Show Your Colors
The best place to see fall foliage in Texas is the Guadalupe Mountains where the change of seasons appears in full splendor. Here are the secrets of the state’s undiscovered national park.
(Page 2 of 2)
If the McKittrick Canyon parking lot is full, the hike to Smith Spring is an easy alternative, a practically effortless 2.3-mile round trip through the foothills from the Frijole Ranch parking area. At the end of the trail is an oasis where maples, madrones, oaks, and ashes crowd around a babbling brook decorated with maidenhair ferns. Smith Spring has a long history as a resting spot for migrating Indian tribes, a refuge for covered-wagon expeditions and ranchers, and a medicinal spa. Today it is simply a great place to sit on a wooden bench, listen to the steady trickle of water and the songbirds enjoying a drink, and blot out the world beyond the canopy of trees. On a day when several hundred people were hiking all over McKittrick, I didn’t see another person in two hours at Smith Spring.
The trail to Guadalupe Peak is the most difficult of the popular hikes. The first half of the 9.3-mile round trip, an almost three-thousand-foot vertical climb, taxed me to the point that the summit seemed to be getting farther and farther away the longer I hiked. Just short of three hours on the trail, though, I was rewarded at the summit with a stunning panorama. To the south were the forested backside of El Capitan and, beyond it, the softly eroding Delaware range; to the northwest sprawled Bush, Shumard, and Bartlett peaks and the Sacramento range in New Mexico; and far below, to the immediate west, the barren salt flats where a violent feud flared up in the 1870’s sharply contrasted with the geometrically perfect irrigated fields in the Valley of the Hidden Waters, as the area surrounding Dell City is known.
Standing atop Guadalupe Peak was a heady sensation (have you ever looked down on a full rainbow?) made headier by dive-bombing swifts audibly zooming past, a panhandling squirrel, and the climbers’ logbook, stored in a strongbox. Summiteers from five to seventy had written rather eloquently about feeling closer to God and about how a rattlesnake sighting on the trail delayed their ascent. Several voiced objections to the squat aluminum pylon at the summit honoring people who carry the mail. It is emblazoned with the logos of the U.S. Postal Service and American Airlines. “Blowing up this ugly sculpture,” one climber wrote in the logbook, “would be something special in the air.”
What grabbed my attention most, though, was a small piece of rock I had absentmindedly picked up. It was a piece of calcium carbonate—limestone—embedded with the fossils of hundreds of tiny clamshells, proof that once upon a time the highest landmass in Texas was submerged beneath the sea. The Guadalupes surprise you like that.
In a place where time is measured in epochs and ages, last May’s fire around Pine Springs is but a momentary disruption. For now, however, it has caused some problems. The result of a careless camper’s playing with matches, the blaze charred more than six thousand acres. The bad news is that the burn was more severe than initial reports indicated. It destroyed stands of endangered madrones, which aren’t reproducing like they used to, and wiped out some already shrinking environments, such as the tiny oasis at Juniper Springs. From a distance, the visual impact is largely limited to an abundance of dead yuccas, the blackened stems of junipers, and hundreds of partially burned trees. The good news is that the fire cleared out a lot of dead brush and encouraged the growth of a thick carpet of grass that has been greened up by the summer rainy season. In late August, the grasslands around Pine Springs had an exceptionally verdant, almost lush look. It ought to be a grand fall.
When to Go: October and early November for fall colors; any time for a wilderness experience. Highs in October average in the seventies, with lows in the forties and fifties.
Getting There: The Guadalupe Mountains National Park headquarters and main campground are located at Pine Springs, 102 miles east of El Paso International Airport via U.S. 62-180 and more than 60 miles north of Van Horn via Texas Highway 54. I prefer approaching the park from El Paso for the views of El Capitan thrusting out like the bow of a clipper ship, though the drive from Van Horn to the south, staring El Cap straight in the face, is almost as stirring. From the east, the route follows Interstate 20 to Pecos, U.S. 285, and desolate FM 652. To reach Dog Canyon, the site of the park’s other campground, go north from Pine Springs via U.S. 62-180 past White’s City, New Mexico, turn left onto Eddy County Road 408 (a decent two-lane paved road not found on state highway maps), and then turn left again on New Mexico 137. Total distance: 102 miles. Dog Canyon can also be reached from the west by taking FM 1437 from U.S. 62-180, 29 miles west of Pine Springs. Go 13 miles into Dell City, which has a gas station and a grocery store, then continue in a zigzag pattern east on FM 2249, north on FM 1576, and on Otero County Road 65 in New Mexico for 61 miles, following the handmade signs to El Paso Gap. About 35 miles of this route is unpaved gravel, which means it is not recommended for RVs.
