There are over 150 miles of back country roads in Big Bend National Park. These roads range from gravel roads to 4x4 high clearance vehicle roads. Today we were going to take a road that is not classified as a “park road” as it is not listed in any of the park information, but it was a back-country road nonetheless. This was the Terlingua Ranch Road. The road is about 25 miles long and links the main park road just south of the Persimmon Gap entrance station and Terlingua Ranch. Terlingua Ranch is a large bit of property off of Highway 118 just north of Terlingua TX. I would not call it a housing community, maybe a desert community.
Other than a few gravel roads around McKinney, and several miles on some “right out of Deliverance” back woods gravel road we found on a trip up to Broken Bow Oklahoma, this was the first “off-road” type road I had ever ridden on a motorcycle. It’s a lot different than driving them in a 4x4 truck. But I did my research, read a bit about it, and was ready to take it on. The road was a lot of fun in the beginning. Not very technical, not any real steep climbs. It was a road made through the desert with a grater. Definitely rougher than a gravel road, but not anything that would require a 4x4.
About 10 miles into the 25 mile long road we ran into a patch of deep sand. A “3 mile long” patch of deep, grainy sand. And it SUCKED! What my research said about riding in sand was to get your weight back and keep your speed up. So that’s what I did, or at least tried. I was watching Gary in front of me and he was more or less paddling in the sand. I tried that for a while, but it was wearing me out. I remembered what I had read, shifted my weight back as far as I could and opened the throttle. It was actually working; I caught up to Gary, and then passed him on the left. I was going probably around 20 MPH, and a dozen or so yards after navigating through the sand around Gary, the front wheel started swaying back and forth in the sand. I held it for just a moment, but then the handlebars went all the way to the right, the bike fell to the left taking me with it. I lay there for a moment, and Gary ran up to pull the bike off of my leg. My leg was actually fine – probably because I was wearing good quality riding boots, but it was my ribs that hurt. I got up, rubbed some dirt on it, and we had a good laugh about it. Gary said that I came flying by out of nowhere, front wheel swaying like flag on the forth of July, and then WHAM, hit the ground. Actually pretty funny when you think about it. I now hold the honor of being the first to bust ass off road – a title I would continue to enhance on future off-road excursions.
We did not spend any amount of time at the Terlingua Ranch Lodge. We though we might be able to eat lunch there, or stop for a drink or a snack. However none of these facilities were open. While it is called a Lodge, it is really just a group of cabins you can rent if staying in the area and visiting the park. It seemed they had some nice facilities, but September is not exactly peak season, so a lot of the lodge was not open. At least not that we could tell. We did hang out in the office/gift show, grabbed a cold drink and a candy bar, rested a bit and got back on the road.
The road heading west between the park and hwy 118 slowly turned from gravel, to badly paved, to a pretty nice little road to ride. We then took 118 south toward Terlingua. We stopped by the ghost town for a little while and then found a place to eat.
Before we left Panther junction that morning I noticed that Gary’s front tire seemed a little low. He said that he noticed that the bike was handling a little “squishy” coming down green gulch towards the park headquarters. We checked the tire pressure and it was down to about 15 PSI. We aired it up before heading out. After lunch we noticed that the tire was low again. We asked around about anyone who could fix it, and were told of a guy who worked on BMW bikes. Of all things, of all places, there was a BMW Mechanic in Terlingua Texas. We went by the store front, but were told we needed to head back up 118 to Terlingua Ranch entrance #5. We headed that way, took entrance 5, and proceeded down another grated desert road toward CycleTek. This is when we met Ralph. Ralph is the local motorcycle/small engine mechanic. He had a really nice shop out in the middle of the desert. We have been to Terlingua a few times since this trip, and every time whether on the porch in front of the Starlight, or meeting him somewhere along the road for a couple of tubes and a compact air compressor, it seems we have seen Ralph every time since then. Ralph is a motorcycle rider’s best friend in the Big Bend country. If you rode a dual sport down to Big Bend, Ralph will even sell you a set of “cheap off-road tires” and change them out for you. That way you could ride more street oriented tires to Big Bend, change to knobbies and ride around Big Bend, then change back for the ride home.
