Historically & in my line of work over the years, the week between Christmas & New Year's is almost always a dead week in terms of activity. Needless to say, this year was no exception particularly with the Wuhan and there was no way I was gonna stick around town stuffing my pie hole with more Christmas snacks and goodies, putting away all my wife's holiday decorations or binging on more Hunter reruns!
I had been wanting to get back out in the woods for some trail time & I had 3 destinations in mind... Big Bend, another section hike on the Ozark Highlands Trail or the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The more I read about the GMNP, the more fun it sounded... plus, I've always liked the desert landscape & setting, which is very similar to Big Bend and I'd never been there. Time to start planning my trip!
Like we do for any of our bike trips, there is a lot to do to get ready for backpacking on the trail once you've figured out your destination... what trails to hike, what gear & clothing to take, meal prep and how much to take and in the case of GMNP, water!!! The GMNP is a very fragile environment and encompasses the world's most extensive Permian fossil reef and is home to the 4 highest peaks in Texas, with the highest being Guadalupe Peak at 8750'. The Park Service restricts the use of any natural resources available in the Park while you're on the trail, with the 3 main ones being no fires (with the exception of cooking meals on a backpacking stove), no streams or creeks in the entire Park can be used as a water source and hammock camping is not allowed at any of the backcountry campsites. Hold on a sec... say what??? That means you have to carry all your own water while you're out? Holy crap! Not having a fire at night or hanging a hammock is one thing but to haul all your own water really put a whole new twist on an outing. The Rangers recommend 1 gallon per person, per day... and 1 gallon of water weighs just over 9 lbs. I haven't carried a pack that weighs much more than 20 lbs. in 25 years, so this was going to be fun... NOT!
At home, I'd planned for 4 days/3 nights on the trail with one water resupply point at the Dog Canyon Ranger Station, which made for a big loop trip. But by the time I got out there, the weather outlook had changed from 4 days of perfect weather to big time snow & nasty weather forecasted right in the middle of my hike. In the GMNP, if your backpacking in the backcountry, you have to meet with a Ranger to review your itinerary & get a backcountry permit for camping. While I met with the Ranger & discussed my plan & the weather change, he told me "while we can't tell you not to go out, we strongly recommend you reconsider. At the higher elevations where you'll be, there will be rain & snow and temps will be in the teens & with winds gusting at 60 mph, the wind chill will make it even colder". 60 mph winds? Holy crap! Well that gave some cause to think... what to do?
My Original Planned Trip
Since I drove straight to the Ranger Station from home, I thought I'd get a campsite at the Pine Springs Campground which is nearby & close to the trailhead so I could figure out what to do. The Ranger kindly informed me there were no sites available but I could drive to nearby New Mexico & camp on BLM land for free. Sweet! Once I found the 'campsite', it was nothing but a gravel parking lot! Not my idea of an ideal spot to camp. Since it was so late in the day, I decided to search for a motel nearby & found one in Whites City, which is where Carlsbad Caverns is located. Nice. The motel wasn't the Taj Mahal but it was a notch higher in quality than the Gordon, so for the next 4 nights I bathed myself in the luxury accommodations of the Whites City Caverns Motel. In view of the weather change, I decided to do a couple of day hikes & an overnight hike & camp at 7700' at the McKittrick Ridge campsite. On the day snow, rain & crappy weather was supposed to come around, I decided to visit Carlsbad Caverns.
Day 1 - Day Hike to Guadalupe Peak
Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8750' in elevation & the most popular trail in the Park. As it is & has been with the Wuhan still plaguing mankind, there were quite a few people on the trail, but it was still a fun hike and took me about 6.5 hours to get to the peak & back to the truck. The weather was perfect & the wind was blowing pretty hard at the summit so it was kinda chilly. The roundtrip distance on the map is 8.4 miles, over 3,000 feet of elevation and rated 'strenuous'. I took a small pack loaded with a few trail items, some lunch, snacks & mi agua.
https://www.relive.cc/view/vKv2RAKYEov
Top Of Texas
Guadalupe Peak Trail With El Capitan In The Background
Day 2 - Carlsbad Caverns
This was the day the weather forecast was supposed to be so bad & for once, the weatherman was right! It started pretty early in the morning & got progressively worse as the day wore on. I was glad I chose to do Carlsbad Caverns instead on being up on a mountain top. By the time I was finished with my tour, it was super windy & lots of snow coming down. Thankfully, my motel was only 7 miles from the Caverns which made it pretty convenient not having to drive too far in the snow.
When I was a kid growing up in AL, I fell in with some spelunkers at my workplace and spent a summer & fall crawling around caves all over north AL, so seeing stalactites & stalagmites was no big deal but the sheer size of some of the cave formations and the cave itself was pretty incredible. It's hard to imagine how much work effort & total man hours went into developing the Caverns into a National Monument & tourist destination. A pretty amazing place for sure.
Cave Draperies
When I came out of the Caverns about 2 hours later, this was what greeted me. Thankfully and since I didn't do a multi-day trip, I had the meals I brought for the trail to dine on during my stay at the motel. Sweet.
