Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Carlsbad Caverns

February 14, 2009

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is one of the lesser known national parks. It’s contiguous with the more famous Carlsbad Caverns National Park, both parks part of the Guadalupe Mountain Range. Guadalupe Mountains National Park is in Texas, Carlsbad Caverns is in New Mexico.

A mammoth prow called El Capitan looms over the highway coming north from I-10, but otherwise the Guadalupe Mountains look pretty much like any of the hundreds of mountain ranges comprising the Basin and Range Province: relatively narrow strips of mostly rounded and constant elevation peaks rising 2000-3000 feet above the dry desert floor.

But the Guadalupe Range is unique in that it is an exposure of an enormous fossil reef from the Permian Age, 250 million years ago, when all of the world's landmasses were connected around the equator in the supercontinent known as Pangea. The land that now comprises southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico was part of a shallow tropical bay where gazillions of little sponges and algae lived and died, building upon themselves to form a limestone reef. Buried for a couple of hundred million years, the reef was uplifted remarkably intact. Up close, it looks like - a reef! You expect to see fish swimming in and out of its cavities.

Due to its hydrocarbon potential and its proximity to the US oil industry, geologists have been all over this formation, first for oil exploration and then from far and wide to study this unique exposure. They have compiled the geological story in remarkable detail, which I am not up to reducing to a couple of sentences.

As national parks go, it is a very low-key affair. A good but modest visitor's center, some rest rooms, a diet-Coke machine. A campground with 20 tent sites - no fires allowed - and a small parking lot for anyone who wants to camp in a vehicle. No RV hookups.  Bathrooms, an amphitheater for summer, a Power Drink machine, and that's about it for the camping facilities. No stores or gas within 30 miles and you'd want to drive further if you can to avoid having to shop at what you'll find there.

The park's main attraction is hiking. A half dozen trails lead directly from the campground up into any and all portions of the mountain range, including a 3000' ascent to Guadalupe Peak, at 8749 feet the highest point in Texas. I did this hike, the first time I've ever been at the highest point of a state. Guadalupe Mountains are at the eastern boundary of the Basin and Range, so the view extends eastward over infinite flatland. Next bump: Arkansas.

"Ship prow" from above

Looking east from Guadalupe Peak

Looking down from Guadalupe Peak

Seven miles down the highway a road leads into another trailhead (and tiny visitors center never open when I was there) with trails into McKittrick Canyon, a canyon commonly referred to as "the most beautiful spot in Texas". McKittrick Creek flows year round, a rarity in these parts, and the canyon is filled with maple and oak trees, making it a blockbuster attraction in autumn colors. In leafless February its pleasures are more modest, except for the massive walls rising 2000' all around. These aren't at all modest.

McKittrick Canyon

McKittrick Canyon

Looming above McKittrick Canyon

The Permian Reef trail climbs four miles and 2000 feet up through a reef exposure so significant that geologists have compiled a guidebook to accompany it, available for loan or purchase at the Visitors Center. This is commonplace for short nature trails but is the first one I've seen produced for a trail of this magnitude. Regrettably, it is comprised of professional papers written in indecipherable jargon and I stopped using it early on. But a second book, created for "young adults", is also available, and it was quite informative and a lot of fun. The heart of the hike is finding fossils - brachiopods, crinoids, ammonoids: significant animals 250 million years ago. Without the book I doubt I would have found them at all. With it I had a great time. A superb hike to round out a fine week.

(This is the sort of book I thought the Mountaineers should have undertaken as a follow-up to their "100 Hikes" series, rather than the "50 Hikes with Great Cell Phone Reception" direction they seem to be going.)

At Carlsbad Caverns I reaffirmed what I had pretty much already concluded: I don't like caverns. Or rather my body doesn't. I think they're cool and this one was tremendous. I arrived early one weekday morning in their off-season and had huge swaths of the place to myself. I was working hard to repress my urge to chant ersatz Latin ("Domino Scobiscos"), and longed for a line of self-flagellating monks. So you can't say I wasn't having fun. But within an hour my stomach starting getting balky and something deep down inside of me began demanding I get out. Its hard to say I get claustrophobic in a cave large enough to absorb several White Houses, but I guess I just don't like dark enclosed spaces no matter how enormous.