I'm going to big bend to boon dock December 23rd through 29th so that's my primary focus right now, I'm out of time to plan it.
but lets talk February since that's sneaking up fast
Last February temperatures in the month had high's of 62 - 85 degrees, I figure if we are in the same ballpark even on the low side that's perfectly acceptable, the rub is DFW, it gets damn cold and log rides in the cold suck bad cause it's hard to stay loose so it's like pain factor 1.75X
ideally I'd load up here and roll out with everything I need on the machine, tent, food, cloths, blow, water etc. and ride all the way to big bend on 50/50's, direct route is 550 miles and round about route is 700 miles, both of which are an ass beating because the 550 is slab, and the 700 is a long ass day. Camping sites are also first come first served without the ability to reserve in advance. Camping is cheap and there is free bulk water fill up at the headquarters, it's drinkable.
So the way I see it
option 1 suck it up and slab out, ~9 - 10 hours in the saddle, we would have to be rolling at 7:30am to be able to break camp before dark (gets dark about 6pm that time of year). This is the easiest since there are no other logistics to deal with, ride out, book the site, go to site, setup and freeze our asses off
option 2 camp 3/4 of the way there to break up the trip. The problem with this is we'll be quite a bit further north so we'll definitely freeze, and 3/4 of the way there, there ain't shit
option 3 grab a hotel 3/4 of the way there, like in alpine/fort stockton. My last trip down I left after work on Friday, stayed in Odessa, hit big bend on Saturday and stayed in fort stockton on the way back, then finished the drive Sunday and it worked out pretty good. I can stay in Odessa for free because I have mega points but for ya'll it would be damn expensive they price gouge badly all in that area so we'd have to dip south into fort stockton to avoid the ass rape of hotel prices in oil country. This option works out pretty good because we don't have to rush the first day and we can start the next day after a fresh sleep in a real bed with plenty of time to get to the park and break camp.
option 4, haul it. Makes it easy to make big bend in one shot but logistics suck, where do you keep the truck how do you haul the stuff, even the trailer could only handle two pigs in it at most. What do you do with the trucks - the campsites are small, but if we have a mechanical or a get off that results in a mechanical at least we have an easy way to get it back. If I hauled down I'd probably take my camper too but that's 1 bike and 1 camper max for that haul.
Given option 3 is probably the most rounded non-crazy option -
Friday ride out to fort stockton, dipping down through san angelo would allow us to avoid i-20 slab to see some other slab with some small towns here and there, it's slower but breaks it up a bit.
Saturday, ride into the park, pay entry fee, hit the headquarters and get camping permit with camping reservation. Depending on the site chosen, just getting to the site would be "an adventure" of it's own so that would most likely take the day Saturday, for example if we stayed at telephone canyon we'd have to go through the north part of the park, then into the park after stopping at panther junction for permits and shit, then down to old ore road and up into telephone canyon, Jim can tell you about old ore road, we wouldn't be breaking any speed records and lifting a fully loaded GS off the ground will be work.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/29.3471 ... c5!1m0!3e0
Sunday choose our poison, if we've had enough off road we can go down through presideo (AMAZING RIDING) then back up to fort stockton or fort davis (all good riding up through there) or we can head out to glenn springs and try to get to mariscal mine ( or whatever)
Then Monday haul our busted asses home the rest of the way with some time left at the end of the day to sit on frozen peas and unwind
The park -
Roads I refuse to do on the GS: River road (SSSAAAAAAAND), probably Old Maverick depending on the condition, last I was down it I wouldn't even take my truck or jeep it was so bad, painted gap, and black gap. Black gap wouldn't be bad until we got to the gap, it is probably passable real careful right now, but it's degrading fast. I've scouted most of the camp sites, anything up pine canyon and grapevine hills is good to go, old ore road, telephone canyon all good as well. Black gap has good stretches of sand too so, you know, I don't like that anyway.
No speeding - extra special ticket since it's federal land (I'll speed anyway) but don't say I didn't say so
animals - all of the camp sites have bear boxes at them, for good reason. I've had a bear walk no more than 15 feet in front of me there before. So I don't suggest you wear bacon to bed, if you do, let me know so I can setup a go-pro and move further away that night.
weather - it can get BAD down there and COLD so we'll have to play it by ear all the way up to the date, but I have been down there in shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of winter before.
If you haven't been to big bend your missing out. It isn't the most amazing place I've been, but it's pretty amazing and in our back yard (relative in Texas distances)
