IMHO this is the best and most fun off-road road in Big Bend. You definitely need a high clearance 4WD vehicle. If you do this run in a regular car you will break something expensive, get stuck, and have an enormous towing charge to get hauled out. I did the run in 4-LO with disconnected swaybar (although neither is truly necessary).
A modicum of off roading experience and skills will definitely help but, if you're a total n00b, you'll pick up new and valuable skills and possibly even survive ;) N00bs will find a few spots pretty scary looking. Don't panic, take your time, go nice and slow (and very smoothly) and you'll do just fine. If you have at least some experience, you'll find it pretty easy but still quite interesting and a lot of fun.
The trail is 2-way so you need to be comfortable backing uphill around turns in case you meet someone going the other way. It is pretty unlikely you'll meet someone but, if you do, it is a guarantee that you'll be going down a steep hill in a turn. Make sure you have the skills to back up twisty hills.
You must have a full size spare and all that goes with it as there are a lot of very sharp rocks just itching to rip through your sidewalls. Watch your wheel placement.
The trail is accessed via Dagger Flat Auto Trail, is about 24 miles or so in length, and it will take between 3 and 4 hours to run. Plan on 4 hours as there is a lot of sightseeing and beautiful scenery. Bring food and drinks. I think the run is a little easier going south. You will end up near the Boquillas Canyon area. Be sure to do the (very easy) Boquillas Canyon hike after your run.
I like this run best in the morning, in the summer this area will be extremely hot so go at daybreak then. We briefly saw 116 degrees at the south end last Labor Day weekend.
I shot this with a GoPro Hero2 camera mounted on the driver's side of a 2012 Rubicon. The camera mounts are affixed permanently to the forward-most edge of the roof and the leading edge of the front bumper next to the winch. The GoPro just clips in and out of the mounts. The GoPro was set to 1080p 30fps wide. Shooting really wide helps to mitigate the effects of rolling shutter on rough road surfaces. The GoPro doesn't shoot stabilized video so I did the image stabilization in AfterEffects. You can see some stabilization artifacts, but I don't think they hurt the viewing experience too much. The shots from the bumper suffer a lot more from rough roads so I mostly use shots from the roof.
You can see my photographs from the trip at photography.ric...
5 сен 2024
