Lost in Lajitas 
Climb Every Mountain
Or at least the seven ranges in Texas that you can most easily explore. From hikes in the Guadalupes and bike rides in the Chinatis to cattle driving in the Bofecillos and bobcat spotting in Hueco Tanks, here’s a guide to the best activities our highest heights have to offer. And remember: It’s always cooler at the top.
The southeast edge of the South Rim, in the Chisos Mountains.
Photograph by Laurence Parent
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West of the Pecos everything shifts. The landscape gives up any pretense of being nurturing or pleasant, and the creatures that survive amid these harsh rocks tend to be prickly and self-sufficient (though most of the humans, at least, can be kind and generous). Mountains slash across the desert like knife scars, but in fact they are the crumbling bones of the world, connected to the Rockies, the Ozarks, and Mexico’s Sierra Madre. Locals will tell you that “everybody out here turns to Jesus or alcohol eventually.” But I am continually drawn back to these wild heights, where nothing comes between you and whatever is in your soul.
Texas has more than forty mountain ranges, all of them located in our eight westernmost counties. But because more than 90 percent of land in the state is privately owned, the vast majority of them are enjoyed by only a select few. Just seven Texas ranges have easily accessible areas. Still, that leaves plenty of peaks for those of us who don’t own our own mountains. Over the years, I’ve developed a list of my favorite activities, tailored to the best one or two things to do in each range, whether it’s hiking, horseback riding, rock climbing, gliding, or cattle driving.
But whatever I do in them, Texas mountains have a way of clearing my mind. When James Boswell told Samuel Johnson that it was impossible to refute the doctrine of nonexistence of matter, the doctor famously responded by kicking a stone and pronouncing, “I refute it thus.” When life weighs too heavily, I find that removing myself to a distant mountaintop in West Texas allows me to look the absurdities of the world in the eye and say to them, “I refute you.” Out here the clock still runs a little slower and you can find some of that increasingly rare gift, time savored in the presence of natural splendor.
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