We woke up early-ish to get on back on the road and head to Guadalupe Mountains National Park; just an easy 3 hour drive away from White Sands. Our plan was to arrive early enough so we could do some hiking and exploring before heading to our next spot for the night. But we all know that life doesn’t go as planned, so instead of hitting the road at 8:30am, we hit up Urgent Care in beautiful Alamagordo, New Mexico.
Yup, an early morning playground injury that required stitches. Who knew those accident-inducing playground merry-go-rounds still existed? Is there anyone out there who has not experienced some type of major or minor injury from one of those wheels of “fun”? Anyway, Trent was a trooper (as always), got his lip stitched up and was ready to go. Nothing slows that boy down! The Urgent Care endeavor took a while (all the COVID patients were being treated before the boy with a blood-gushing lip, but I digress), however we were on the road by about 11:30am and on our way to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Once we arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the Park Ranger had the gate closed to the Visitor Center parking lot. Unfortunately, the lot was full and we couldn’t go in. After chatting with her for a little while, she asked us where we were staying that night. Since I wasn’t able to get a reservation inside the Park (RV spots are very limited), we had planned on staying at the closest RV park, an hour away. She was so sweet and told us that there had been several people illegally camping and they had just gotten kicked out, so there was an RV spot available that we could have. This felt like hitting the jackpot! She gave us directions to the space and we were all set; we parked for the night and didn’t have to drive an hour back and forth! By the time we were all set up, it was late afternoon, so we walked to the Visitor Center, got our stamp, badges, and Junior Ranger booklets and headed back up to the RV to hang out and let the boys play.
We knew we wanted to hike Guadalupe Peak Trail, so we got up the next morning with the goal of getting on the trail at 9am. Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas, with an elevation of 8,751 feet above sea level. It’s a 8.4 mile trail with an elevation gain of 3,000 ft. It’s rated as “hard” and “strenuous” and we would agree. It was definitely the most difficult hike the boys had ever done, but they killed it!
We started around 9am and climbed and climbed and climbed up and up and up. There are definitely zero flat spots on this trail! We kept looking back down at the RV as it got smaller and smaller as we gained elevation very quickly. The trail was well marked and the majority of it felt very safe. There were a couple of spots that were scary on the way up, and near the top, there were spots that were even scarier. It would have felt fine for just Brian and me, but when you have your kiddos with you, you notice every single place that looks even slightly dangerous.
Here are just a whole bunch of pics from the journey:
I was obviously the photographer on the way up! Now, to be totally transparent, this hike was not all rainbows and unicorns. One child decided that his legs didn’t work anymore when we were about 10 minutes from the top of the mountain. It took about 15 minutes of bribing and stuffing him with snacks to get him going again. But he did continue, and he made it to the top with us. Just like all of us, sometimes kids hit the wall too and just need some motivation (snacks!) to keep going.
Once we got to the top, we relaxed, took some pictures, and had more snacks. The monument at the top was put there by American Airlines to honor the Butterfield Overland Mail trail, a route used in stagecoach travel 100 years ago. The monument has three sides – one with the American Airlines logo, one with the Boy Scouts logo, and one paying tribute to the Pony Express Riders of the Butterfield Stage by the U.S. Postal Service.
There was also a guest book to sign, which Trent promptly and happily took care of for our family. It was very chilly and very windy at the peak!
The decent was just as difficult as the ascent, but we powered through. I think the hike took us about 7 hours total, including the time we spent at the top and our picture and water breaks on the way up.
Can you spot the parking lot in the picture above? We were about 2/3 of the way down at this point.
We couldn’t be more proud of our little hikers! 8.4 miles roundtrip with 3,000 feet of pure uphill climbing is no joke. Those two impress us everyday with their determination and persistence!
Since we were dry camping (aka boondocking) at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, meaning there were no hookups available – electric, water, sewer – I wanted to move on and start heading to our next destination. Our generator was not working properly and we actually were unable to have coffee the morning of this hike… I started out a little cranky, LOL. Needless to say, I was able to convince Brian that we needed to stay somewhere else that night so we could have “all the comforts of home”. We drove about an hour to “quaint” little Van Horn, Texas on the way to our next destination, Big Bend National Park. The weather started changing and it got REALLY cold that night, but luckily, we had heat, electricity, water, and most importantly, coffee the next morning.
We realized that we had forgotten to get a good picture of Guadalupe Peak from below, but we didn’t feel like pulling over and getting out, so here it is in the rearview mirror! It takes a great mind to figure out how to be that lazy… errrrrr, I mean efficient!
