Guadalupe Mountains & Carlsbad Caverns National Parks

After a week in Big Bend National Park, we wanted to make one more stop in Texas at Guadalupe Mountains National Park (which we had not heard of before) and squeak in a quick visit to Carlsbad Caverns National Park just over the New Mexico border before foul weather threatened the bulk of the U.S.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

We visited Carlsbad Caverns first as we are always tracking the weather and it seemed like the temps in the Guadalupe Mountains would be better a day later. The cave stays at an even 56°F and that sounded reasonable to us. Carlsbad Caverns is only about 35 minutes north of Guadalupe Mountains National Park so we stayed in Guadalupe’s Pine Springs campground that night.
We elected to take the walk down the “natural entrance” instead of riding the elevator 79 stories under the earths surface to view the Big Room and skip everything in between.
Let me tell you, it does not register how far DOWN that is until you are walking it in semi darkness for what seems like forever. It was worth it though, there were so many interesting formations on the steep walk down.

We continually marveled at the feat of engineering that was the paved path complete with metal handrail that leads from the surface to the Big Room. Can you imagine paving a path and sinking handrails into solid rock not only for 1.25 miles in length, but also 79 stories down into the earth?
The elevator, which can be accessed from the visitor center, goes directly down to the Big Room so if the steep decline of the natural entrance is not in the cards, don’t fret, you can still see this amazing cavern!
Once in the Big Room, the path continues for another 1.2 miles and meanders through loads of cave formations and is even wheelchair accessible for most of the path.

After traipsing around in this marvelous cavern for a few hours, we took the elevator back out (was not feeling that uphill-the-whole-way walk after our recent overnight backpacking trip in Big Bend) and grabbed our customary souvenir, a sticker for our “garage” area in the van.

Other things to do at Carlsbad Caverns

There are some additional surface trails in the park, but they are short ones and the cavern itself is clearly the star of the show with the bats being the runner up. Yes you read that right, bats. For all you animal/science (Jo) or Batman (Eric) nerds out there, the following is for you.

Starting in April and continuing until October there is a mass exodus each evening of the Brazilian free tailed bats that reside in the cavern. They fly out of the natural entrance where there is amphitheater seating and a free, ranger led program detailing these fascinating creatures.
Peak bat exodus is August to September when the newest batch of baby bats are also leaving each evening to find tasty insect snacks. The timing for the bat flight program changes throughout the summer as it is based on sunset time. We may be making a return trip to see their marvelous flight as we sadly missed it on our visit in January.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

This is a park that I personally had not heard of before. As mentioned, there were a few days left before the crazy winter storm would sweep through so we decided to check it out on our way out of Texas.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a place for hikers. We even witnessed someone ask a ranger “what do we do here?” and the ranger’s response “We have hiking. I’m not being ironic. That’s what you do here, hike.” There is no scenic drive like in Bryce Canyon or 4×4 roads to ride a bike like in Big Bend. There is no elevator that takes you to the “top of Texas”, this is definitely a self propelled journey type of park. Luckily we enjoy type “A” mayhem as we like to call it, so long-steep hikes or bikes are not an issue (*steep bike climbs still rattle me a bit but I am working on it).

We stopped into the visitor center JUST in the knick of time, Guadalupe Mountains operates on Mountain time and Carlsbad Caverns is on Central time even though they are only a short drive apart.
Boy howdy was that confusing after coming from Big Bend where our phones kept switching time zones due to the proximity to the Mexican border even within the park boundaries, and then they DIDN’T change when we went from Carlsbad to Guadalupe.
We kept joking that it was “time for something in whatever wormhole we were in currently”. It did give us a nice excuse to eat dinner or go to bed whenever we felt like it though because it was probably time for one of those things in some time zone we were teetering on the edge of.

Hiking

After checking in with a park ranger we decided we wanted to hike McKittrick Canyon and Guadalupe Peak, aka the top of Texas while we were in the park. We “camped” in the park but the camping at Guadalupe is basically numbered parking spaces off to the side of the trailhead parking. There is no camping in your vehicle overnight in the designated trail parking spots though. It was strange, but no matter, we were there, we booked a spot on rec.gov and there were flush toilets available so, perfection.

McKittrick Canyon trail is the “ranger favorite” so we were told and is great because you can make it as long or as short as you would like. We made it a 10.5 mile out and back stopping at Pratt Cabin shown above, then on to “The Notch” and included a side quest to “The Grotto” on the way back.

The trail can be taken even further and turned into an overnight trip for a total of 15.2 miles if you so desire but with overnight temps predicted below freezing we decided to stay in the van. The trek from McKittrick Canyon trailhead to The Notch and back was relatively tame except for the last mile where we gained over 1,000′ of elevation to crest the ridge.

The next day we tackled the hike to the “Top of Texas”. We had been watching the mountainside the last couple nights and kept seeing bobbing headlamps coming down in frigid temps after dark. I did not want to be one of those headlamps so we headed out early to tackle the 3,000′ of elevation gain on an 8.7 mile round trip hike and quickly shed layers on the way up. We were certainly glad to have them on the way down though as it was very windy and a lot colder as we stopped exerting as much effort.

This was one of the coolest markers we have come across on our hikes. I feel bad for whoever had to haul that metal pyramid up there, hopefully they had help from a pack animal of some sort. The peak is the highest point in Texas sitting at 8,751′ and you can see for miles.

I especially loved the rock formation that looked something like the state of Michigan and was covered in lovely greenery. After a quick snack which we fully earned on this climb, we headed back down to ensure we were not navigating the steep, rocky switchbacks in the dark.

We were very glad to have visited this park before we left the state, it is a hidden gem for sure. On our hike up to Guadalupe Peak we could see countless other hiking trails that we have yet to explore making this another park that will likely require a return trip someday. So much to see and do, we’ve just got to keep exploring. Keep following along with us to see what we get into next!