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Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Texas-sized views

By Scott Richardson

March 28^th, 2020

I made a goal to visit all of the US national parks to see new sights and experience things that take me outside of my comfort zone.

I had no plans for Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I’d barely even heard of it. Eight years before, my wife and I had visited Carlsbad Caverns just north of the park, but never bothered to look south to see what we might be missing.

Years later, I drove to Guadalupe still without any plans. I stocked up on food, hoped for a vacant campsite and planned to talk with the rangers to select a few hikes. The only things I knew of the park was that it has a mountainous terrain and quite a few bears and mountain lions.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Experience Guadalupe Mountains

Experience Guadalupe Mountains National Park just like we did. Explore the Guadalupe Mountains and its peak. Use your mouse or phone to rotate the frame, or use a VR headset to feel like you’re there.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a wilderness park far from everything. It takes a few hours to drive in from the nearest city, and there are no gas stations or restaurants within 50 miles of the park.

Driving in from El Paso, the landscape is a flat desert with the Guadalupe Mountains sitting on the horizon the entire way. Their craggy peaks are fairly low with their tallest at 8,751 feet.

The park has been preserved to protect the Permian fossil reef, leftover from an ancient inland sea that covered West Texas 250 millions years ago. The limestone was pushed up along a fault line to form the mountains which now contain four of Texas’ highest peaks.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Hiking the peak

The one thing I knew before arriving at the park was that its main attraction was hiking it’s namesake peak. I came in without any intention of hiking the peak. I didn’t feel prepared for it’s incline, but it loomed above me and I thought, “Why not try it.”

The 8.5 mile hike starts with an immediate ascent with switchbacks for the first 1.5 miles. The dusty, desert landscape turns into a shady pine forest.

The trail continues upwards with one false summit near its campground. After another mile, you make a final scramble onto the windy summit with a view of the surrounding mountains and desert.

The trail is rocky, and steep. It tests your patience as you climb towards the peak, and tests your endurance as you move your worn out feet all the way back down.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

BLM camping in New Mexico

My plan was to find a vacant campsite within the national park, but all of the sites were first-come-first-served and it was a holiday weekend. A ranger suggested some BLM land in New Mexico instead.

95% of Texas lands are privately owned, while 47% of New Mexico is public. That leaves a lot of land to be used for recreation and resource extraction.

I arrived at the campsite to find a large, dusty field that had been bulldozed flat. Mining trucks drove alongside it at all hours of the day and night, and flares from gas wells lit up the sky just past the campsite. However, it was free and pretty wild. Van-lifers, RVers, and rolling homes made out of converted buses filled the inside of the lot, which a few tent campers took up it’s perimeter.

As the sunset, the clouds glowed pink and purple and briefly cleared for a short glimpse into the galaxies above. As the cloud returned, the wind picked up and clocked in at a sustained 15-25 mph, whipping the tent and blowing dust over all of my gear each night I spent there.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Keeping it wild

Guadalupe can only be accessed by leaving your car and hopping on the trails.

Ranchers came to the area in the late-1800’s, and although most of them failed to make a profitable living in the harsh climate of West Texas, a few families managed to succeed. At Frijoles Ranch, a spring bubbles and a few ranch buildings are preserved to tell the area, and the park’s history.

A few local ranches, including Frijoles Ranch, were bought in the early 1940’s by a man named Judge J.C. Hunter whose goal was to preserve the land for al to enjoy. The land was eventually sold to form Guadalupe Mountains National Park with the promise that no road would ever be built through the park. The only way to experience it is to lace up your boots and climb into the mountains.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

© 2026 Scott Richardson

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