Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Hike to the Highest Point in Texas

Over the President's Day holiday we decided to take a long weekend and visit a few National Parks in Texas and New Mexico. We flew from Atlanta to El Paso on a Thursday evening. We took off on time, but we had to take a long route over the Gulf of Mexico to avoid storms, so we didn't land until after 11pm. By this time, the rental car company didn't have the "Toyota Prius or similar" that we had booked, and instead gave us a Ford Mustang. Not exactly the gas mileage we prefer, but hey, I guess it looks cool? 😆 We stayed in a hotel next to the airport so we could set off early for our first national park.

Friday morning we drove 1 hour 45 minutes east to the Pine Springs area of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This part of Texas is quite desolate. We were mostly driving through Hudspeth County, which despite being huge (4,572 square miles) only has 3,202 people. There's a 111 mile stretch with no services! The scenery picked up as we got closer to the national park, with views of salt flats and mountains. 

Guadalupe Mountains is one of the least visited National Parks, coming in 49th place out of 62 parks, with around 180,000 visitors each year. We parked and set off on the Guadalupe Peak Trail at 10:40am. It's an 8.4 mile round trip trail that rises 2,952 feet, finishing at the tallest point in Texas at 8,751 feet above sea level. It was a sunny day with a brilliant blue sky, but it was quite cold, and dipped below freezing as we climbed, with shaded sections of the trail still covered with snow and ice. The way up was pretty challenging, especially for Paul. Climbing almost 3,000 feet when you're starting at a high altitude and there are icy portions on the trail is not easy! We made it to the top and sat and had a snack while enjoying the sweeping views. The way down was much easier and took less than half as much time as going up. The whole thing was about five hours round trip.

Welcome to Guadalupe Mountains National Park on a chilly but brilliantly sunny day!

Not really our style, but... uhh... it's shiny?

Sunny and desert-like on the way up.

David part way up the trail.

A snowy portion - the top third or so had snowy and icy parts.

A view of the cute little peak next door, with Texas spreading out in the background.

Panorama from the top!

David at the top of Guadalupe Mountain.

Proof we were here! The monument was placed here by the USPS...why?

After getting back to the car, we briefly stopped in to the visitor's center since it was open for another 30 minutes, then drove the 50 minutes to Carlsbad, New Mexico. We were very hungry from the hike, so we went straight to dinner at Carniceria San Juan De Los Lagos, a Mexican grocery store and restaurant. The space was atmospheric, and the food was hit or miss - the pozole and house salsa were phenomenal, while the tacos and nachos were lackluster. We also picked up a couple of yummy pan dulces from their bakery for dessert and breakfast. One national Park down, two to go!

Watermelon agua fresca!

The pozole was *chef's kiss* 

Chaco Canyon, Durango, Mesa Verde, and the Four Corners

Northwestern New Mexico is a dry region with not very many people, but a lot of natural desert beauty. For the second leg of our Southwest roadtrip, we left Santa Fe and took a meandering route toward Colorado. We traveled through the town of Los Alamos (where the atomic bomb was created) and across Valles caldera, created by a supervolcano over a million years ago. We has sweeping views of the caldera, but didn't have much time to stop or hike. The road continuing west turned into a surprisingly rough dirt road for a bit as it curved through the mountains. We made it through and continued on to our next destination, Chaco Culture National Historic Park, which required more dirt road driving.

Paul visited Chaco way back around 2006 as part of a geology field trip, and was eager to return. Its an impressive but little known UNESCO world heritage site, and was home to Ancestral Puebloans from around 900-1150CE. The site includes the remains of the largest buildings built in North America until the 18th century. While it is kind of in the middle of nowhere, it's worth a visit!

Well, the sign isn't lying. It's a big valley. Super pretty!

A large section of the road to Chaco Canyon is not paved. Be prepared for the bumps.

Obligatory National Park entry sign photo. Bonus World Heritage Site status!

Back wall of the main settlement site at Pueblo Bonito.

You can get a sense of the scale from the hill behind. There's also a cliff hike that gives the best view but it was very hot so we skipped out on that.

You can see where all the walls stood separating rooms.

David squeezing through a littttttle door.

Everyone took turns posing in doors!

Inside view. This would have been at least two-stories. The wood pegs separated where the floors used to be.

Peek-a-boo!

There are lots of petroglyphs around the site.

Seeking shade along the back wall of Chetro Ketl (another small pueblo just a few minutes walk from Pueblo Bonita).

 

There are a number of giant kivas can be found throughout the park.

Paul's sunny part of the day. His lizard friend. He was hanging out near Casa Rinconada.

It's hard to imagine many people lived off the land here, as it's so arid. Researchers think Chaco only had a small residential population, with larger groups visiting for annual ceremonies.  

