Big Bend is an iconic national park. Nestled in the mountains of Texas along the Mexico border, Big Bend is an off the beaten path, beautiful adventure waiting to happen. Back in 2015, my best friend and I decided we wanted to try our hands at riding mustangs from border to border (Mexico to Canada).
The excitement grew as we began digging into the logistics, talking with mustang trainers, and others who had ridden horses long distances. We neither one had experience camping with horses, but we had passion for adventure and big ideas.
The following January, 2016, Sherah and I decided to try our hand at some horse camping while on winter break from college. At the time, we were living over 6 hours apart which made the planning tough.
Big Bend was the no brainer, gotta do it, first choice pick, for a short horse camping trip. We were both dying to see the beautiful park and what better way to explore than horseback right?!
We got maps, made calls and planned out our trip. Since we were still in college, we figured, two nights and two days at the park which equated to one day of driving and getting set up, one day of riding, and one day of riding and driving back, was a good start.
Choosing a campsite within the park was easy. There is exactly one campsite with corrals and that is Hannold Draw. The campsite itself is quite cozy. The main road is blocked by a hill and the corrals are tucked in at the back. By parking our trailer parallel to the corrals, we had a nice private campsite without being remotely primitive.
Like with many desert places, Big Bend had a fire ban in place, but we were still able to use a charcoal grill which kept us somewhat warm in the frigid desert winter nights. We hauled in as much water as we could, but did have to go down to Rio Grande Village on our full day there to restock. The drive to Rio Grande Village is beautiful and it was fun looking across the Rio Grande into Mexico!
On our full day there, we hauled our horses out to the Mule Ears View Point on Smoky Creek Trail. There is a set of stairs with hand railings that we had to avoid, but otherwise, the trail was beautiful and we had plenty of room for our trailer at the parking lot!
After riding at Mule Ears View Point, we headed back to the campsite and ended up riding our horses out of the back of the campground, creating our own trail along the creek bed.
That evening, we grilled some food, and got the maps out. There isn't a more fun time to plan for a big adventure than while you are out in nature!
The next morning, after a somewhat restless and frozen night, we packed up camp and loaded the horses. We chose an easy ride for that morning since we had a long drive home that afternoon. We went up to Dagger Flat Auto Trail and rode that to Old Ore Road. We walked and trotted that road until we ran out of time. We gave our horses one last snack and hit the road!
Though we had a blast on our Big Bend adventure, if I were to do it again, I would leave the horses home while visiting Big Bend National Park, which offers a ton of trails to hike, but has a lot of restrictions on horses.
However, if you're looking for a horse adventure, I highly recommend checking out Big Bend Ranch State Park, which neighbors the National Park, but is set up way better for horses! At Big Bend Ranch State Park (which we did not know existed until after our trip), there are four horse campsites, most of which have water and corrals. There are over 200 miles of trails to check out while you're there!
As always, ride far, stay safe, have fun! Please let me know if you have any questions on our adventure or ideas for another place to check out!
xo,
Sara
The scenery at Big Bend is incredible and it is really hard to pick which photos to share! Check out more of the photos from our trip below. (Remember this was nearly 5 years ago on iPhones that didn't take nearly as good of photos as we can get now! LOL)
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