Visiting Big Bend National Park

March 25, 2022

After giving a general overview in our last episode, Big Bend National Park Chief of Interpretation Tom VandenBerg returns to tell Chris and Heather the details about actually visiting what we lovingly call “THE Park”. Entrance fees, speed limits, camping reservations, river trip outfitters, and info on the ONLY official US border crossing into Mexico where there is a burro waiting to take you into town for tacos!

View all episodes of the Heart of the Big Bend Podcast

Transcript for “Visiting Big Bend National Park”:

Intro
Welcome to the Heart of the Big Bend. It’s time to kick back, put your feet up, grab your favorite beverage or snack as we discuss declare proclaim, publicize and articulate about the wonders, magic, beauty, music and happenings here in the area known as the Big Bend of Texas.

Chris Ruggia
Hello. Welcome. And thank you for joining us again for Heart of the Big Bend. This is a podcast and radio show coming to you every other week about visiting the beautiful Big Bend of Texas. Specifically, we’ll cover what’s happening in Alpine, an incredibly friendly small town nestled in a desert mountain Valley at the heart of the Big Bend region. With easy day trips from Alpine, you can take in everything this amazing region has to offer. I’m Chris Ruggia, Director of Tourism for the City of Alpine. And with me again today is Heather Yadon at the Alpine Visitor Center. Hi, Heather.

Heather Y
Hello. Thank you for joining us, everyone.

Chris R
And back again, by popular demand, we have Tom VandenBerg, Chief of Interpretation for Big Bend National Park. Hi, Tom.

Tom VandenBerg
Hello.

Chris R
Thanks for joining us again. Last show, we kind of gave a basic overview of some of the things because, of course, we couldn’t be exhaustive, of what Big Bend National Park has to offer. And this time I thought we would talk in a little more detail to let folks know about how to get to the park, how to get into it, more of the details of what you need, permits, etc. So, for starters, there is an entry fee to get into the park. And what’s that these days?

Tom V
Yes. The park has two entrance stations. There are two roads in and out of the park, one on the west, one at the north. And first thing you’ll encounter when you come to the Park, besides the Park entrance sign that everybody likes to take their picture next to, is the entrance station. A Ranger will be there, and there is an entrance fee. The basic entrance fee to Big Bend is $30. That’s for your whole vehicle and everybody in it. And that’s good for seven days.

Chris R
I see. Okay.

Tom V
Those that are 62 or over qualify for a senior pass, and they can get an annual or a lifetime pass that gets him into all national parks.

Chris R
Yeah. And so, on the entryway, just so folks know, your Northern entrance that is basically from Marathon, you’re heading south on 385 and the Western entrance, Study Butte and Terlingua are your closest communities there on the west.

Tom V
That’s right.

Heather Y
And coming from Alpine so that our visitors know it’s really pretty much the same distance to either one. It’s about an hour and a half to either one of those entrances if they’re looking to do day trips from Alpine.

Chris R
Yeah. And now sometimes those stations are not open and folks need to go to Panther Junction in the center of the park to get their permit the entrance permit, is that correct?

Tom V
Yes. If the station is closed for some reason, there’ll be a sign that will direct you to the closest visitor center at either Panther Junction or the Chisos Basin. And you can arrange for that there. And at that point you’ll get a map and a park visitor guide with all kinds of cool visitors’ information and all that sort of thing.

Heather Y
If they do have the National Park pass, do they just need to display that in their vehicle or something and they can skip Panther Junction?

Tom V
Yeah, that would be fine.

Chris R
Okay, well, and that’s something else we should point out that if you have plans to visit another National Park or if you are planning to come back to Big Bend again, there’s the annual passes because you can get a Big Bend only pass.

Tom V
That’s correct.

Chris R
And what is that one running these days?

Tom V
The Big Bend Pass is $55.

Heather Y
So totally worth it.

Chris R
Yeah. If you’re going to come even one more time, go ahead and do the annual pass and then the pass for all the parks?

Tom V
That’s $80. And for those of us that are under 62 it’s good for twelve months. If you’re over 62 you can pay that once and it’s good for the rest of your life.

Heather Y
Wow, great.

Tom V
And then we also have a military pass nowadays. That’s a new thing that a lot of people don’t know about. But if you’re active duty or a veteran, you can get a free military pass. That’ll be free entrance into all parks.

Chris R
Wow. That’s great. So then once you’re in the park, one thing we absolutely want folks to know is that the park roads have a 45 mile an hour speed limit. And so be aware that you’re coming from a Texas state highway with a 75 mile an hour speed limit. And you’re used to that. But once you’re in the park, slow down, set the cruise control to 45 and enjoy the landscape.