Leaving Chaco, we backtracked on the dirt road to Highway 550 and continued north into Colorado. We arrived in Durango in the early evening. Durango was a surprisingly cute town, with historic buildings and a walkable main street packed with restaurants and shops. We had dinner at Switchback tacos and walked around enjoying the beautiful evening weather before a drink at the Bookcase and Barber (a "secret" speakeasy where you enter through a small functioning barber shop). Our hotel, the General Palmer, was a historic and charming hotel built in 1898. Durango had a lot of great architecture and is a really good base if you're exploring the region. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time here, as we would have loved to spend a day taking the Durango Silverton train.

Lobby at the General Palmer Hotel.

Our hotel was definitely not haunted...

Yummy dinner tacos! Switchback had lovely outdoor dining on Main Street.

Mmmm, michelada.

Old timey truck in front of a bar made from a converted gas station. #Colorado

Downtown Durango is a hopping little place with many great historic buildings.

Speakeasy bar The Bookcase and Barber. Honestly, probably the best cocktails of the trip. Our table was an old piano with a glass top.

The next morning we grabbed a quick coffee at Hermosa, and then got on the road to Mesa Verde National Park, about a 40 minute drive away. Like Chaco, Mesa Verde has impressive structures from Ancestral Puebloans, and is also a UNESCO world heritage site. It has iconic views of stone structures under overhanging cliff walls. The park also has expansive views of the surrounding areas, and a number of smaller archeological sites. We spent about half the day driving to different sites and overlooks - luckily it wasn't too crowded. Another national park checked off the list!

Sunrise in Durango.

Call me when you want...call me when you need...call me in the morning, I'll bring the coffee...

Durango was built as a railroad town to exploit natural resources. The train is also a tourist draw for a scenic route that goes up into the mountains.

Couldn't pass up the Mesa Verde National Park sign. Now with 50% more old-timey fonts.

Stoic tree atop the mesa at knife's edge.

The monkey park is not only a monkey. The view and the canyon also look out for!

Spruce Tree House viewpoint.

Not a bad place to pop a sit and take in the view.

This was the tallest structure, Square Tower House, at four stories.

Cliff Palace from the upper overlook. The NPS wasn't allowing people to go up to the site at this time.

Leaving Mesa Verde, we had a late lunch in Cortez Colorado, and continued on to the four corners area where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico come together. We stopped at the exact four corners spot, owned by the Navajo Nation, which is a bit of a tourist trap. But there's nowhere else you can be in four states at once!

Mole enchiladas at La Casita de Cortez. Would recommend.

This isn't technically where they all meet due to a surveying error...but it's close enough.

This undoubtedly would work better if there were four of us...but here we go anyway.

Been a hot minute since David did a jumping shot, but here we are.

We rounded out the day at our mini-cabin in Monument Valley, but we'll save that for it's own post!

Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

Earlier this year our friend Thomas reached out to us about doing a road trip. He's been living in the UK and wanted to take his first post-vaccination trip back to the US to visit family and friends. After considering a bunch of options, we decided on a week long mostly outdoor adventure - a road trip from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, passing through four states, three national parks, and several historic sites. This was David's first visit to New Mexico, his 48th state (look out South Dakota and Alaska; we're coming for you soon!), and it was the first time for any of us to visit the national parks in the area.

Our 1,000 mile-long route.

We left Atlanta on a Saturday morning. Right after landing in Albuquerque, Paul started with a little time at Cliff's amusement park riding roller coasters while David went back to the airport to pick up Thomas, since he was flying in from Phoenix. Cliff's is a small but cute park that happens to have a pretty decent wooden coaster - the New Mexico Rattler. After a few rides, the three of us went to downtown Albuquerque. It's a bit quiet, but does have a several nice old buildings and a few blocks of walkable streets. For lunch we took a short drive northwest of downtown to Sawmill Market, New Mexico's first food hall. It reminded us a bit of Krog Street Market in Atlanta. We walked around Old Town for a bit. It's a small touristy area with some shops and a pleasant main square fronted by a church. Some of the adobe buildings in the area are from the 1700s.

The New Mexico Rattler. Yay, new credit!

The Kimo Theatre is Art Deco Pueblo Revival style.

David and Thomas ready for some lunch!

Lots of food stalls throughout the market.

A cute café in historic old town Albuquerque.

There was a wedding at the San Felipe de Neri church.

After spending half the day exploring Albuquerque, we hit the road for the 45 minute drive up to Santa Fe. Sante Fe itself is an interesting community. It's a quite old city, with buildings dating back to the 1600s. It has changed hands many times throughout history (Spanish, Mexican, and eventually American) which adds layers to this city. Today, Sante Fe is a center of government, arts, and culture in New Mexico. The architecture is mostly adobe and there are art galleries, restaurants and bars galore. On top of that, the higher elevation and pleasant climate has made it a popular tourist destination in the southwest. Our hotel, Inn on the Alameda, was a pleasant series of adobe buildings tucked amongst trees and a shady courtyard near the city center. 