I had been wanting to get back out in the woods for some trail time & I had 3 destinations in mind... Big Bend, another section hike on the Ozark Highlands Trail or the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The more I read about the GMNP, the more fun it sounded... plus, I've always liked the desert landscape & setting, which is very similar to Big Bend and I'd never been there. Time to start planning my trip!
Like we do for any of our bike trips, there is a lot to do to get ready for backpacking on the trail once you've figured out your destination... what trails to hike, what gear & clothing to take, meal prep and how much to take and in the case of GMNP, water!!! The GMNP is a very fragile environment and encompasses the world's most extensive Permian fossil reef and is home to the 4 highest peaks in Texas, with the highest being Guadalupe Peak at 8750'. The Park Service restricts the use of any natural resources available in the Park while you're on the trail, with the 3 main ones being no fires (with the exception of cooking meals on a backpacking stove), no streams or creeks in the entire Park can be used as a water source and hammock camping is not allowed at any of the backcountry campsites. Hold on a sec... say what??? That means you have to carry all your own water while you're out? Holy crap! Not having a fire at night or hanging a hammock is one thing but to haul all your own water really put a whole new twist on an outing. The Rangers recommend 1 gallon per person, per day... and 1 gallon of water weighs just over 9 lbs. I haven't carried a pack that weighs much more than 20 lbs. in 25 years, so this was going to be fun... NOT!
At home, I'd planned for 4 days/3 nights on the trail with one water resupply point at the Dog Canyon Ranger Station, which made for a big loop trip. But by the time I got out there, the weather outlook had changed from 4 days of perfect weather to big time snow & nasty weather forecasted right in the middle of my hike. In the GMNP, if your backpacking in the backcountry, you have to meet with a Ranger to review your itinerary & get a backcountry permit for camping. While I met with the Ranger & discussed my plan & the weather change, he told me "while we can't tell you not to go out, we strongly recommend you reconsider. At the higher elevations where you'll be, there will be rain & snow and temps will be in the teens & with winds gusting at 60 mph, the wind chill will make it even colder". 60 mph winds? Holy crap! Well that gave some cause to think... what to do?
My Original Planned Trip
Since I drove straight to the Ranger Station from home, I thought I'd get a campsite at the Pine Springs Campground which is nearby & close to the trailhead so I could figure out what to do. The Ranger kindly informed me there were no sites available but I could drive to nearby New Mexico & camp on BLM land for free. Sweet! Once I found the 'campsite', it was nothing but a gravel parking lot! Not my idea of an ideal spot to camp. Since it was so late in the day, I decided to search for a motel nearby & found one in Whites City, which is where Carlsbad Caverns is located. Nice. The motel wasn't the Taj Mahal but it was a notch higher in quality than the Gordon, so for the next 4 nights I bathed myself in the luxury accommodations of the Whites City Caverns Motel. In view of the weather change, I decided to do a couple of day hikes & an overnight hike & camp at 7700' at the McKittrick Ridge campsite. On the day snow, rain & crappy weather was supposed to come around, I decided to visit Carlsbad Caverns.
Day 1 - Day Hike to Guadalupe Peak
Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8750' in elevation & the most popular trail in the Park. As it is & has been with the Wuhan still plaguing mankind, there were quite a few people on the trail, but it was still a fun hike and took me about 6.5 hours to get to the peak & back to the truck. The weather was perfect & the wind was blowing pretty hard at the summit so it was kinda chilly. The roundtrip distance on the map is 8.4 miles, over 3,000 feet of elevation and rated 'strenuous'. I took a small pack loaded with a few trail items, some lunch, snacks & mi agua.
https://www.relive.cc/view/vKv2RAKYEov
Top Of Texas
Guadalupe Peak Trail With El Capitan In The Background
Day 2 - Carlsbad Caverns
This was the day the weather forecast was supposed to be so bad & for once, the weatherman was right! It started pretty early in the morning & got progressively worse as the day wore on. I was glad I chose to do Carlsbad Caverns instead on being up on a mountain top. By the time I was finished with my tour, it was super windy & lots of snow coming down. Thankfully, my motel was only 7 miles from the Caverns which made it pretty convenient not having to drive too far in the snow.
When I was a kid growing up in AL, I fell in with some spelunkers at my workplace and spent a summer & fall crawling around caves all over north AL, so seeing stalactites & stalagmites was no big deal but the sheer size of some of the cave formations and the cave itself was pretty incredible. It's hard to imagine how much work effort & total man hours went into developing the Caverns into a National Monument & tourist destination. A pretty amazing place for sure.
Cave Draperies
When I came out of the Caverns about 2 hours later, this was what greeted me. Thankfully and since I didn't do a multi-day trip, I had the meals I brought for the trail to dine on during my stay at the motel. Sweet.
The GMNP was much more fun than I thought it would be and It's hard to fathom that these mountains were once at the bottom of some ancient ocean millions of years ago & that they're still around for us to enjoy today. Another rare treasure found in the great state of Texas!
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