West Texas: Big Bend, Marfa and Fort Davis

1. Day 1: El Paso to Marfa

   El Paso International Airport to Van Horn on I-10, then US 90 past Prada Marfa to Marfa; the Marfa Lights Viewing Area after dark

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Lunch in Van Horn and welcome dinner
   • Stay in Marfa
   Day 1 details

   Fly into El Paso International Airport (ELP) and land by about 11 am. Your guide and driver meet you at arrivals and we head east on I-10 across the Chihuahuan Desert, with the Franklin Mountains behind us and Mexico a few kilometres to the south. Lunch is a sit-down meal in Van Horn, about two hours on. From there US 90 runs southeast along the railway through ranch country, and outside the hamlet of Valentine we stop at Prada Marfa, a sealed shop front built in 2005 by the artists Elmgreen and Dragset, alone by the highway. Somewhere along this road the clock jumps an hour to Central Time. We reach Marfa in the late afternoon, check in and meet for a welcome dinner. After dark we drive about 15 minutes east to the Marfa Lights Viewing Area, where people have reported unexplained lights over the Mitchell Flat for more than a century. Some nights they appear and some nights they do not; the stars are worth the trip either way.

   Included

   • Pick-up at El Paso International Airport (ELP)
   • Lunch in Van Horn
   • Prada Marfa
   • Welcome dinner in Marfa
   • The Marfa Lights Viewing Area after dark

   Activity: Plan to land at ELP by about 11 am Mountain Time; you lose an hour crossing into Central Time. The drive has few services and no phone signal in places.

2. Day 2: Marfa: Chinati and Donald Judd

   Marfa: the Chinati Foundation, then the Judd Foundation in town

   • Drive about 18 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Marfa
   Day 2 details

   In the 1970s the artist Donald Judd left New York for Marfa, bought buildings in town and, later, much of a disused army post on its southern edge, Fort D.A. Russell. The Chinati Foundation opened there in 1986. This morning a Chinati guide takes us through its permanent works: 100 untitled boxes in mill aluminium, each a different arrangement of the same outer size, lined up in two former artillery sheds whose garage doors Judd replaced with long windows, so the boxes change with the light. Outside, 15 large concrete works run across the grass in a line about a kilometre long. Lunch is a sit-down meal in town. In the afternoon the Judd Foundation shows us part of Judd's own home and studio in Marfa, where he set out his furniture, books and art exactly as he wanted them kept. The evening is free to walk the town's galleries, bookshops and bars, most of them within a few blocks of the Presidio County Courthouse.

   Included

   • Guided tour of the Chinati Foundation, including the 100 aluminium works and the outdoor concrete works
   • Sit-down lunch in Marfa
   • Guided tour of the Judd Foundation in Marfa

   Easier option: The concrete works can be seen from the path near the entrance rather than walked end to end.

   More active option: Walk the full line of concrete works, about 1 km each way across open grass.

   Free time: Evening free in Marfa

   Activity: Chinati and Judd tours are on foot and indoors and out, for about two hours each; photography rules differ by building.

3. Day 3: Fort Davis and the star party

   Marfa to Fort Davis, then the Davis Mountains and the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center; McDonald Observatory in the evening

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Fort Davis
   Day 3 details

   A short drive north takes us up into the Davis Mountains, a range of volcanic rock and grassland where the air is cooler than on the desert floor. We drive the Skyline Drive in Davis Mountains State Park for the view over Fort Davis and the plains, then walk the gardens of the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center, where labelled cactus and succulent beds explain the plants we will see all week. Lunch is in Fort Davis, a small town with old stone and adobe buildings along its main street, and the afternoon is free to rest at the hotel. We eat an early dinner together, because the evening is the reason for this stop. About 30 minutes up TX 118, McDonald Observatory stands on Mount Locke at about 2,070 m, in one of the darkest skies in the continental US. At the star party, astronomers point out constellations and planets with a laser and let us look through telescopes. Dress warmly: it is cold up there even in April.

   Included

   • Skyline Drive in Davis Mountains State Park
   • Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens
   • Sit-down lunch in Fort Davis
   • Early dinner in Fort Davis
   • McDonald Observatory star party

   Optional experiences

   • The McDonald Observatory daytime tour, with a look at the large research telescopes (price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Stay on the level paths near the nature center building.

   More active option: The nature center's hiking trail into Modesta Canyon, about 2 km with a short climb.

   Free time: Afternoon free in Fort Davis

   Activity: Star parties are cancelled in cloud; if that happens we offer the observatory's indoor programme and try a dark-sky stop from Fort Davis instead. Bring a warm jacket and hat.