Tom V
Yeah. The roads were designed specifically to provide great views and vantage points and for you to slow down and, hey, you’re on vacation, take it easy, have a good time. We don’t want to have to deal with accidents or having people get in trouble in that regard. We also have a lot of wildlife in the park and they frequent the roadside. So please be careful driving. 45 may seem slow, but it’s the right speed to travel in the National Park.

Chris R
Absolutely. Just try and settle into that pace and enjoy the process. One other thing that I’ve been aware of is that, as you mentioned in our last episode, we almost reached 600,000 visitors in the last year. And a lot of those folks are new visitors. A lot of people are looking to outdoor experiences for the first time in their lives and are visiting parks for the first time. And so, we want to let make sure those folks know that there’s not a custodial staff for the back country, let’s say. And so, you want to be careful not to leave your trash. If there are composting toilets, use the restrooms where you can, but take everything with you. Anything that you leave behind is something that the next person is going to have to deal with.

Tom V
Absolutely. We ask people to follow, “Leave no Trace” practices and principles and take care of the desert. It’s a fragile place. Things don’t decompose here. They tend to linger forever. And everything you leave behind will be there on display for the next visitor to that area.

Chris R
Yeah. That includes your banana peel or something that you might think, “oh, this is an organic thing. It’s going to break down in no time.” It won’t. Take your orange peel with you. Don’t leave it on the ground.

Tom V
Yeah. Leave Big Bend better than you found it.

Chris R
Exactly. And, of course, one of the things people want to do they think about in outdoor parks is camping. But over the last few years, there’s been some new procedures for reservations and things like that. So, if we’re thinking about campground camping, of which there are three major campgrounds, is that correct?

Tom V
Yeah. There are three campgrounds that the Park Service operates, and then there’s also an RV camping parking area that’s operated by the concession down at Rio Grande Village.

Chris R
So how do you go about making those reservations about how long ahead of time do you need to do it?

Tom V
Yeah. So, you mentioned a change in recent years, and that’s definitely true. For many years, decades, Big Bend was a park you just drive up to and find a place to camp. And that worked perfect for decades. But once our visitation got to a certain level, everything was full every night by about 9:00 in the morning. And it was challenging turning people away all day long. So, to make it easier for people to plan ahead and know they have a place to stay in beautiful Big Bend, we put our campgrounds on a reservation system, and those are managed on a website, recreation.gov. And on that website, you can look and see all the different camp sites. There are over 200 campground sites, and you can arrange most of them up to six months in advance, about a third of them 14 days in advance. So, if you can plan ahead, there are sites if you can’t quite plan that far ahead, we still have a few sites for you to arrange in advance. There’s also a lot of backcountry camp sites. That’s another thing that Big Bend is sort of unique in that we have these primitive sites way out on those Jeep roads, and those are also extremely popular. And the most popular ones are on reservations as well.

Chris R
Okay. And what about the others? This is something that my wife and I have not actually done.  Our go-to was the Paint Gap backcountry site and we’ve heard, “okay, you got to reserve them.” Is it all through recreation.gov? All through the same place?

Tom V
Yeah, that’s correct. Yes. That’s one stop shopping. So, you go to recreation.gov and you can select each one of the campgrounds and then you can also Select Big Bend backcountry camping.

Heather Y
I’ve helped visitors use it, and it’s very easy to use.

Tom V
It’s new. There’s a little bit of a learning curve to it for sure, for all of us. But people are figuring it out and it does work. A lot of people, they’re still just sort of think back on the early days when they used to be able to just drive down here and camp without making advanced planning. But we’ve kind of passed that point a few years ago. Unfortunately, that’s kind of the world we’re in now.

Heather Y
And we try to make sure everyone knows don’t leave Alpine without having a reservation down there because that has been the people who have come for years. They’ll come by and they’ll say, well, we’re going to find something when we get down there. And we’re like, no, you need to make sure.

Tom V
And that’s another thing. Big Bend is a National Park. You do have to be in a campsite and we’re surrounded by private land. So, you can’t just park on the side of the road and camp. You need to make some arrangements, whether it’s in the park or outside the park.

Heather Y
So, what about lodging outside the park?

Tom V
Well, there’s lodging in the park as well. There’s the Chisos Mountains Lodge, which is the only lodging in the park that’s in the Chisos Basin run by our Concessionaire Forever Resorts. And reservations highly recommended for that as well.

Chris R
I was going to ask if you had a sense at all for how early folks need to reserve these days at the Lodge?

Tom V
I think kind of similar to the campgrounds. If you kind of know when you’re going to be coming, you should get on there well ahead of time. There’s probably the most highly coveted lodging in the Park are the little historic stone cabins, and there’s about four of those. And those are reserved about a year ahead of time. Those are very popular. But you mentioned lodging and camping outside the park, and there’s a lot of that nowadays. That used to not always be the case, but Terlingua and Study Butte is growing. There are also places for lodging, obviously, in Alpine and Marathon. But a quick search online and you can find a lot of options just outside the park. So, a lot of people do that. Lots of Airbnbs and campgrounds.

