Route: Outer Mountain Loop (TX)

Hi there everyone, I just wanted to make a post to officially say that I will be attempting this loop tomorrow morning, December 30th. I want to start between 8am and 9am. The loop is very remote, without service, so I won't have live tracking but I will have my Garmin on to track the run. I will be going out to do the loop on my birthday, I'm turning 32 and it will be my 6th year running my birthday age. After the loop is complete I plan to add another mile on to make it 32! Thanks all and though I am not sure how long it will take, I will enjoy every minute. Big Bend is one of my favorite places in the world. Thanks and I will post afterwards! - Aubrey Garner (oh! and I will be supported, having my partner meet me at the start, at 2 points and at the finish) 

Giving this a shot Saturday morning, 2/22/20. I’ll be self-supported, caching water at Wilson Ranch. 

I will be going for this FKT in two weeks on 01/23/21. 10-day forecast isn't out yet so I might tweak a day or two depending on weather but that is the plan for now.

I will be doing the route unsupported. My goal is to finish in under 5 hours which will be averaging about 9:30 pace for the loop.

My tracking beacon will be here- https://share.garmin.com/marksaroni

My Strava is here- https://www.strava.com/athletes/385863

I'll try to post a few updates and stories on instagram- https://www.instagram.com/marksaroni/

Has anyone ever done 2 loops? 

Hey everyone I completed the OML on 6/10/2025 and wanted to post my experience here as a resource for others. First I finished the loop in 10hrs and 25 minutes and my Garmin recorded the distance as 32.32 miles I’m not sure why there’s such a disparity in my distance compared to this site, I did resupply water at Homer Wilson Ranch so that added some distance but not 2 miles worth so go figure.

I completed the loop in the summer which is not advisable for safety reasons and I can attest that it was hot! I only did it in June because it was my only opportunity to do it and now that the basin is closed to the public for the next 2 years due to construction I’m glad I did it when I could. I would describe myself as a fairly fit runner and the OML was a bucket list adventure for me. I did a lot of heat training prior to my attempt which helped a lot, that being said it wasn’t easy and I obviously didn’t get close to breaking any records. 

I left Chisos Basin at 3:30am with 4.5 liters of water and food. I didn’t end up needing that much water but I wanted to be over prepared for the Dodson section. I went the traditional clockwise direction. I got up pinnacles fairly quickly in under an hour and was able to run fast on Boot Canyon and held a decent pace down Juniper. It was dark for the first 3 hours so I used a headlamp which definitely slowed me down on Juniper because you have to watch your step on that steep descent. I got to the Dodson trail head at around 3 hours as the sun was rising and that’s when I ran into my first Western Diamondback rattle snake, I ended up encountering 3 on the Dodson section and it was a nice adrenaline rush filled with a decent amount of terror haha! The Dodson wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated it would be, I was lucky that it was cloudy morning and even experienced a light rain which kept temperatures down for awhile. I was able to keep a decent run pace for the first few miles on the Dodson but as the trail went up the rolling hills I slowed my pace, the fear of snakes had something to do with that as well!

I still had about a liter of water left when I arrived at Homer Wilson Ranch but as I mentioned above I resupplied with more water at the cache, I ended up carrying 3 liters for the remainder of the trail as it was getting very hot at this point. Blue Creek starts by following a very rocky wash and it was difficult to maintain a fast pace here, also Blue Creek has a lot of elevation gain so be prepared for the difficulty. I had no shade until I got to the Laguna Meadow trailhead. I was in a bad place mentally when I arrived to Laguna Meadows because it was very hot and I had somehow tricked myself into believing that I was basically done when I got back into the Chisos, and I was unprepared for 3.5 more miles of downhill hiking. My original plan was to run the remainder of the trail but at that point my quads were shot so I hiked it in. I finished around 1pm and was surprised to have park hosts waiting for me at the trailhead. I had told another park host of my OML plan the day before and these hosts were worried that I wouldn’t make it so they waited at the end to make sure I wasn’t lost out there, which was a nice gesture. My ultimate goal was just to finish but I wanted to do it in under 9 hours which didn’t happen. Obviously running in the dark for the first 3 hours and the heat slowed me down but also resupplying at Homer Wilson took way longer than I anticipated. I could have shaved off 30 minutes if I didn’t resupply. I carried 2000 calories worth of food in gels and bars but I had a hard time consuming food in general, I think the heat had something to do with that so be prepared to keep up with the caloric needs of this trail. 
 

All in all it was an epic adventure, it was challenging but I was able to bounce back fairly quickly and enjoy more hikes and trail runs for the rest of my trip at Big Bend that week. If you want to do the loop in a fast time I would highly recommend doing it in the winter and starting at sunrise. Also I would recommend carrying enough water so you can skip the water cache all together and just keep on cruising. Also make sure you are carrying a satellite messenger like a Garmin Inreach in case you run into an emergency like a rattlesnake bite as there’s no service out there. I had a Zoleo satellite messenger and sent updates to my wife who was back home. I love Big Bend and getting to finish the OML in one day was a blast, it’s a beautiful trail.