Ralph got the wheel off, found the spike that was in the tire, replaced the wheel and got us back on our way. The day before when we were riding along 177, we had pulled off to the side of the road for something and then kind of road off pavement along the side of the road for a while. Later when we stopped we noticed a big thorny vine that had attached itself to Gary’s engine guard. Well... apparently it attached itself to the front tire too. The leak was so slow that we did not notice it until the next morning.
After our repair job to the bike, we were ready to ride hwy 170. Hwy 170 is one of the most scenic rides/drives in Texas. It follows the Rio Grand River from Terlingua to Presidio. The road snakes it way along the river over rises and falls. It is kind of boring between Terlingua and the Big Bend Ranch State Park, but once you start riding the part of the road that runs through the park, it is spectacular. The images below do not even begin to describe the beauty of the landscape that engulfs you as you travel along this winding uninhabited roadway.
As we were riding170 prior to getting to the really scenic part, Gary got quite a way in front of me – and it happened again…. This time it was a boarder patrol cop in a pick up truck. He was heading east as we were heading west. And damn-it, if we were not exceeding the speed limit again. On came the lights, the pick up truck got right behind Gary. He pulled over and so did the cop. I figured I had learned my lesson the day before. So I did not stop right where Gary was pulled over, but rather a hundred or so yards in front of them. But that did not work, and the cop summoned me to join the ticket party. This time I was thinking “what the hell”, Gary was speeding not me. But I guess the LEO rules of physics state that if motorcycle N is exceeding the speed limit, and motorcycle X is accompanying motorcycle N, then motorcycle X must also be exceeding said speed limit. (N>SL) (N+X) = X>SL, I think that is how Einstein wrote the equation when he was determining the other law of the universe. The cop took our drivers license back to his truck and was calling them in. Shit, we are getting a ticket. Then the Gods smiled… A blue van drove past us heading east, the cop immediately pulled up to our position, called us to the passenger side window, handed our license back saying “ just slow down a bit”. He then spun the pick up truck around and started chasing the blue van. We continued on our way having dodged another encounter with the law.
We traveled the road a few miles past Lajitas. Stopped in Lajitas to visit the beer drinking goat mayor, however the mayor was not taking an audience. In fact, from the looks of it, the mayor was no longer in office. After Lajitas, we decided that we were not going to ride all the way to Presidio, and started heading back towards Terlingua. Just a few hundred yards west of where the Boarder Patrol cop had pulled us over, we noticed that a state trooper had joined him and they still had that blue van pulled over. They had that van pulled over for 2 – 3 hours. We can only speculate what must have gone on after our encounter with the cop, but there was definitely something going on.
We road back into Terlingua and headed to the Starlight for dinner and a beer. The Starlight is a bar/restaurant in Terlingua. Back in the town’s heyday, between the 20’s and 40’s, the Starlight was an open air theatre. Terlingua was a big mercury mining town and prospered during that time. However after the electronic fuse was invented for bombs just after World War II, the town became abandoned, as mercury was no longer needed to detonate bombs. The town along with the Starlight Theatre became a ghost town. The only time there is any real population in Terlingua is during the annual chili cook off.
A long porch connects the trading post and Starlight. This is where locals and visitors sit in the evening, watch the sunset to the east, and exchange stories. The sunset to the east is a beautiful thing. The Chisos Mountains are to the east of Terlingua, you can watch the evening light shimmer on the volcanic range as it makes its way through the spectrum. Sunsets in Big Bend are magnificent. Because the trading post / Starlight are just about the only functioning buildings in the town, it actually becomes rather crowed between the locals and park visitors. We had a hamburger and a beer and then went and sat on the porch for a little while. Just about sunset we headed back to the park and the Chisos Mountain lodge. It was a great and eventful day of riding, one of the best I had ever experienced.
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