Services: The closest sources for gas and snacks are at the Dell City turnoffs on U.S. 62-180, 23 and 29 miles west of Pine Springs, and White’s City, 35 miles northeast of Pine Springs.
Where to Camp: The main campground at Pine Springs has twenty tent campsites and eighteen spaces for self-contained RVs (no hookups), available on a first-come, first-served basis. Two group sites are available for groups of ten to twenty. The Dog Canyon campground on the north side of the park has nine sites and four spaces for self-contained RVs. Fees are $7 per night per campsite and up to $30 for the group sites, depending on the number of campers. Wood and charcoal fires are not allowed. Backcountry camping is at designated sites only. There is no charge for these sites, but permits, obtained from rangers, are required. For general information and updates of road and weather conditions, call park headquarters at 915-828-3251. For questions regarding Dog Canyon, call the ranger station at 505-981-2418. Both Pine Springs and Dog Canyon have rest rooms, water, parking lots, and day-use picnic areas.
Where to Stay: The nearest motels are in White’s City. This gateway to Carlsbad Caverns has two Best Westerns and the Walnut Canyon Inn, with doubles priced from $69 to $75 a night, as well as RV facilities with hookups. For all reservations, call 505-785-2291.
What to Do: Hike. Or ride horseback. Many hiking trails are also open to horseback riders (BYOH), with hitching posts provided at campgrounds, backcountry campsites, and even the summit of Guadalupe Peak. Pets, however, are not allowed on the trails. Take one gallon of water per hiker per day on the trail. In addition to the hikes already mentioned to McKittrick Canyon, Smith Spring, and Guadalupe Peak, options include:
• The Bowl, a strenuous 11-mile trek rising two thousand feet from Pine Springs to a mile-wide high-country bowl. Up top you will encounter a rare stand of quaking aspen.
• Devil’s Hall, a level 4.2-mile round trip from Pine Springs to a stark, tight canyon distinguished by rather eerie stratified rock formations sculptured by wind and water.
• The Tejas Trail (northbound), a 12-mile hike from Pine Springs through the Bowl to Dog Canyon. Or you can turn off to scale Bush Mountain, the second-highest peak in Texas, or enter McKittrick Canyon through the back door.
• The Tejas Trail (southbound). From Dog Canyon, it is less than 1 mile to the big-tooth maples that display fall colors.
• Indian Meadows Nature Trail, a .6-mile stroll at Dog Canyon. I stumbled upon two bull elk with massive racks of antlers rooting around a dry water tank.
Alternatives to Hiking: You don’t have to hoof it to get acquainted with the Guadalupes. Several sights around Pine Springs require little, if any, walking. The visitors’ center has an extensive exhibit about the history and geology of the park with an adjacent interpretative nature trail. Evening ranger talks are scheduled irregularly in the fall at the amphitheater next to the Pine Springs campground. Schedules are posted at the visitors’ center.
Frijole Ranch, a shady compound a mile northeast of Pine Springs, has a museum with ranching artifacts that is staffed by volunteers and open in the fall on an irregular basis. A seven-mile dirt road that skitters around the base of El Capitan to Williams Ranch in the western extreme of the park is open to four-wheel-drive vehicles. Keys to the ranch gate can be picked up at the Pine Springs visitors’ center.
The route to Dog Canyon along New Mexico State Road 137 detours around the perimeter of Guadalupe park. Rim Road (Forest Road 540, which diverges from N.M. 137 some fifteen miles east of the Dog Canyon campground) provides the automotive equivalent of hiking Guadalupe Peak. The gravel road meanders up the far lusher back slopes of the Guadalupe range along a harrowing, acrophobia-inducing precipice above El Paso Gap until it reaches Five Points Vista, with breathtaking views of upper Dog Canyon and the appropriately named Brokeoff Mountains. The Brokeoffs are the first in a series of fault lines that extend all the way to California. In other words, this is where the West begins.
Pages: 1 2
My Library
