Chisos Basin Campground (Big Bend, TX)

Awesome

We had a great time in the basin and are so sad it is closing for SO long :( I would recommend more star gazing activities and night time fun hosted by rangers since the stars are so amazing!
The wind was no joke at night and significantly colder than we expected! The window trail was easy to get to and we had a great time on all of the hikes!

Really cool campground location

Fantastic location. It was beautiful. The staff were great, especially thoughtful checking in on everyone after the big wind storm and offering help to fix damaged tents. Campground was clean, site was ample for our large tent, and you can't beat the view from the picnic table!

Beautiful location, but the parking spot was quite slanted, so this is not the site to book if you are sleeping in a vehicle.

Convenient location and very close to our backpacking trailhead. Campsites are small and close together but the scenery and no-generator policy more than makes up for that.

Location is lovely in the basin. But, very few campsites are private. Our site location felt like we were camping with the three sites around us. Thankful for the covered picnic table, but the picnic table only had a bench on one side.

We always love Big Bend, especially up in the Chisos Basin where it is cool at night and the stars are bright. The campsites blend into each other so be friendly with (and respectful of) your neighbors. It was Spring Break in Texas, so lots of families with young kids. Great home base for day hikes or kicking off a backpacking trip. Not every site has a shade structure, and it can get VERY windy, so bring good stakes and be prepared to make your own shade. Or plan a sight-seeing drive for the heat of the afternoon. The sink for washing dishes, adjacent to the restrooms, was a nice surprise.

I highly recommend camping in the Chisos Basin campground to anyone who likes to camp. It's central to everything in Big Bend, and it gives you a great parking spot for hiking. We reserved site 43 in loop 3, and it was perfect for our family of 5. The ground was mostly level, and there was just enough space for our 9-person tent. The site is surrounded by boulders that are easy to climb, and fair warning- if there are kids in sites nearby, they can't help but do imaginative play on these boulders, so some friendliness and patience are welcome so everyone can have a good time. Because of the boulders, and your vehicle parking parallel to the site, it's very private. As an FYI, you're only about 4 sites away from the start of the Window Trail, and about 2 sites away from the 1/2 mi trail up the hill to the visitors center. That's 1/2 mi about about 500 ft elevation gain.

Be prepared with a hammer and good tent stakes if you are tent camping. These sites are very rocky, and it's difficult to anchor stakes. We managed it, which we were glad for because it was also very windy 3 out of the 4 days we were camping.

Stayed in the campgrounds and loved it. Plenty of shade during the day (at my site, not all sites are same). Multiple restrooms and adjacent to the Window Hike trail. Overall the Chisos site was great with the trail head for multiple hikes were very close to the parking lot. Loved it here. Will be sad to have it shutdown but excited to see the improvements.