Chris R
I would definitely send folks to visitbigbend.com. That’s the Brewster County Tourism Council. And they exist to serve the hotel industry of Brewster County. So, they can definitely hook you up with some of those options.

Tom V
Definitely. Yes.

Chris R
In the old days, Spring Break was the busiest time. And then as the summer started to kick in, the park would clear out and you’d have a lot of space and many fewer visitors, but that’s less and less true over time. So, do you get a sense for – I don’t think there’s a non-busy time now – but what does the year look like from your perspective in terms of visitation?

Tom V
Yeah, we do still slow down considerably in the warmer months. But you are right and that you could kind of consider it a year-round park now. But October through late April, that’s the busy time in Big Bend with big pulses right at Thanksgiving, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and then spring break, which in most years is about a three week period, we’re starting it right now, kind of early March to late March, kind of that two to three week period right in the middle of the month that without a doubt is the busiest time of all the months of the year. March is the busiest. But once we get to late April, things start slowing down. It does get warm. May and June can be challenging to visit the park because of the heat. But honestly, when you get into late summer, you get into the July, August, September period. It can be a delightful time because that’s when we get the rain.

Chris R
Absolutely. That’s one of our big messages. And in fact, that’s why Viva Big Bend music festival was placed in late July to try and get the word out that as the rest of the state gets less bearable in that late summer, early fall, the Big Bend area cools down and it’s probably the most comfortable place in the state.

Tom V
Get some beautiful clouds in most afternoons, and it often will rain somewhere in the National Park every day.

Chris R
And you can see the rain in the distance when it happens.

Tom V
You bet. And it greens up and we’ll get a second blooming and there’s water in the washes and it’s just amazing time to be here. I love it.

Chris R
Then one quick question about the busiest times for a while there. In the last couple of years, the Basin, the Chisos Basin has filled up. Is that right? That there’s been times when the parking is full?

Tom V
Yeah, that does happen. What happens is the parking fills up and we really want people to come to the park and enjoy the park and not sit driving in circles around a parking lot. So, when the parking in the Chisos Basin fills, we will institute a one in, one out type procedure at the bottom of the road that heads up into the Basin. It’s always kind of heartbreaking seeing people just sitting there in line. When you have 800,000 acres of park all around you.

Heather Y
People have to understand that this is not a road that you can just park on the side of the road and make your own way. You need an actual parking spot. It’s a mountain road you’re going up. So, it’s not something that you can just decide you’re going to pull off and make your own parking spot. And that’s why it’s important.

Tom V
That’s correct. But if that’s the case, if visitors get here and that’s happening for the Basin Road there’s so many other neat things to see, even just in the nearby area, that they don’t really have to sit in that line, they can come back a little later in the day and head up to the Chisos Basin.

Chris R
Yeah. So, we definitely recommend to folks when you’re driving into the park, take advantage of the whole menu. Try not to set your heart on “I’m going to do the Window Trail” at this moment.

Tom V
Yeah. It’s all good, right? All good. It’s all a National Park and be flexible and patient and have a couple of options. Well, we’d love to hike this trail, but if that parking area is full, we’ll go this Wednesday.

Heather Y
What about options for hiking guides and river trips or horseback riding in the park? There are certain outfitters that people need to use for that kind of stuff, correct?

Tom V
Yeah. There’s a whole array of outfitters. If you come with your own boats and gear, you can certainly do a river trip yourself. But if you aren’t that accomplished or you want some help or want to guarantee it will be a great experience, you can go with one of the river outfitters, and they’re physically located right outside the park in the Study Butte/Terlingua area. But they do trips all through the area. And so, we recommend people call them, give them an idea. “Hey, we’re going to be in Big Bend on these dates, and what kind of trips do you have planned and how can you help me out?” So, there’s day trips, there’s overnight trips, there’s so many options. And there’s also hiking guides as well. And then the Park Rangers, we provide interpretive activities every day of the year, too. So, walks and talks and evening programs. And those are all scheduled online. So, we love people that want to come and have even more of an in-depth experience and learn more about their park. Yeah, join an outfitter, join a Ranger and get out there.

Chris R
Yeah. And I guess I’d again point folks to visitbigbend.com for that directory of the outfitters that are available.

Heather Y
And some of them will, like if somebody has their own gear and they want to do it on their own, they’ll help them with just doing like a drop and pick up, correct?

Tom V
Yeah. You can arrange shuttles with the outfitters, that sort of thing. You can also rent some equipment from some of the outfitters as well.

Chris R
Do you need a special permit to get on the river?

