Trans-Pecos Dirt...

I'm spending more and more time waaay out west. I know the dirt in the big parks, Pinto Canyon and the stuff around Terlingua Ranch. But, what about northern Brewster and Presidio Counties, Jeff Davis County, Pecos, etc?

Is there any thru road connecting 118 and 67 between 170 and 90?

The area around Plata / Casa Piedra looks promising.

Any public dirt in the mountains around Ft. Davis?

It's a huge, new place for me - but huge swathes are private ranches....

I'll start poking my nose down every non-gated dirt road I come across, just looking for head start of ya'll know of any.

we'd be very interested in what you find, Jeff!

I don't know of much publicly accessible dirt in that area.

Actually I've heard of some good riding out there where you are talking about. I just don`t exactly know which roads they are .

For a big empty country, there's very few dirt roads (other than the 1100 or so miles of road on Terlingua Ranch. Several years ago I spent some time living north of Study Butte, and looked for land (to buy) and routes around the backcountry. There are some roads that (on a good map) appear to go from 67 north of Alpine to 17 over near Fort Davis. What I found were some roads that may have been public at one time, but are now private (the land owners graciously offered this info when they asked me to get off their land.) Likewise there's a road on some maps from Marathon north and west through the Glass Mountains, but it also now private and closed, although the land owner (I've heard) will occasionally open the road for people to get a look at the Glass Mtns. Fort Davis area is almost entirely private. There's possibly a road (gravel) from the scenic loop over to near Valentine, but I haven't been on it. Also, there may be a road going south from Hwy 90 between Marfa and Alpine that eventually links up to the Terlingua Ranch roads (Tanque Caballo and Blue Ridge).

dandeldesierto said:

There's possibly a road (gravel) from the scenic loop over to near Valentine, but I haven't been on it.

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Yeah, I saw some ranch-road looking thing off of that loop. I'll take a closer look.

Also, there may be a road going south from Hwy 90 between Marfa and Alpine that eventually links up to the Terlingua Ranch roads (Tanque Caballo and Blue Ridge).

Click to expand...

That could be very interesting. There's Nopal road, heading south just to the west of the Lights viewing area - but looks like a dead-end on Google maps, but it at least starts out public...

The best way to find out if there are any public roads in a particular county can be found here....
http://www.dot.state.tx.us/apps-cg/grid_search/county_grid_search.htm

If you can't find it on these maps, it's not a public road.

Thanks for link

Further north and west.