Homefryy
Active Member
- Location
- Salt Lake City
I guess its time I finally write up my first trip report on here. My wife and I had been planning a trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas over the holidays with stops at some National Monuments in New Mexico on the way there and back. We were planning to leave Christmas day but then realized that with the government shutdown pretty much every stop we wanted to make in New Mexico was going to be closed (White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, etc...) so we scrapped that plan and decided to head to the Coyote Buttes/Vermilion Cliffs area and then see where the road would take us from there.
Our initial plan was to leave on the afternoon of Christmas but due to the long drive to Texas we were planning to take a our Subaru Outback instead of the XJ. Once our plans changed I had to do some last minute maintenance on the XJ to get it ready to go so we didn't end up leaving until the afternoon of the 26th and got down to our chosen camp site late that night.
We camped near Pine Tree Pocket which if you are familiar with the area is just past the turnoff to head to White Pocket and Cottonwood Cove (Coyote Buttes South) so pretty much everybody out that way doesn't venture out that far and it provides some nice solitude. In 2.5 days of driving around and exploring we only saw 1 other person and it was a rancher out checking on their cows.
Our camping spot at Pine Tree Pocket.
Thursday morning we finished setting up camp and headed north to the edge of Paria Canyon where there is an overlook of Wrather Arch.
I love cruising around on these soft sandy roads. It is so much smoother than most of the rocky and washboarded roads we typically drive on. Although the road we took had only seen cow traffic for a long time so all their footprints made it a bit rough.
We got to the end of the road and started the 2.5 mile hike to the overlook just as it started to snow. Halfway there we crossed a road I missed on the map that would have taken us much closer and we would have only had to hike 1/2 a mile but we needed to stretch our legs anyway so it worked out.
One of the highlights of the trip was when we got close to the canyon edge we encountered a group of 16 bighorn sheep. Our dog Saphira was luckily happy to just stay with us a look rather than taking off after them so we were able to watch them for at least 10 minutes before they moved on.
After the sheep took off we continued on and made it to the canyon edge.
The view of Wrather Arch.
Paria Canyon
By the time we got back to the jeep the snow was starting to accumulate.
We got back to camp and enjoyed a hot fire and some chili-mac.
That's the end of day 1. I will keep working on posts for the rest of the days.
Our initial plan was to leave on the afternoon of Christmas but due to the long drive to Texas we were planning to take a our Subaru Outback instead of the XJ. Once our plans changed I had to do some last minute maintenance on the XJ to get it ready to go so we didn't end up leaving until the afternoon of the 26th and got down to our chosen camp site late that night.
We camped near Pine Tree Pocket which if you are familiar with the area is just past the turnoff to head to White Pocket and Cottonwood Cove (Coyote Buttes South) so pretty much everybody out that way doesn't venture out that far and it provides some nice solitude. In 2.5 days of driving around and exploring we only saw 1 other person and it was a rancher out checking on their cows.
Our camping spot at Pine Tree Pocket.
Thursday morning we finished setting up camp and headed north to the edge of Paria Canyon where there is an overlook of Wrather Arch.
I love cruising around on these soft sandy roads. It is so much smoother than most of the rocky and washboarded roads we typically drive on. Although the road we took had only seen cow traffic for a long time so all their footprints made it a bit rough.
We got to the end of the road and started the 2.5 mile hike to the overlook just as it started to snow. Halfway there we crossed a road I missed on the map that would have taken us much closer and we would have only had to hike 1/2 a mile but we needed to stretch our legs anyway so it worked out.
One of the highlights of the trip was when we got close to the canyon edge we encountered a group of 16 bighorn sheep. Our dog Saphira was luckily happy to just stay with us a look rather than taking off after them so we were able to watch them for at least 10 minutes before they moved on.
After the sheep took off we continued on and made it to the canyon edge.
The view of Wrather Arch.
Paria Canyon
By the time we got back to the jeep the snow was starting to accumulate.
We got back to camp and enjoyed a hot fire and some chili-mac.
That's the end of day 1. I will keep working on posts for the rest of the days.
