Elephant Mountain Primitive Campground

We had planned to stay here the beginning of Oct. 2022 but decided to leave. The ants, bees and over growth made the decision for us. As stated in previous reviews each person 17 and older do need a permit to stay. You get the permit at the hardware store in Alpine 17 miles away. Thankfully we drove out here to check it out before we purchased them.

I am thankful others had good experiences here. Perhaps it is the time of year. We did make a video of our stay.

We planned on staying here 10 days, as we each bought our Limited Use Permits ($12/ea) from the True Value store in Alpine. This permit is required for everyone over 17 using the WMA sites. The permit is good from Sept thru Aug each year, so will expire in August for us.
At any rate, we stayed as long as we could. Seven days. The wind was fierce, due to the drought in this area of Texas, the area was so dry. DIRT blowing everywhere.
We loved visiting Alpine, and the West side of Big Bend National Park. It was quite a drive to Big Bend, though.
We would stay again for a shorter time and after the area gets some rain and has more vegetation.
The sites were clean....no trash which was refreshing.

We were not expecting to find any boondocking in this area, so when we did we were quite happy. After you reach the registration building it's still another mile drive to the primitive camping spots. I wouldn't take a rig that was longer than 35' back there. When we got there the sites were nice. Some were big, couple group and a couple large ones. Two of the are handicapped but when we were there it was completely empty so I don't think it would have made a difference but we still found a pull thru one that we liked. The sites are a bit uneven, but they all have a great covered area and fire pit. Since it wasn't the hot season we didn't have to worry about rattlers as much but we were still on the look out! There are a couple walks that you can do from the campground but nothing substantial. When we were there we saw a couple Javalinas! This campground is mostly used for hunting. I don't think it was hunting season so it was nice and quiet, but high season I bet it is really crowded and loud. This area is also a rehabilitation area for big horned sheep. There are signs everywhere asking you to report poaching.

Perfect location for solar as we got sun all the time. Alpine was 27 miles away and the entrance to Big Bend (Panther Visitor Center) was about 52 miles away. Near Alpine there is a inspection station that was a bit suspicious of us but the rest were easy coming in from El Paso area.

The deal breaker for us in giving this place 5 stars is there was ZERO service. Not even 1g just a big 'ol X. Now, should that really matter? No, but I felt like since we weren't in the middle of the mountains or somewhere too remote that there should have been something.

This place would have been fun with a group!