Our journey to reach the highest point of each state in the contiguous US brought me and my dad to the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas.
After checking out the fascinating city of El Paso, Texas my dad and I drove out on Highway 62 to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in just under 2 hours. We were visiting in winter but were still surprised to see a bit of snow on the ground at Pine Springs Campground – our home for the night.
The night was clear and cold, and we got up once the sun began to warm our tent. Our drive from El Paso the previous night had been in the dark, so we were now able to see our surroundings. I was impressed with the scale and ruggedness of the mountains, and it was fascinating to see snow on cacti.
Our hike began at the Pine Springs trailhead on the Guadalupe Peak trail. There was snow in the parking lot, so almost the entire route had an inch or two of snow on it – with more present in some of the shaded northern aspects. We had brought microspikes with us just in case and they came in handy. I’m guessing there isn’t too much of the year when microspikes are needed in this part of the world!
With our traction helping us, we steadily switchbacked up, gaining increasingly good views out to the vast Texas landscape. The Guadalupe Mountains rise dramatically out of the ground, providing an impressive contrast with their much flatter surroundings.
Eventually, we came to a small pass and began the final switch-backing ascent up to the highest point in Texas at 8717’. We had made the 4-mile one-way trip in about an hour and 45 minutes from Pine Springs. It was a beautiful day, and we could see for miles as we stood at the silver pyramidal marker at the summit. I especially liked the views down to El Capitan, the Guadalupe Mountains version of the famed granite wall in Yosemite. From the summit, we were able to stare down at it before it dropped away in dramatic cliffs to the ground below.
We eventually began our descent, arriving back at the trailhead in a fun but uneventful hour and a half. After our ascent and before heading back to El Paso, we made a stop at Carlsbad Caverns, across the border in New Mexico. The caverns are very well worth seeing and a very unique experience.
We also got to see Guadalupe and Peak and El Capitan lit up at sunset on our drive back through the area later that day, which was a very fitting end to a great day.
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