West Texas
I was invited to join some friends in West Texas for New Year’s Eve. After a quick look at the map, I was all in. There were two National Parks within driving distance that sold me, but after research there were many other sights that would be worth while as well.
We flew from Houston to El Paso to avoid the 9+ hour drive. I would have preferred the road trip, but we were just flying back from family for Christmas, and we were tight on time.
We drove from El Paso to Alpine. Marfa is well known, but Alpine is the biggest town in the area. It has a population around 6,000. Ft. Davis & Marfa are only about a third of the size. I mention that because it definitely has the most in terms of food and accommodations.
Despite flying out, this still felt like a road trip because we spent many hours in the car getting around to all of our destinations. As you’ll see on the map, Alpine is fairly central with highways running south to Big Bend, West to Marfa and Van Horn, North to Ft. Davis, and East to Marathon.
Our first night in, We visited the MacDonald Observatory. They will hold star parties, where you learn about the night sky and have the opportunity to look through their “small” telescopes. They refer to them as small, but they’re very large. Just not the very large ones. It was a little cloudy on the night we went, but they still did a lot of education and I was happy we went. Highly recommend it.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
The first day, I was going to make a solo trip to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I really wanted to photograph El Capitan as the sun rose, which meant leaving at 4:00 in the morning. I ended up leaving a little early, and I’m glad I did. Even though you are able to drive fast enough to make up time, when it is still dark out you can’t see anything. Even with the high beams on, there’s nothing there to reflect the light, and of course the whole time you’re watching for wildlife trying to avoid an accident.
Upon making it to the park, I stopped at the El Capitan turn off to photograph the sunrise. It was very windy that morning. I’m glad I brought my real tripod. When I first got there, it was still dark enough to photograph the mountain with stars in the sky, but as you can see in the image, the mountain is already starting to reflect some light from the sun.
After sunrise, I visited the park to hike some trails. This is when I learned that although Central Time zone applies to most of the surrounding area, the national park is actually in Mountain. The rangers were very helpful and recommended that I do the McKittrick Canyon trail. It was a great hike, great scenery.
Do know, there’s not much in terms of infrastructure, so be sure to bring a lot of water and food, you’re minimum an hours drive to purchase some. I was prepared with water, but not food, so early afternoon, returned from the trails and headed back.
Davis Mountains
From Van Horn, I decided to take the scenic route home. There is a senic loop through the Davis Mountains just west of Fort Davis. I took I-10 East, and exited at Kent. The landscape here is beautiful, even well before reaching the loop. The hills, mountains, semi-desert landscape was stunning. The lack of traffic allows for you to spend hours on the road and not feel tired, too.
When I reached the loop, I took Texas highway 166 which goes west and south of the mountains. The rocky Davis Mountains make a for a beautiful backdrop on the windy road around them. I found myself pulling over constantly to take pictures. I was there just after winter had started, I do think the best photographic opportunities would be during summer with the sun to the north.
The loop drive ended in Ft. Davis, and from there it was a quick drive back to Alpine.
Alpine & Marfa
Alpine, despite being the largest, is still a quite small town. Between the towns are mountains that make the drive between them rewarding. In Alpine, once you get off the main road, and there’s only one, you must keep an eye out for wildlife. Door was the most common, but we did see a large wild cat, once. The deer photo was taken from the front porch of our place. We did not feed them or interfere with them, just admired from afar.
In preparing for the trip, I had read about Marfa Lights. You can learn more about them here, but the TLDR, back in the 19th century, a guy was traveling through the area and at night noticed several lights off in the distance. The next day teams went out to find sources of camp fires or Native American activity and found nothing. I did see the Marfa Lights, and it is interesting, but it is just some faint lights in the distance. If you like mysteries, you’ll enjoy it, if you’re looking for the most exciting activity, this might not meet your expectations. I would do it again.
While I was there, I did take a moment to photograph the night sky. I cannot remember ever seeing the milky way just by looking up. Although faint, and the core isnt’ visible here during the winter, it was definitely noticeable. This was my first time shooting the night sky. I toyed around with various exposure settings, but ultimately I found less than 10 seconds and an ISO around 3200 worked well. Any longer on the time and I had trails.
Big Bend National Park
The next day we were off before sunrise, but the light was already arriving. We drove east to Marathon, and then down to the park. Along the drive, sunrise happened, and I pulled over to take shots. The panorama is of the glass mountains.
I really enjoyed the drive to the park, there was no line at the gate, and then we were in. You enter in a large desert valley. We stopped by the Panther Junction Visitor Center, and then headed to the Ernst Tinaja slot canyon. My friend had a capable 4×4, which was definitely needed for this drive. Although the slot canyon here wasn’t as exciting as those in Page, AZ, it was still very cool, and it has pools of a brilliant green liquid.
From there, we drove to the hot springs, but it was so packed that we gave up and headed to Rio Grande Village where we had lunch. This was really my first time seeing the Rio Grande. It is not an impressive river. It would be easy to cross if one felt so inclined.
That was it for the day, and we headed back to Alpine. This time, I took the West exit and Highway 118 back to Alpine. This may be the best drive I’ve ever been on. The scenery changes many times, there are mountains, mesa’s, dunes, and open highway. It was stunning. Like a complete idiot, I didn’t stop to take pictures. I was a little tired, and thought I’ll just do it tomorrow. That didn’t happen and I really regret it.
The Next Day
I was traveling with a group of 5, but none of the other four are morning people, so I headed out early to get to the park by sunrise. I took 118, but it didn’t matter because it was so dark you couldn’t enjoy it.
Once I made it to the park, the light was starting to arrive. I took the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. As the sun was starting to clip the mountain tops, I found a spot to pull over and I photographed the cacti and Burro Mesa. I then continued south to the Santa Elena Canyon. Morning is a great time to get there, after that, it gets very packed.
After getting my shots, I headed back north to meet my friends. This time I was good about pulling off to photograph features that caught my eye. This includes the Cerro Castellan mountain, pink cacti, Goat Mountain, the old Cerro Ranch and Mule Ears. We then headed west to the Big Bend Ranch State Park.
Big Bend Ranch State Park
This park is a real stunner. On the south side of the park, there’s really only the one main, paved road, Texas 170. This parallels the Rio Grande, for the most part, and includes incredible views of mountains, valleys, and the river. You can see here, the river is still not very impressive. If you’re in the area, I do highly recommend you stop by the park and enjoy the scenery, on the road, and on the trails. Having learned from the previous day’s mistake. I did stop along the way back to stop and take pictures. I loved the sunset on the land features. This includes the desert valley with Terlingua with the Chisos mountains in the background.
On the way back, I did take the famed Highway 118, but it was too dark to photograph, lesson learned, don’t plan on taking pictures later, there probably won’t be a later.
New Years Eve
Our last full day on the trip started early, I headed out in the pitch black to go to the Davis Mountains State Park, which is just west of Ft. Davis, between the town and MacDonald Observatory. I drove to the highest point in the park, and waited for the light. As it emerged, I started to take inventory of the scenery. There was a nice view of the valley around Ft. Davis, but it wasn’t very picturesque, but on the opposite side there was a great view of Blue Mountain with the Indian Lodge nestled between the hills. I drove around the park for a bit after sunrise, and then headed back.
For Dinner, we went to Gage Hotel, where we had the best meal of the whole trip. We rang in the new Year in Marathon, and then returned to our place. The next day we drove back to El Paso, which did involve leaving an hour earlier since El Paso is in Mountain Time Zone.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip, I enjoyed the views, it is nothing like the landscapes in Houston, I hope to be back soon.
