Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 11
  1. #1
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Deep In The Heart of...
    Hammock
    SLD Trail Lair, Chameleon
    Tarp
    HG, Zpacks, DIY
    Insulation
    Loco Libre, HG
    Suspension
    MyersTech
    Posts
    1,051
    Images
    148

    5 Days In The Guadalupe Mountains National Park

    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!

    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 2 main ones being no fires (with the exception of cooking meals on a backpacking stove) and no stream or creek in the entire Park can be used as a water source. Hold on a sec... say what??? You mean I have to carry all my own water while I'm out? Dang! Not having a fire at night 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! Oh yeah... they don't allow hammocks in the backcountry either!

    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? Wow! Well that gave me pause to think... hmmm, what to do?


    My Original Planned Trip

    I drove straight to the Ranger Station from home thinking I'd get my backcountry permit taken care of & then get a campsite at the Pine Springs Campground, which is close to the trailhead. When talking with the Ranger, he kindly informed me there were no sites available but I could drive to nearby New Mexico & camp on BLM land for free. Sweet! I headed off to New Mexico and once I found the 'campsite', it was nothing but a gravel parking lot! Not my idea of an ideal spot to camp for the next few days.

    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 wasn't some low-budget flop house either, where I might have to worry about some crazy Covid ravaged, flesh eating zombie breaking into my room during the night. 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 all the snow, rain & crappy weather was supposed to come around, I decided I'd tour Carlsbad Caverns. My kids made fun of me since my plans changed from camping on the trail like I normally would, to staying in a motel instead... they called it 'glamping'.

    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 too except for the wind 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'. For my day hikes, I used a LiteAF Multi-Day 20L pack and it was perfect for a few trail items, some lunch, snacks & mi agua with room to spare. Great little pack & super comfy.

    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 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 cavern tour, it was super windy outside & 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. So many millions of years old, the caverns are pretty spectacular and I can only imagine how exciting it must've been being the first guys to explore & map the cave. 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.

    Last edited by ObdewlaX; 01-19-2021 at 08:08.

  2. #2
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Deep In The Heart of...
    Hammock
    SLD Trail Lair, Chameleon
    Tarp
    HG, Zpacks, DIY
    Insulation
    Loco Libre, HG
    Suspension
    MyersTech
    Posts
    1,051
    Images
    148
    Day 3 - Day Hike Loop Through The Bowl

    The next morning was a balmy 23 deg. when I left the motel bound for the GMNP where I would do a big loop hike I'd planned. From the Pine Springs Visitor Center, I'd hike up the Tejas Trail to the Bowl Trail & Hunter Peak (8350'), then back down the mountain on the Bear Canyon Trail to the Frejole Trail back to the Pine Springs Visitor Center... about 11.5 miles & 3,000' of elevation gain. I packed another day pack & got on the trail at 8:30am. I chose to do this loop trail because it takes you through an area called 'The Bowl' which is a 2 mile wide depression that contains a lush, highcountry coniferous forest of pine and Douglas fir and is protected by the surrounding mountains. It was cool seeing & hiking in the snow left over from the day before, in a desert setting. Not a cloud in the sky & the air was cool and crisp... the makings for a perfect day.


    Tejas/Bowl/Bear Canyon/Frijole Trail Loop

    Once I got on the Tejas Trail, it was obvious there was going to be fewer people, if any, on these trails and for about 2.5 hours, I had the trail all to myself. It had been quite a while since I'd hiked in fresh snow & it was cool seeing all the animal tracks crisscrossing the trail... lots of activity in the desert! After about 4 hours, I made it to the Tejas Trail & Bowl Trail junction, right about time for lunch. I mentioned earlier that the Guadalupe Mountains are home to a Permian Reef which is essentially a marine fossil reef and part of what's known as the Capitan Reef. From the GMNP brochure... The Capitan Reef is a 400 mile long, horseshoe shaped reef where over millions of years, calcareous sponges, algae, and other lime recreating marine organisms precipitated from the seawater. Eventually, the sea evaporated and as the reef subsided, it was buried in a thick blanket of sediments and mineral salts. The reef was entombed for millions of years until a mountain building uplift exposed part of it. It's kind of mind boggling knowing where I had lunch on a mountaintop, used to be at the bottom of an ancient ocean hundreds of millions of years ago. Wow.




