Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive
4 / 5
We left the camper set up at Rio Grande Village and headed out for a full day of exploring, with plans to cross the park and end the night car camping up in Chisos Basin.
Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive
1 / 35
The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive is one of those roads where you keep thinking, okay, this has to be the best view, and then the next curve proves you wrong. The landscape slowly shifts from wide open desert to rugged mountains, and the colors change constantly. Soft tans give way to rusty reds, deep purples, and streaks of black volcanic rock.
We stopped at the Castolon Historic District, which started as a trading post in 1901 and later became a small farming community. It’s quiet now, but it’s easy to imagine how tough life must have been trying to carve out an existence in this corner of the desert.
From Rio Grande Village, it was about an hour and a half to the grand finale at Santa Elena Canyon. Worth every mile.
We added a quick history stop on the one mile Dorgan Sublett Trail. In the 1930s, Albert Dorgan and James Sublett bought 640 acres of floodplain and decided irrigated farming in the Chihuahuan Desert was a good plan. Bold move. The ruins of their homes are still scattered across the land, and Danny immediately started dreaming up dams and water systems. Unfortunately, Big Bend has been dealing with drought, and the Rio Grande is not exactly dependable. Floodplain farming doesn’t work so well without the floods.
The Santa Elena Canyon Trail is the most popular hike in Big Bend, and it earns that title. The 1.6 mile out and back is short, but the canyon walls tower straight up and completely steal the show. The trail ends in a dry riverbed where kids were splashing around and covering themselves in river mud like it was spa day.
As we headed back toward the mountains, we made one last stop at Sam Nail Ranch. Sam Nail homesteaded here in the early 1900s and used windmills to pump water for his ranch. We walked the short loop trail, checked out the remains of an old building, and wandered toward a small creek. Big mistake. A swarm of biting flies descended out of nowhere, and we booked it back to the car like we were in a low budget horror film.
That evening, we treated ourselves to dinner at the Chisos Basin Lodge. We sipped cocktails and watched the sun set through the Window, a perfectly framed notch in the mountains that funnels light and storms out into the desert. As the sky faded, the whole basin went quiet.
We crawled into the back of the Tahoe for the night, choosing to stay up here for one simple reason. The nearby Lost Mine Trail was waiting for us in the morning.
We stopped at the Castolon Historic District, which started as a trading post in 1901 and later became a small farming community. It’s quiet now, but it’s easy to imagine how tough life must have been trying to carve out an existence in this corner of the desert.
From Rio Grande Village, it was about an hour and a half to the grand finale at Santa Elena Canyon. Worth every mile.
We added a quick history stop on the one mile Dorgan Sublett Trail. In the 1930s, Albert Dorgan and James Sublett bought 640 acres of floodplain and decided irrigated farming in the Chihuahuan Desert was a good plan. Bold move. The ruins of their homes are still scattered across the land, and Danny immediately started dreaming up dams and water systems. Unfortunately, Big Bend has been dealing with drought, and the Rio Grande is not exactly dependable. Floodplain farming doesn’t work so well without the floods.
The Santa Elena Canyon Trail is the most popular hike in Big Bend, and it earns that title. The 1.6 mile out and back is short, but the canyon walls tower straight up and completely steal the show. The trail ends in a dry riverbed where kids were splashing around and covering themselves in river mud like it was spa day.
As we headed back toward the mountains, we made one last stop at Sam Nail Ranch. Sam Nail homesteaded here in the early 1900s and used windmills to pump water for his ranch. We walked the short loop trail, checked out the remains of an old building, and wandered toward a small creek. Big mistake. A swarm of biting flies descended out of nowhere, and we booked it back to the car like we were in a low budget horror film.
That evening, we treated ourselves to dinner at the Chisos Basin Lodge. We sipped cocktails and watched the sun set through the Window, a perfectly framed notch in the mountains that funnels light and storms out into the desert. As the sky faded, the whole basin went quiet.
We crawled into the back of the Tahoe for the night, choosing to stay up here for one simple reason. The nearby Lost Mine Trail was waiting for us in the morning.