Big Bend Ranch State Park, aka “The Other Side of Nowhere”, is the perfect destination for pilots seeking an interesting backcountry flying adventure.
I recently had the opportunity to take my two sons on an extraordinary weekend flying adventure to Big Bend Ranch State Park. I wrote this article to provide information for other pilots who might want to fly to this park. What follows is a brief account of our trip along with recommendations for pilots interested in making the trip.
Big Bend Ranch State Park is located west of Big Bend National Park and has an airstrip 1 mile from park headquarters. The airstrip (3T9) is at 4250 elevation and has a 5500 foot asphalt runway in good condition. There are tie down anchors, but you need to bring your own tie downs. There are several primitive campgrounds to choose from as well as the Saucedo Bunkhouse, which has electricity, showers, a large dining area and a commercial style kitchen. You can stay there for $35 per person per night. Being without a vehicle is not a problem since there are several nice hikes starting from the headquarters area.
Our journey began on Friday March 1, 2019 in the Texas AeroVentures Archer II. After waiting for low IFR ceilings across central Texas to improve, we departed from KDWH at about 10:30 am. The plan was to fly to Kerrville (KERV) for a break and refueling and then to continue on to Terrell County (6R6) for a final refueling for the trip across the Big Bend Area to the Big Bend Ranch State Park airstrip (3T9).
Low IFR ceilings persisted in Kerrville, so we continued to Sonora (KSOA), which was warm with clear skies. We departed Sonora with full fuel and a short field takeoff technique, which proved to be a really good idea due to the full aircraft and high density altitude.
From Sonora, we flew a direct course to Big Bend Ranch State Park. Flying at 6500 gave us a good view of the terrain and allowed VFR flight following about half way across the Big Bend area. The view of the desert and mountains was amazing. There were some air currents, but not too bad since it wasn’t that windy.
Per the park rangers’ request we made a couple of passes over park headquarters to let them know we needed to be picked up at the airport. After a low pass over the airfield to check out the runway, we landed and taxied to the tie down area at around 4:00pm.
By the time we had unloaded our gear, a park ranger was there to take us to the park headquarters for check in.
We were thrilled to have the Saucedo Bunkhouse all to ourselves. The boys loved meals served from the big kitchen and much time was spent playing Battleship, Checkers and Dominoes from the assortment of board games at the Bunkhouse. There was a clean bathroom with hot showers, and the beds were clean and comfortable.
After settling in we went to speak with the park ranger who gave us some suggestions for hikes and told us to take some firewood from her residence down the road, if needed. The boys were really excited to explore the area as we walked to the park ranger’s house. We soon encountered some of the many Longhorns who freely roam the entire area. They seemed content to give way to us as we walked past. Later, after a quick dinner of chicken quesadillas, we built a fire and waited for the stars to come out.
Saturday morning, we had breakfast tacos and prepared for our big hike of the day to the Cinco Tinajas Trail. We took the main road to the trailhead and had a nice hike which included beautiful bluebonnets, plenty of interesting rocks and the Tinajas.
For Saturday lunch and part of the afternoon we stayed in the bunkhouse to rest and played board games as temperatures climbed into the high 80’s.
Later, as it cooled off, we did another hike that took us past an old rodeo training area and up near the top of a hill that provided an nice view of the area.
Saturday night another fire was built. Then, showers and a late supper.
Sunday morning we took our time getting ready as I closely looked at weather via the Bunkhouse wifi. The original plan was to fly back to Terrell County for fuel and then to Houston. Lack of weather data made it difficult to be sure of VFR conditions at Terrell County. Finally, I made the more conservative decision to fly to Alpine for fuel and to take another close look at the weather back towards Houston, which was slowly improving as a cold front worked its way south through Texas. We checked out at 11:00 am and the ranger took us to the airport. The 35 minute flight to Alpine was amazing. The boys enjoyed chasing tumbleweeds on the ramp as I took another look at the weather and filed IFR to Kerrville. The low cloud layer started as we approached Ozona and Sonora. Smooth IFR flight over the clouds brought us into Kerrville, where is was really, really cold. Then, we filed IFR over a cloud layer back to KDWH where the ceiling had risen to 1900. Total flight time was 10.1 hours round trip.
Here are some considerations for flying to this airport:
- Bring all the food and drinks you need, including extra water to keep in the plane just in case. The water at the park isn’t bad if you need to fill your bottles there.
- Obtain experience and training on mountain flying techniques. Pay special attention to how air currents work in the mountains and density altitude issues.
- Don’t load your aircraft close to the limit. The density altitude here can seriously affect aircraft performance, so make sure you aren’t even close to weight limits. Consider using short field takeoff techniques if you are “hot and high”.
- Plan to arrive a this airport with enough fuel to fly back to an airport with fuel. There is no fuel at this airport.
- There are many places to land if you have an engine problem, but you will be landing in the middle of the desert surrounded by miles of nothing. Consider a personal locator beacon as a backup and bring everything you would need to spend the night in the desert.
- Be aware that radar contact and radio contact with ATC may be difficult in the Big Bend area. There is a phone at park headquarters if you want to file or close a flight plan. Be aware that the rangers go home at 6pm. They prefer that you arrive prior to 4:30pm.
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