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.
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Welcome to Guadalupe Mountains National Park on a chilly but brilliantly sunny day!
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| Not really our style, but... uhh... it's shiny? |
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| Sunny and desert-like on the way up. |
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David part way up the trail.
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| A snowy portion - the top third or so had snowy and icy parts. |
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| A view of the cute little peak next door, with Texas spreading out in the background. |
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| Panorama from the top! |
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| David at the top of Guadalupe Mountain. |
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| 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!
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| Watermelon agua fresca! |
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| The pozole was *chef's kiss* |
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