After checking-in and hanging out at the hotel for a little bit, we booked tickets for an interesting attraction called Meow Wolf. First we had a quick drink at Leaf & Hive, a nearby mead brewery, while waiting for our time slot at Meow Wolf. It's hard to describe Meow Wolf... google describes it as a "unique & immersive art installation with multimedia elements & a mysterious narrative throughout." I think that's about as good a description as you could find. Basically, it's a series of rooms that branch off a model house that lead into "parallel dimensions." There's some story associated with it and a mystery you can try to solve, but good luck with that in the throngs of people running around this place. Overall, it's a really cool "immersive art installation" with lots of fun and odd things to see and even a small retro arcade with games you can play in the middle, unexpectedly.

After we were done tripping out, we decided on dinner at the nearby Ranch House. It was fine, but seemed more like a chain restaurant. After dinner, we drove back to our hotel and then went for a nighttime stroll around downtown Santa Fe, hitting up a really cute cocktail bar called Tonic, which was probably one of the better bars we visited the entire trip (which we mostly blame on Utah for being just awful when it comes to alcohol policies). Paul got a random pretentious cocktail that came inside another larger glass filled with smoke... ahhh, Santa Fe.

Some meads at Leaf & Hive

Neon trees.

There were all kinds of weird rooms.

David and Thomas in the disco rocket room.

"I am just a divine baboon witnessing the solar journey"

Selfie time.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Bowl of queso #1 of the trip at Ranch House.

The cathedral basilica, built in 1887.

Tonic had a cool vibe and inventive drinks.

Sunday we spent the whole day in Santa Fe. Paul got up early (thanks, time zones!) for a coffee at Downtown Subscription, and then we had an excellent breakfast at Cafe Pasquals. After wandering around the city center in the morning we went to the New Mexico History Museum. The museum is partially in a new building and partially in the oldest building in Santa Fe, the Palace of the Governors (which dates to 1610). If you like history we'd recommend stopping here for an hour or two and learning about the people that lived in NM from prehistory until now.

After visiting the museum, we walked back past the hotel and up Canyon Road. Canyon Road is basically a suburban street that's filled with upscale art galleries. It's fun to walk up and down and peak into some galleries and the occasional shop; but this isn't totally our style. We did manage to find a wine bar with a really cute courtyard...which we're always up for. 😏

Our hotel, Inn on the Alameda, was very intimate and cute.

Pasqual's Café is the cliché place to eat in Santa Fe... it was good though. 

Yum!

The New Mexico History Museum.

Native New Mexican perspective on cultural assimilation 😢

The bronze doors on the cathedral are only from the 1980s, but reminded us of the doors of the baptistery in Florence, Italy.

Lots of local architecture and design along Canyon Street.

Wine break!

By now it was pretty hot (New Mexico in early September is still hot and sunny) so we went back to the hotel and got in the car for a quick drive to the state capitol. Unfortunately, the building wasn't open and is honestly pretty underwhelming. The original capitol from the early 20th century was replaced by an adobe-looking circular building that people felt better reflected New Mexico architecture. They even dismantled part of the old (neo-classical) capitol and made it look more southwestern. We can appreciate the effort to have things fit into their city and culture more seamlessly, but the new capitol is pretty underwhelming. In total, we spent about 5 minutes here, and Thomas didn't even get out of the car (it was that underwhelming).

With state capitol checked off the list we were free to wander around the city center some more in the late afternoon. We went atop the La Fonda hotel and got a table (partially in the blazing sun unfortunately) on their rooftop patio bar. While there, we did meet some interesting women visiting from California and had a nice 30 minute chat with them about how everything is the worst and no one is doing anything about climate change and how California is on fire and soon there won't be any water in the entire west. David was into the conversation!

For dinner, we hit up the Plaza Cafe, which was an old diner right on the central square. David hasn't been impressed with food in Santa Fe, but Paul and Thomas have been digging it.

The current New Mexico state capitol building is a bit... meh.

The neo-classical dome of the original capitol was removed and replaced with this tower.

So much adobe architecture. This is a high-end hotel.

View from the La Fonda rooftop.

Santa Fe has a number of architecturally pleasing buildings.

We enjoyed our short time in Santa Fe. We'd recommend you visit if you're interested in southwest art, culture, food or architecture. It's a small walkable city, and honestly pretty expensive to visit, but it was way more interesting than Albuquerque. Next up on our road trip - a long driving day to Chaco Culture National Historic Park and then on to Durango, Colorado.