Summary:
Christmas Mountains Ranch is the perfect home away from home for experienced or first-time visitors to the Big Bend Region of southwest Texas. Just a half mile from the restaurant at Terlingua Ranch Lodge. Located between the lodge and the Christmas Mountains, this vacation rental cabin with 65 acres offers solitude, adventure, and convenience.

Solitude comes easy with plenty of space to get away from everyday life and crowds. No city noise or congestion, no close neighbors, and no traffic. Just the solitude of the remote Chihuahuan Desert and the Christmas Mountains. Plenty of wildlife and diverse desert plant life. We even have trees along the arroyo out back. Relax inside, with air-conditioning, comfortable, and attractive furnishings, and modern fixtures. Enjoy all day shade and 24-hour views from the comfort of the wrap around cover decks, furnished with chairs, tables, lighting, and a grill.

Adventure is in abundance with the rugged and dynamic desert landscape. Follow the marked trail down to the arroyo and watch for birds and other wildlife. Enjoy the crystal-clear water of the Terlingua Ranch pool. Hike or drive (4WD) through the Christmas Mountains (register for free access at the Terlingua Ranch Lodge) for breathtaking views. That’s all in the immediate neighborhood. Drive a little further and take in all the wonders of Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Rio Grande River or the Terlingua Ghost Town. Local adventure outfitters offer river trips, jeep tours, guided hikes, bike rentals, horseback riding, sightseeing tours, and more.

Convenience is provided with WiFi, modern appliances, full bathroom, comfortable lodging and lodge restaurant. While the last four miles of roads are dirt, they are well maintained and easily driven by a typical car, without any need for high clearance or 4WD. We also provide easy reservation service and clear communication plus quick local service if there is ever a question, concern, or problem.

As an added bit of adventure and convenience, we even provide the option for you to fly in. The Terlingua Ranch airstrip is just a short walk away and can accommodate small private planes. Don’t worry about the noise, the strip is rarely used and only during daylight hours.

While the Big Bend region offers a wide range of lodging options for our visitors, very few vacation rentals can compare to Christmas Mountains Ranch as all-around great place to stay. The owners have taken great care to build and furnish a home base for their Big Bend visits. It was completed in 2020 and graciously opened up for others to enjoy. Our team at Big Bend Vacation Rentals is proud to manage it. As the one of the longest serving and the most established vacation rental management provider in the Terlingua Area, we are eager to serve as your host.

The Space:
Christmas Mountains Ranch is the perfect home away from home for experienced or first-time visitors to the Big Bend Region of southwest Texas. Just a half mile from the pool and restaurant at Terlingua Ranch Lodge. Located between the lodge and the Christmas Mountains, this vacation rental cabin with 65 acres offers solitude, adventure, and convenience.

Solitude comes easy with plenty of space to get away from everyday life and crowds. No city noise or congestion, no close neighbors, and no traffic. Just the solitude of the remote Chihuahuan Desert and the Christmas Mountains. Plenty of wildlife and diverse desert plant life. We even have trees along the arroyo out back. Relax inside, with air-conditioning, comfortable, and attractive furnishings, and modern fixtures. Enjoy all day shade and 24-hour views from the comfort of the wrap around cover decks, furnished with chairs, tables, lighting, and a grill.

Adventure is in abundance with the rugged and dynamic desert landscape. Follow the marked trail down to the arroyo and watch for birds and other wildlife. Enjoy the crystal-clear water of the Terlingua Ranch pool. Hike or drive (4WD) through the Christmas Mountains (register for free access at the Terlingua Ranch Lodge) for breathtaking views. That’s all in the immediate neighborhood. Drive a little further and take in all the wonders of Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Rio Grande River or the Terlingua Ghost Town. Local adventure outfitters offer river trips, jeep tours, guided hikes, bike rentals, horseback riding, sightseeing tours, and more.

