners were Neal and his wife Chris. They lived on the old Wilson Ranch home place. We chatted with them for 30 minutes. Chris is a schoolteacher in Terlingua where she has a total of eight 4th graders and the entire school population K-12 was 185. These kids used to be bused to Alpine, the longest school bus ride in the country, catching the bus every day at 4 am and not getting home until 6:30 pm. They'd take sleeping bags to get some more sleep on the ride. The drop out rate was 60%. Neal and Chris told us about the canyon views we needed to check-out and said the roads we planned to take should give us no problem. We left heading north from their ranch and passed an airstrip - a common site in this desert area. Not much of a airstrip, simply a fairly level graded clearing in the desert about 40 foot wide and very useable, even though it is common for planes to simply land on some of the better ranch roads. Rod even said they taxi up to the gas pumps at the ranch office to refuel. We went across a sand dam with a small watering pond that probably stayed dry most of the year. We then arrived at Rotten Draw, a 50 foot deep eroded crevasse with a natural large hot tub at the very top - probably a great place to cool down after a rain. Today it was dry. The draw twisted around and finally came out as a cut into the big canyon - a 300 foot near vertical wall leading down to the flat desert where ranchers were growing crops and cattle herds were grazing - quite the view. Neal had told us that he often sees B-1 and B-2 bombers flying lower than our viewing point. Getting back on East Cedar Springs Road we came up to another point overlooking the valley just to the east of Black Peak, a steep mountain which we planned to circle. There were some more great views of the valley below. Continuing around Black Peak to the north the roads became more difficult and less used. On the west side we encountered a steep drop into a wash with loose rock. It was a difficult ride but we went ahead after studying the section and we both managed a clean run. We then found the main road gated with a "private, no hunting" sign. We opened the gate and rode down about a quarter mile before seeing two houses with trucks parked outside. We decided to backtrack and find another way down, which on the map appeared to be OK. On the alternate route we came upon two very steep drops through bedrock with large loose rocks scattered all along the long downhill. Our options were to turn around and go through the private property and maybe get shot or to walk the bikes down 300 yards. We opted to walk the bikes down rather than possibly anger the local property owners. From the high point we could see that the road improved once we got past this difficult section. But once we were back on level ground we did encounter several difficult sections and in one place the road actually disappeared into underbrush - obviously near a spring. We were riding amid the bushes and cactus hoping that we were still on what should have been the road. We were tired after negociating the difficult sections on the west side of Black Peak and were eager to get back to camp. We passed by Neal's ranch and took a right on West Cedar Springs Road. Our hopes for an easy return were soon dashed as this road was much more difficult than our morning ride north. We ran into many loose washes, loose rocks, long sandy areas, and a few steep, rocky climbs. After a few wrong turns here and there we finally managed to find Cedar Springs. There was plenty of water in a deep spring and lots of deer tracks. Continuing south on West Cedar Springs the road became increasingly difficult. We finally came to the gate that rod had told us about, saying it was ok to ride through. We decided to take the road easterly to intersect East Cedar Springs Road - we had seen enough surprises for the day and wanted to return to the easier road we had taken earlier. On the crossover road we saw 4 mule deer heading up the steep slopes. They had no problem negotiating their way up the steep, rocky hillside. We wished them luck as deer season would be underway in a few weeks. We thought we had it made when we found the main road home. But after a short distance, Nancy's clutch cable snapped. We managed to get the bike in neutral and started. Nancy pushed and Ron popped the bike into first gear. We took it easy the last 10 miles home but made it back with no problem What we planned to be an easy day had turned into a very hard day of riding, but well worth the effort because of the unique sites that we visited. We rode 60 miles approximately 4 hours riding time. Back at camp we packed up everything except the tent and cook stove and set our watch for 4 am. On our trip out we were treated to the Leonid meteor shower - with about 1 meteor per second slashing across the crystal clear desert sky. Listening to the radio on the way home we heard others say that they had not seen very much, but it was quite the show in the desert. Highlights of todays ride: We could see how the springs were easy to find by the early settlers. You can see it for miles because of the vegetation and trees. The canyons were spectacular. At the edge some of the large rocks had cracked making it scary to even walk on them, but they would probably be there for another thousand years. We met two dirt bikers back at the ranch who stopped by our camp to chat. These guys didn't even carry a map (don't think they knew how to read one anyway) and had no consideration for riding on private property or riding off road, down dry creek beads. We think bikers should have more consideration when they are guests at Terlingua Ranch. We were always careful to stay on the roads and not to trespass when we encountered gates or fences. We had the urge at times to dig up a souvenir cactus, but respected the land enough to not disturb the natural settings. These guys also told us that any bikes that aren't street legal in the Park will be confiscated. Anyone wishing to ride the roads in Terlingua Ranch should stay at the ranch, or at least go to the office and offer to pay a minimum fee to use the roads or better yet, buy yourself 40 acres for as little as $2,500 and become a member of their landowners association where you will have legal use of the road easements.. The roads are maintained at the property owner's expense. |
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