GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS
Flying into El Paso for the second time, the first being for Big Bend National Park, we were able to meet up with our good friend Becky Lomax for a week long road trip which included time in several southwest parks, the first of which was Guadalupe Mountains. While you can visit the park in just a few days, we divided our time here with a visit to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to allow for some tours there that we had booked. In our two days at Guadalupe Mountains we were able to enjoy the desert environs of this park while getting in some great hiking on some pretty amazing trails. This started as we drove through Guadalupe Mountains on our arrival day, stopping at the Visitors Center and taking a small trail here on the Pinery Trail to see some of the landscape and explore and old stagecoach route. On our drive in we stopped to look at El Capitan because this impressive geological feature was something we would see the following day as we hiked Guadalupe Peak.
On our first big day of hiking, we decided to tackle Guadalupe Peak, the tallest mountain in the state of Texas. This was the better day in regards to weather and wind and it made the most sense to also front load, as this is one of the biggest hikes within the park. Starting from the Pine Creek Campground, we began our ascent in earnest through some long and meandering switchbacks. This trail had a lot of “checkpoints” which made it feel even longer. The first of which was a pass at the top of these switchbacks which set you off on another course toward what looked to be Guadalupe Peak, but this was just a false summit. Winding our way up and through the forest here, along ledges, cross a log bridge and up some more switchbacks eventually brought us to the top of Guadalupe Peak with some incredible views and an oddly placed metal obelisk. After making our descent through the wind, we drove to the Frijole Ranch and hiked Manzanita and Smith Spring. Though we were going to just get out and take a quick peak, this quickly turned into a longer hike than we anticipated in footwear that we should have thought better of.
We returned to Guadalupe Mountains National Park two days later to hike Devil’s Hall, a trail which has you traverse a boulder laden wash up to a natural staircase and eventually a narrow slot cannon for which the hike gets it’s name. This was one of the most reverent natural spaces that we had been in, like an open air cathedral or derelict abbey in some European country, it truly was amazing. After this hike we made our way to a separate area of the park, McKittrick Canyon. This hike also takes you through a wash and includes a variety of stopping points for you along the way, including the Pratt Cabin and the Grotto, which is where we stopped. While you could continue the hike and go higher and higher, the view wouldn’t match what we saw on Guadalulpe Peak and we decided that our adventures in this Texas national park had more than sufficed as we made this our final hike here.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is on the traditional and stolen land of the Mescalero Apache and Lipan Apache people.
Listen while you look! These buttons will link you to the podcast episode(s) for this park and gallery.
