West Contrabando Trailhead just down the road from where we are camped is the start of a great trail system. During Prohibition contrabandistas brought huge amounts of liquor out of Mexico to the US border. They risked crossing the Rio Grande to deliver the contraband to American bootleggers who sold it illegally. It’s still Big Bend Ranch State Park and our Texas State Park Pass gets us in. We are visiting so many Texas parks that the annual $70 pass makes sense. We’ve already got our money’s worth a few times over.
Derek put together an awesome loop with 27 miles of trail and 2632’ of climbing. We rode West Main Trail out to East Main Trail and then took Old Government Trail out to Fresno Canyon. The trail passes by several mines and we stopped to check them out. Whit-Roy was the most impressive mine with abandoned buildings dotting the picturesque hillside. This was a very successful quicksilver/mercury mine, in fact, the whole Big Bend area was one of America’s top producers of mercury. Furnaces heated the scarlet red rock to release mercury vapor, which was condensed into liquid metal and bottled in cast-iron flasks.
Old Government Trail is rugged and challenging in spots as it climbs through nowhere with amazing scenery. After lunch underneath my favorite, El Solitario, we headed back down on Fresno Canyon Trail which we had climbed up last week on one of our rides. To complete our loop we continued down a section we hadn’t ridden and was my favorite of the day. After a short steep technical climb, we headed down Fresno Divide Trail. This trail is truly awesome. It’s rocky and somewhat technical but also fast and astoundingly beautiful. The backdrop of all the different colored mountains made it jaw dropping. What a great day!
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