This was a great early Spring climb. Aubry Karr, Pat Speight & I left at 1:00 A.M. from the main campground (5,100') and headed up the mountain with an almost full moon. Hit snow at around 7,500' but not enough to cause any problems. Temperature was about 40 degrees with 5 mile per hour wind at the campground when we started, but fell to 30 degrees with a 30 mile per hour wind when we summitted (8,741') at 5:00 A.M.
Sunrise was beautiful from the summit but I wish I had gotten lithium batteries for our digital cameras because all 3 of them stopped working and showed low batteries after a few minutes on the summit. After we got out of the wind they started working again.
This whole area (Guadalupe National Park) was a surprise to us. We had hiked many of the trails in Big Bend national Park but skipped Guadalupe National Park. We only went to climb Guadalupe Peak since it was the highest in Texas.
Guadalupe National Park has great high alpine trails (over 6,000') with alot of trees. Water is a problem just like it is in Big Bend since the area is in a drought but that just means a little more planning.
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Guadalupe Mountains National Park
