Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Big Bend Texas, and the "Drug War"

Back in the 90's an acquaintance was camped out at Big Bend, in an off trail location, just in a sleeping bag. Woke up to see burros being loaded with packages some distance downslope.

A woman with the party made eye contact, but pretended not to have seen him. He was very grateful, and stayed frozen in his bag until after they had left.

If drug trafficking is light compared to Arizona, it might be because IIRC the remoteness on the Mexican side is equaled by that on the American side. Might be 100 miles of walking either way before you hit serious pavement.

Here's shot of Terlingua, home of the famous Chili cook-off, about 30 miles in from the river IIRC. This terrain is all volcanic tuff; soft crumbling rocks that make a very abrasive and irritating dust. NOT a terrain I'd want to traverse on foot even if it weren't a hostile desert...



Ain't much traffic either to blend in with if you were running contraband..... as this IS Texas

Got pics of the stretch between Presidio and Lajitas....


Pretty PO'd at the new photobucket jumbling up my pics , but to give an idea of this very dry and powdery terrain, here's looking east to Big Bend, photo taken not far from the river...



And this here would be Lajitas, I'm thinking struggling to hang on after a brief trendy period had folks building there, note the Rio Grande in the background, I believe those are Mexican mountains, and might give an idea of difficulty of access from the Mexican side...



Lajitas from a little ways upstream...



Fifty miles of nothing between Lajitas and Presidio/Ojinaga. The rods does take you past Big Bend State Ranch, a park, but a Texas park, with all that that implies I'd guess relative to tolerance of illegal foot traffic.

Some folks do live along here, this house was boarded up for the season but we were getting barked at by a dog from another house maybe 400 yards away....



Random shot, somewhere along that stretch, Mexico on the left....



Movie set, ("Streets of Laredo" fer one) river just downhill, FM 170, on the American side, can be seen climbing slope in background....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/New%20Mexico/IMG_0200.jpg[/img]

My dogs dabbling in international waters just downhill, Mexico in background....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/New%20Mexico/IMG_0206.jpg[/img]

'Nother random shot along the river, looking east, at Mexican mountains....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/New%20Mexico/IMG_0190.jpg[/img]

Somewhere I have shots of the Rio Grande just east of Presidio/Ojinaga, looks about like an irrigation ditch, no fence of any kind.

Main street Presidio....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/New%20Mexico/IMG_0048.jpg[/img]