Convenience is provided with WiFi, modern appliances, full bathroom, comfortable lodging, nearby pool, and lodge restaurant. While the last four miles of roads are dirt, they are well maintained and easily driven by a typical car, without any need for high clearance or 4WD. We also provide easy reservation service and clear communication plus quick local service if there is ever a question, concern, or problem.

As an added bit of adventure and convenience, we even provide the option for you to fly in. The Terlingua Ranch airstrip is just a short walk away and can accommodate small private planes. Don’t worry about the noise, the strip is rarely used and only during daylight hours.

While the Big Bend region offers a wide range of lodging options for our visitors, very few vacation rentals can compare to Christmas Mountains Ranch as all-around great place to stay. The owners have taken great care to build and furnish a home base for their Big Bend visits. It was completed in 2020 and graciously opened up for others to enjoy. Our team at Big Bend Vacation Rentals is proud to manage it. As the one of the longest serving and the most established vacation rental management provider in the Terlingua Area, we are eager to serve as your host.

The Neighborhood:
TERLINGUA RANCH: Located between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park and including much of the town of Terlingua, Terlingua Ranch is a private subdivision of over 190,000 acres, divided into 9,500 tracts owned by about 5,000 individuals and crisscrossed by 1,100 miles of dirt and rock roads. Tracts range from five acres to several hundred acres. It is some of the most rugged and scenic land in Texas.

Back in the 1960’s, the Ghost Town and much of what later became “Terlingua Ranch” was owned by racing legend and car designer extraordinaire, Carol Shelby and some of his friends. The decided to promote the area by holding a chili cook-off in the then abandoned Ghost Town. That little stunt of a cook-off grew into CASI (Chili Appreciation Society International) which now hosts nearly 500 chili cook-offs around the nation and internationally, all leading up the championship cook-off every year in Terlingua. Shelby and friends later subdivided the Ranch and started selling it off to hunters and rugged naturalists. Over the decades, the area was reborn and an eclectic community of nature lovers, artists, musicians, adventurers, and folks just wanting to escape from “civilization” has grown and started to resettle this rough country.

People have come and gone. New buildings have risen while others have fallen, Dreams have been realized and others crushed. Through it all, the land remains. The harsh desert and vast openness encourages positive development and slowly swallows up and recovers from past abuses. The old cinnabar mine sites and ranching outposts persist as relics and ghost towns, some redeveloped, some carefully preserved, and others dissolving back into the desert. Abandoned dreams eventually become points of interests for those of us that stumble upon them decades later. Terlingua Ranch is a bizarre mix of old and new, good and bad, growth and decline, all completely unregulated. Modern homes with high values and stunning designs stand beside dilapidated do-it-yourself mistakes and abandoned ruins of the 1800’s and early 1900’s.

The landscape is even more varied than the people and the structures. Rugged mountains, deep canyons, wild arroyos, dry and wet creeks, peaceful valleys, breathtaking badlands, moonscape like mud flats, the remains of ancient volcanoes, and fossilized ancient seabeds. All of it nurturing a vast array of plant life and wildlife. Around every corner and over every hill lies new and unexpected surprises.

The Ranch is now home to a few hundred hardy souls. It is also dotted with a diverse array of vacation rental lodging options and campsites. Like the diverse land, they range in quality, style, value, and price. A few are amazing dream destinations. Some are good places to sleep. Others are the stuff of nightmares. (We don’t manage any in the nightmare category.)

Big Bend Vacation Rentals started out in 2007 and initially managed three of the first four vacation rentals in the Terlingua and Terlingua Ranch area. We now manage dozens out of a couple of hundred options. We represent dozens of property owners and have hosted tens of thousands of guests. You can trust us as managers, and you can rely on the properties that we manage. We have become very selective about the properties and the property owners that we add to our portfolio. Visit our website at www.BigBendVacations.com.

Other Things to Note:
From Christmas Mountains Ranch it will take you approximately 45 minutes to get to the west entrance of the Big Bend National Park.

Interaction with Guests:
We manage several properties and live a few miles away. We are available by phone, text, email, or messages. We are typically only on site for cleaning or maintenance issues.