This has been a wonderful day of travel. We left our campsite about 8:30am and headed west toward Presidio, TX on FM170. It follows the Rio Grande River as closely as possible. There are times when there is a mountain in between but generally it is in sight of the road. The road also follows the edge of the Big Bend Ranch State Park. There are no paved roads into the park, only some gravel/dirt roads from the north.
The photo is of one of many very nice road side picnic areas that the state of Texas has that are all accessible. This one had 3 shelters that are shaped like a tee pee with a concrete table and a grille. This one is in the middle of nowhere on road 170 and the river is just behind and is visible from the park. Of course on the other side of the river is Mexico. On our way back we stopped here and ate our lunch. The drive is beautiful through many mountains around curves over hills and there is one mountain they could not go around so we drove over it. A 15% grade on either side and about .7 mile long. There are some short curves in it and it is not one you would want to tackle with a trailer or a motor home. 15% is really steep and you use low gear for descending. Low worked well for the van, it held the speed to about 20 mph and use of the brakes was not a factor. Second gear pulled it the other way without a problem but I would not have wanted to pull the 29' TT that I had up or down.
We saw several Border Patrol units however it would really be hard to cross the river in this area as there are high mountains on the Mexican side with steep cliffs and on the American side there are mountains and really no where to to but into the desert for miles in any direction. We did see one vehicle they had pulled over and were just having the driver exit the vehicle as we drove past, so who knows what they found, if anything. We have been stopped on a few occasions while driving US90 by Border Patrol but have never been searched or ask any questions. They just block the highway and look you over and send you on your way with a "have a nice day".
The elevation at the campground is about 2900' and we got as high as 5300' during the trip. A lot of it was gradual but there were some pretty good grades, but that is what makes it interesting.
We intended to go to Presidio but about 10 miles before we got there the road was closed and the detour was over about 20 miles of gravel/dirt road. It appeared quite rough with big stones and a lot of dust. We turned around and retraced our path back to Terlingua.
Back at the ranch/RV we ate a bite and took a nap as we were both sleepy from the mornings trip. We decided to go to Big Bend National Park and see at least a portion of it in the afternoon and see the remaining part tomorrow. We are only about 1.5 miles from the entrance on the west side. We will cover the National Park tomorrow.