    View of the Tejas Trail


    Another View of the Tejas Trail


    Mountaintop Fossil Remains

    After lunch at the trail junction, I headed off on the Bowl Trail towards Hunter Peak. I was hiking in ankle deep snow for at least a mile and I was the only one on the trail. I did eventually run into another hiker... a kid from North Carolina who was off of school and on his way back from California taking his time getting back home. The hike up Hunter Peak wasn't too tough but there was a lot of snow and some ice, so some of it was kinda tricky getting to the summit.


    Century Plant In Snow


    Hunter Peak Pano

    After the hike up Hunter Peak, it was time to get on the Bear Canyon trail & down the mountain. I'm glad I was hiking down the mountain on the Bear Canyon trail rather than hiking up... it's very steep & narrow & would be a pretty tough hike going up. After about 1.5 hours, I made it to the Frijole Trail and from there, it was another 45 minutes to an hour getting back to the Visitor Center & the truck. Great day hike for sure.


    Looking Back Towards Bear Canyon

    Once I got to the truck, it was back to the little motel in Whites City for some R & R. During my stay, I found a TV station whose exclusive content was/is old 50's & 60's western TV shows & movies. Nice. It's fun watching all those old shows & realizing that most all modern weekly TV shows & dramas have pretty much the same plots & storylines, even after all the years since they were originally aired. When I got back to the motel, I found the card key to my room didn't work, so I had to walk down to the office to get a new one. When I got there, the gal behind the counter told me they had cancelled my room even though I had reserved my room for another night the afternoon before, so there was some kind of communication mix up. The gal then said, "the maid service found all your stuff still in the room & since you hadn't reserved your room for another night, we thought you had gotten lost or hurt on your hike... I was about to call the State Police"! Dang! After all the drama, I spent the rest of the evening getting all the gear ready I would need for my next day's overnighter up to McKittrick Ridge.

    Day 4 - Overnighter On McKittrick Ridge

    After an early check out from the motel, I headed for McKittrick Canyon, which is 8 miles from the GMNP entrance and a 'day use only' area. McKittrick Canyon is a standout attraction in the GMNP due to its remote location and the diversity of plant & animal life in its tiny ecosystem. If interested, here's a great description of the Canyon, its history & inhabitants. Since it's a day use only area, the gates don't open until 8am and I got on trail right at 8:30am. The trail leading up to the ridge & to the campsite destination is 7.4 miles according to the map and since this was only an overnight excursion, I had all my gear and just enough food for lunch on the trail, dinner that evening, along with some trails snacks & a gallon of water. I'm guessing all of that in my pack probably weighed close to 25-26 lbs. & the hike from the trailhead to the ridge is an elevation climb of over 2700'. For most of the morning, the trail was in the shadows so a lot of the snow that fell 2 days before, was still on the ground. This made for some pretty tricky hiking with ice on the narrow trail at higher elevations. Some of it was so bad, I didn't want to risk a fall or worse by doing any video.


    Hiking Into McKittrick Canyon


    Looking Back Down The Canyon


    Looking Way Back Down The Canyon From 6000'

    I made it to the ridge after about 4 hours or so & man, was there a LOT of snow still up there. Once I was at the top, I thought the campsite would be close by and not too far away, but it wasn't and wound up being about another quarter mile to a half mile away. As I hiked through the snow, I began to spot what turned out to be mountain lion tracks right on the trail and I was in an area that had a lot of brush & trees, a perfect setting for an ambush! Kinda freaky & I was a little nervous for sure & was on guard until I got through the area. Not long after my Mountain Man experience, I got to the trail leading into the campsite. Whew! As I stood there ready to hike into the campsite, I noticed the snow on the trail was completely undisturbed... except for more mountain lion tracks!! Holy crap! They were all over the trail & back where all the campsites were located. As I continued to survey the area, it seemed to me that the tracks were not fresh, maybe a day old or so, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned. Not to be too distracted, I went about my business of finding a site & getting ready for what was forecasted to be a cold & windy night.


    Holy Crap!


    Yikes! Mountain Lion Tracks In The Snow


    My Overnight Digs

    Day 5 - Time To Head Home

    After what turned out to be a long, cold & really windy night without a fire, I decided I would skip breakfast & get off the mountain. I pitched the tarp pretty low so it provided plenty of protection even though it took a pretty good battering by the wind all through the night. It might have been different if the high $ Thermarest air pad I bought for the trip hadn't failed during the night. After 2 hours or so of being all snug & comfy under the tarp, I woke up thinking, "man, my back's cold". Turns out the air pad failed while I slept & wouldn't hold air, so I had to sleep the rest of the night on the cold ground. The only thing that saved my bacon, was a 1/4" cell foam pad I brought along that did provide a little insulation from the cold ground. Man, was I pissed!! And of course, my water bottles froze up during the night but I was able to get a little bit to drink before the bottle spout froze up. But all's well that ends well as they say & I managed to survive a night in the wild.