Tom V
You do need a river permit. And just like any back country permit here in the park, you can get that at any visitor center.

Chris R
Excellent. Yeah. But before we call it a day for this episode, let’s talk about Boquillas, because there’s some rules here. You head down to the far southeastern part of the park at Rio Grande Village, and there is an international Port of entry. So, let’s talk a little about the procedure. What do folks need to have with them? When is it open? How does this work?

Tom V
Yeah. So, it’s not open every day of the week. In the busy season it’s open five days a week, Wednesdays through Sundays. And in the summer, it’s Fridays through Mondays. So, four days a week. 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. You’ll drive to what we call the Boquillas Port of Entry. It’s a little tiny building, looks like a little visitor center. And you’ll head on in there. There’ll be a Park Ranger there, who will kind of explain the procedure and answer any questions you may have. And then you’ll take a little path down to the river’s edge, wave over. One of the boatmen will come over in a little row boat. And if the water is shallow, you can walk across, but it’s kind of muddy. Or you can, for a small fee, get a round trip across the river. From there, you could walk into the little village or you could ride a burro or a horse or they’ll take you in there with a little truck. It’s about a half mile and.

Chris R
You know, take the rides. It’s fun.

Tom V
It’s amazing, honestly, to get on like a donkey and ride it into the village of Boquillas, it feels like you’re in a Clint Eastwood movie.

Chris R
And one thing, we want to make sure everybody realizes you’re crossing the border. You have to have a passport.

Tom V
Yeah. You’re leaving Big Bend National Park. You’re going into the Mexican state there. It’s a wonderful place to visit. It’s a tiny village. There’s a couple of restaurants, there’s lots of little curio shops. You can practice your Spanish. You can have a good lunch, have a good time with our neighbors across the river. Yes.

Chris R
And bring lots of cash, small bills. You can buy your little curios and things. The little arts in the village.

Tom V
Yeah. No ATMs in Boquillas for sure.

Heather Y
But they take US dollars?

Tom V
Yes.

Chris R
And recently there have been some guided trips from Boquillas as well. I believe at visitboquillas.com and boquillasadventures.com – I recently was looking at the site. There’s some nice overnight lodging, there are some day trip hikes, some canoe trips, all out of Boquillas as well.

Tom V
Yeah. That whole process is developing fairly quickly. So, there are other options. Most people just go to have lunch. But honestly, it’s kind of the gateway to some of the beautiful, higher country in the mountains of Mexico and some of the Mexican protected areas across the river. Absolutely. You’re right. There’re some cool things you can experience.

Chris R
And so, when does the Port of Entry close for the day? Because you have to keep an eye on the watch if you don’t expect to be in Mexico overnight.

Tom V
Yeah. You need to make sure you’re back at the Port of entry at 4:00.

Chris R
Okay. So, yeah, everybody synchronize their watches.

Tom V
Yeah, not 4:01 – 4:00!

Heather Y
I was going to ask, what are the official hours are supposed to be for the park? Because a lot of people want to get to their favorite picture spot or something like at sunrise, and they can do that, correct?

Tom V
Yeah. That’s important. We don’t have a gate. The park is always open. It’s a National Park. It’s open 24 hours a day every day of the year. You can come and go at any time. So, a lot of people that maybe are staying out in the Terlingua area, they want to get to a really dark place to see the night sky in the middle of the night, drive on into the park a ways.

Heather Y
And they can pay their fee at some other point whenever it’s open.

Tom V
That’s correct. Yeah, you bet.
I would just say one last thing: it’s an amazing place, three parks in 800,000 acres. It’s kind of one of the crown jewels of our nation’s heritage, is Big Bend National Park. And I think everybody ought to experience it at least once.

Chris R
No question! Everybody ought to experience it three or four times a year.

Tom V
It’s so different than the rest of the United States, or the rest of our national parks. It’s way different than the rest of Texas, and well worth a visit.

Chris R
Absolutely. Well, Tom, thanks so much again for spending some time with us these last couple of weeks to share about visiting our amazing Big Bend National Park.

Tom V
Yeah, it’s been fun.

Chris R
Thanks so much and thank you all for joining us, listening to us and sharing this information about our amazing region. You can get more information about Heart of the Big Bend at visitalpinetx.com/podcast or search for Heart of the Big Bend on Apple podcasts, Spotify, most other podcast apps. There’s a back catalog now. A lot of incredible information about visiting Alpine and many of our neighboring communities. Thanks, Heather, for talking to me again.

Heather Y
Thank you.

Chris R
Your patience is amazing. Anyway, thanks, everybody. We’ll be back with you in two weeks.

Heather Y
Bye.

Chris R
You’ve been listening to the Heart of the Big Bend. Hope you liked what you heard and that you’ll find the time to experience all that the Big Bend has to offer. See you soon. Bye.