Why Climb Guadalupe Peak?
Because it’s there! Sam Martin made it to the top of Texas.
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Along the way I pass a few hikers headed down from a day trip to the summit. Some are older while some are schoolchildren. Everyone offers a tidbit about the top or the trail, “almost there,” or “it’s great once you’re there,” or “got a ways to go.” It reminds me of hiking in the Nepal Himalayas where the only reliable source of information comes from the locals you meet on the trail. More often than not you could find out if there was snow at the higher elevations, how the trail conditions were and how much longer it was to the next stop. On Guadalupe Peak the only consistent warning is “it’s windy.” And justifiably so. The winds here are infamous for their sheer power. Speeds of up to 120 miles an hour have been reported and according to our guidebook, once the trailer used as the ranger station in McKittrick Canyon was blown across the canyon floor “like a tumbleweed.”
For the most part, the winds in the park are the strongest in the spring and at the higher elevations, so we’ve planned for the worst by packing extra guy lines to tie the tents down. The hurricane-force gales are part of what make this place so remote. Before 1972 when the land in the park was privately owned, most of it was relatively untouched by public feet. Even today the park has few permanent structures and no development in the backcountry with the exception of the hiking trails. Basically, the park hasn’t changed at all since the Mescalero Apaches used these mountains as a stronghold over a hundred years ago. Once you’re there you can see why.
Soon the trail becomes a series of switchbacks, winding through alpine forest where Douglas fir and gray oak tower into the sky. Golden eagles circle on the rising warm air overhead and at some spots the path narrows to about two feet wide with sheer cliffs falling away from the trail. Here, the views become more and more spectacular with sweeping vistas of the desert to the south and the mountain’s rolling brown hills trailing off like a series of shaved scalps. After about three-and-a-half hours we arrive huffing and puffing at the campsite and pitch our tents on a clear and level spot next to a limestone outcrop.
That night no one slept. Instead we lay in our sleeping bags listening to the wind lash at the tent flys. At first it sounded like a distant truck on some highway, roaring closer and closer until we could actually hear the swirling motion of the burst circling the campsite. Violent gales shook the tent, lifting up the corners near our bedrolls as easily as newspaper. Alternately, small ripples tapped on the ceiling like children’s fingers. My thoughts were restless too. The way I see it climbing up Guadalupe Peak is a lot like climbing through life. We have to make plans to get to the top of anything. We have to prepare ourselves and set goals. But on the mountain the climber lives a simple existence while undertaking a simple journey. Here we will feed ourselves, shelter ourselves and stay out of danger.
At about three in the morning I finally managed to accept my untimely demise at the hands of nature and succumbed to sleep, convinced I would awake in a freefall down the side of Guadalupe Peak. Climbing mountains is the most basic activity we can do, but is it also just plain stupid?
Getting High: Reaching the Summit
By the next morning the winds had died down and everything was miraculously still in place. There’s nothing quite like waking up and brushing your teeth at 7,300 feet above sea level after sleeping through a night’s worth of tornadoes. When the first thing you see is a one-hundred-mile view over the Chihuahuan Desert with the rising sun streaking colors on the horizon you know it’s going to be a good day. Plus, after the burdened hike it took to get to the campsite, the forty-five-minute walk to the summit with a carefully planned lunch of toast points, smoked salmon, and a fine bottle of Italian Pinot Gris might be just the poetry we were looking for.
From the campsite to the peak the trail winds through arid scrub brush and alpine forest where fresh mule deer prints dot the paths up and down the mountainside. Overhead the eagles circle around and around, as they did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before any hiker ever touched this ground. The only sound is the steady, cold wind above us. Pushing on, I can smell my ripe body and feel every ache, and I realize that out here, it is impossible not to exist in the moment.
As I climb the last steep series of switchbacks and a chilly wind threatens to upend my balance I find that I’m a little reluctant to reach the top of Texas. When you think about it, climbing mountains is a useless endeavor. Useless in the way art is useless or poetry is useless. Once there I will find what I’m looking for and lose my reason for being there at the exact same time.
At the top, the salt flats to the south look like distant glaciers in their whiteness and a metal pyramid commemorating the highest point in the state stands defiantly in the wind. Next to it sits a green army ammo box inside of which lies a notebook. There I scrawl a poem by Philippe Denis:
“To live in the way one breathes, to move on in front of one’s life—what we reach emerges from the day like the wind, blinds our breath.”
Looking up to the faded blue horizon I can see for the first time beyond my suddenly small Lone Star State—all the way to New Mexico and through the wilderness to the north.
I am here, because it’s there.
Read Show Your Colors
The Secret of the State’s Undiscovered National Park. Texas Monthly, October 1993
More information on Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park—Official Website
The National Park Service: The Guadalupe Mountains
National Park Foundation: Guadalupe Mountains National Park
L.L Bean’s Park Search: Guadalupe Mountains
Great Outdoor Recreation Pages: Guadalupe Mountains Information
Hiking the Caves and Canyons of the Guadalupe Mountains
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