   

4. Day 4: Fort Davis to Big Bend and Santa Elena Canyon

   Fort Davis National Historic Site, then Alpine and TX 118 to Study Butte; Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to Santa Elena Canyon; Terlingua

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Terlingua
   Day 4 details

   We are at Fort Davis National Historic Site when it opens. The army built the fort in 1854 to guard the road from San Antonio to El Paso, and it stayed until 1891; regiments of Black soldiers, the Buffalo Soldiers, served here after the Civil War. Walk the officers' row below the cliffs and step inside the restored barracks. Then we drive south through Alpine and down TX 118, about two hours of open desert with almost no phone signal, to Study Butte for a sit-down lunch and a rest in the heat. In the late afternoon we enter Big Bend National Park and take the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive past the Mule Ears and Tuff Canyon to Santa Elena Canyon, where the Rio Grande comes out of a slot about 450 m deep, with Mexico on the far wall. The trail climbs paved steps, then follows the river into the canyon until the walls close in. We return on the gravel Old Maverick Road. At about four hours, this is a full driving day.

   Included

   • Fort Davis National Historic Site
   • Sit-down lunch in Study Butte
   • Big Bend National Park entry
   • Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive with stops at the Mule Ears and Tuff Canyon overlooks
   • Santa Elena Canyon trail with your guide

   Easier option: Watch the canyon mouth from the overlook by the car park, with no creek crossing or steps.

   More active option: Walk the full Santa Elena Canyon trail, about 2.6 km return, to where it ends at the river.

   Free time: Early afternoon rest in Study Butte

   Activity: Reaching the canyon trail means crossing Terlingua Creek, usually dry or ankle-deep but muddy or impassable after rain; your guide decides on the day. From TX 118 onwards there is no phone signal for most of the day.

   

5. Day 5: The Chisos Basin, the Hot Springs and Terlingua

   Terlingua to the Chisos Basin and the Window Trail, then east to the Hot Springs on the Rio Grande; back to the Terlingua ghost town

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Terlingua
   Day 5 details

   We leave early for the Chisos Basin, a bowl in the middle of the park's only mountain range at about 1,650 m, and start the Window Trail at about 8 am, while it is cool. The trail drops through oak and juniper to a narrow pour-off where the whole basin drains through a gap in the rock, framing the desert far below; the climb back up is the hard part. Lunch is in the Basin. In the afternoon we drive east to the Hot Springs, where a short path passes an old post office and the ruins of an early bathhouse to a stone pool at the edge of the Rio Grande, fed by a spring at about 40 C. Soak with Mexico a few metres away across the river. On the way back we stop at an overlook into Boquillas Canyon if time allows. We end the day in the Terlingua ghost town, a mercury-mining town left almost empty in the 1940s, for sunset over the Chisos and a farewell dinner.

   Included

   • The Window View Trail or the Window Trail in the Chisos Basin with your guide
   • Lunch in the Chisos Basin
   • The Hot Springs historic district and a soak in the spring
   • Sunset in the Terlingua ghost town
   • Farewell dinner

   Optional experiences

   • Crossing the Rio Grande by rowboat to the village of Boquillas del Carmen, Mexico, through the official port of entry (passport needed; price shown at booking)

   Easier option: The paved Window View Trail, a 0.5 km loop with the same view through the gap, then coffee in the Basin.

   More active option: The full Window Trail, about 9 km return with about 300 m of climbing on the way back, about three hours.

   Free time: Late afternoon free before sunset

   Activity: Carry at least 2 litres of water on the Window Trail. The last stretch of road to the Hot Springs is narrow and unpaved. There is no phone signal in most of the park.

   

6. Day 6: Terlingua to Midland

   Terlingua to Alpine on TX 118, US 67 to Fort Stockton, then I-20 to Midland International Air and Space Port

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   Day 6 details

   This is the one day over our four-hour driving cap: there is no short way out of Big Bend country, and ending at Midland is about an hour and a half shorter than going back to El Paso. We break it up. After breakfast we drive north on TX 118 across the desert to Alpine, a college town with good coffee, for a stop of about half an hour. From there we cross the high grassland to Fort Stockton, where a sit-down lunch splits the day, and we look at Comanche Springs, now dry, which once fed a frontier fort and the Comanche trail north. The last stretch runs across the oil country of the Permian Basin, flat and busy with pump jacks, to Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF), arriving about 3:30 pm. Your guide sees you to the terminal before saying goodbye. If you are flying on to San Antonio for our Hill Country trip, flights connect through Dallas or Houston.

   Included

   • Coffee stop in Alpine
   • Sit-down lunch in Fort Stockton
   • Drop-off at Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF)

   Activity: Book a flight leaving MAF after about 5:30 pm Central Time. The first two hours have little or no phone signal.

Wildlife and weather: February to April and October to November are the months for this trip: days of about 20 to 30 C in Big Bend, cooler in Marfa and Fort Davis, and nights that can drop near freezing at altitude. Spring brings cactus and ocotillo blooms and the busiest weeks, around spring break in March. From May to September the river level of Big Bend is often over 40 C, so we do not run then. Roadrunners, javelinas, mule deer and many desert birds are seen often; black bears live in the Chisos but are seen rarely. Sightings are never promised.

• Marfa2 nights
• Fort Davis1 night
• Terlingua2 nights