    The Morning After...




    Goodbye To McKittrick Canyon

    https://www.relive.cc/view/v7O9yMK1WLO

    Once I got back on the trail down the mountain, the wind was blowing really hard and I felt like I was getting pushed around a few times. I got back to the truck at about 2:30pm & was kinda glad to be done... I'd only hiked about 35 miles over 4 days, plus all my food was gone & I was kinda ready to sleep in a bed again. After I dumped all my stuff in the truck & changed into some street clothes, I took off for home.

    What started out to be a trip with a lot of questions about the destination & trails, turned out to be a great trip thanks in large part to the weather change at the last minute. 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!
    Last edited by ObdewlaX; 01-19-2021 at 08:15.

  3. #3
    joe_guilbeau's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    San Antonio, Texas
    Posts
    1,019
    Images
    1
    How 'bout 'dem stars...

    If you tune in, the cacti will hum for you.

    This was a shallow sea at one time, and when the land rose, the se receded. Then the grasslands and trees came, along with the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs remain as Cardinals, Green Jays, Mockingbirds, Black Crested Tit Mouses, and on and on. Specialized hummingbirds feed on the red-flowered cacti on the desert floor.
    Last edited by joe_guilbeau; 01-16-2021 at 13:52.

  4. #4
    Senior Member twentybelow's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    south central missouri
    Hammock
    summer XLC,winter dutch 11' netless
    Tarp
    HG dyneema hex
    Insulation
    HG UQ, EE TQ
    Suspension
    webbing/cam buckle
    Posts
    175
    Images
    12
    Great way to adapt your plan and make the best of a changing weather forecast. Excellent descriptions, great pics and video. Bummer about the pad going flat. Good thing you had the GG as backup, if only a quarter inch. Kudos for defying old man winter, and in mountain lion country no less! Thanks for posting!

  5. #5
    Dirtbaghiker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Long Island, NY
    Hammock
    Dutch Chameleon
    Tarp
    HG DCF
    Insulation
    HG premium down
    Posts
    461
    Images
    9
    Awesome caves!! Very cool. I am diggin your ground set up too!! The air pad failing over night sucks for sure. Thankfully you had the 1/8 ccf pad also. Do you use a bivy under that tarp? It definitely helps with the wind and also will add some slight degree of heat/warmth for you.

  6. #6
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Deep In The Heart of...
    Hammock
    SLD Trail Lair, Chameleon
    Tarp
    HG, Zpacks, DIY
    Insulation
    Loco Libre, HG
    Suspension
    MyersTech
    Posts
    1,051
    Images
    148
    Quote Originally Posted by Dirtbaghiker View Post
    Awesome caves!! Very cool. I am diggin your ground set up too!! The air pad failing over night sucks for sure. Thankfully you had the 1/8 ccf pad also. Do you use a bivy under that tarp? It definitely helps with the wind and also will add some slight degree of heat/warmth for you.
    Thanks Dirtbag... in all my years of tarp camping, I've never tried the bivy. Before this trip, I hadn't used a tarp in about 10 years since going full time to the hammock. My setup that night was a Tyvek ground sheet, GG 1/4" CCF pad, Thermarest Neoair XLite ground pad (women's version; higher R value than the men's XLite), HG 950 fill 20 deg. Burrow & Hilleberg Tarp 5. I thought about taking my Six Moons Lunar Solo but wanted something lighter since carrying water adds so much weight to the pack.

    I had the tarp pitched kinda low to minimize as much of the wind coming through the sides as I could. My Burrow has little D rings that I used with my DIY ground pad attachment kit to keep everything snug & that worked pretty well... until the XLite failed! $180 waste of money but REI took it back with no issues. I've got a bunch of video from this trip but editing is not one of my favorite things to do. One of these days I'll get to it.
    Last edited by ObdewlaX; 11-21-2021 at 18:25.

