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.
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