  7. #7
    Senior Member cmoulder's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Location
    Ossining, NY
    Hammock
    DH Darien, SLD Tree Runner
    Tarp
    HG hex
    Insulation
    Timmermade, Revolt
    Suspension
    Kevlar, Lapp Hitch
    Posts
    4,912
    Images
    356
    On my recent hike with Dirtbag I was all set to GtG but just couldn't bear the thought and switched back to the hammock setup. When you just know there's an abundance of great hanging opportunities it's hard to pull the trigger. But I need to get out and force myself to do it before some wild chance comes along for a trip where the hammock is not a good choice.
    Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter (not me... the great Cam Honan of OZ)
    “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” ~ Gen. George S Patton

  8. #8
    PopcornFool's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2019
    Location
    Virginia
    Hammock
    DIY 1.7 MTN XL GE
    Tarp
    DIY .9 Silpoly Hex
    Insulation
    Various Quilts
    Suspension
    Straps (J-Bend)
    Posts
    446
    Images
    7
    Somehow I missed this thread when it you first posted. Glad Dirtbag resurrected it.
    I lived in El Paso in the late 70's/early 80's and enjoyed many a memorable trip to GMNP not many years after it first opened to the public.
    My other stomping ground was the Lincoln Forest a bit farther up in New Mexico.

    It's been 40 years since I've had the chance to play out there, so thanks for the vicarious backpacking trip (and my own trip down memory lane)!
    ~ All I want is affordable, simple, ultralight luxury. That’s not asking too much is it?

  9. #9
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Deep In The Heart of...
    Hammock
    SLD Trail Lair, Chameleon
    Tarp
    HG, Zpacks, DIY
    Insulation
    Loco Libre, HG
    Suspension
    MyersTech
    Posts
    1,051
    Images
    148
    Quote Originally Posted by PopcornFool View Post
    Somehow I missed this thread when it you first posted. Glad Dirtbag resurrected it.
    I lived in El Paso in the late 70's/early 80's and enjoyed many a memorable trip to GMNP not many years after it first opened to the public.
    My other stomping ground was the Lincoln Forest a bit farther up in New Mexico.

    It's been 40 years since I've had the chance to play out there, so thanks for the vicarious backpacking trip (and my own trip down memory lane)!
    Thanks PopcornFool & you're welcome. Did you ever make it to Big Bend while you were out here? That's another awesome destination in TX and one of my favs for backpacking and riding the motorcycle... but only from October to about mid-April! 🥵 ​Too hot any other time!

    As for New Mexico, I've done trips in the Gila & Aldo Leopold Wilderness Areas but have not been to the Lincoln Nat'l Forest. I'll have to add that to my list. My son & I did 4 days/3 nights in the Pecos Wilderness in September last year & that was pretty cool. I should throw together a trip report about that adventure one of these days. Hmmm...
    Last edited by ObdewlaX; 11-19-2021 at 20:41.

  10. #10
    PopcornFool's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2019
    Location
    Virginia
    Hammock
    DIY 1.7 MTN XL GE
    Tarp
    DIY .9 Silpoly Hex
    Insulation
    Various Quilts
    Suspension
    Straps (J-Bend)
    Posts
    446
    Images
    7
    Never made it to Big Bend. That's always been on my wish list.

    If you head to Lincoln NF, make sure you take the road that runs from Alamagordo to Cloudcroft. On the way up the mountain, you go through a tunnel carved through a mountainside. During certain times of the year, everything is all brown on the Alamagordo side as you climb up from the desert floor, then you go through this short little tunnel only a few dozen feet long and you come out into an explosion of green on the Cloudcroft side. I always felt like I was entering a different world, like one of those journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-type movies. I always expected to see Pterodactyls flying above me or something.

    There are a few excellent trails near Cloudcroft as I recall, but the best backpacking is farther north ... north of Ruidoso ... I think it's called White Mountain. Of course, it's been a long time ago. I have no idea how things might have changed.
    ~ All I want is affordable, simple, ultralight luxury. That’s not asking too much is it?

  • + New Posts
  • Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

    Similar Threads

    1. Guadalupe Mountains National Park - 4 Day Trip VIDEOS
      By wrangler88 in forum Trip Reports
      Replies: 5
      Last Post: 03-06-2017, 11:21
    2. Replies: 23
      Last Post: 04-11-2016, 22:17
    3. VIDEO - Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Part 1
      By wrangler88 in forum Trip Reports
      Replies: 18
      Last Post: 12-21-2015, 17:09
    4. Replies: 3
      Last Post: 10-04-2014, 22:49
    5. Guadalupe Mountains National Park
      By Texas-grrl in forum Southwest
      Replies: 4
      Last Post: 07-05-2013, 14:21

    Bookmarks

    Posting Permissions

    • You may not post new threads
    • You may not post replies
    • You may not post attachments
    • You may not edit your posts
    •