How to Turn a Simple Dayhike Into A 2-Day Expedition
Panorama of Guadalupe Mountain Range. Note the looming clouds. |
After a foiled trip to Mexico (my fault for not having my paperwork ready), my brother and I decided to head to GMNP. We're from the Houston area, so it's a pretty long haul. We headed for Austin first to check out some blues music on Sixth Street, then left the next day. It's probably only about a seven hour drive from Austin, but we ran into trouble when we discovered that Hwy 652 between Orla and the park has been shut down and turned over to private landowners. According to locals it's been that way for 8 years now. Someone should update the maps! At then end of the day, we spent nine hours on the road.
We camped at GMNP overnight and woke up the next day to lightening in the sky off to the south. After spending so much time on the road, we were determined to make the hike anyway. We got up to about the 2nd or 3rd switchback and it started pouring down rain and the lightening was much closer. We found cover under one of the small trees next to the trail, donned our ponchos and decided to wait out the storm. Alas, it just got worse and we finally decided to postpone the hike until the next day. We spent the night in White's City, NM in a hotel room that had leaky ceilings. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.Summiting the Top of TexasWe got up the next day and drove back to GPNP after breakfast. The weather was great and we got some spectacular views. We summited in about 4 hours. There was a camera crew up there getting some High Definition film footage of the mountain. It was kinda weird, but they were friendly. We hung out, signed the register and then head down to find a place to bushwack over to El Cap.  El Capitan from the summit of GP! Bushwack to El Capitan  My brother peeking over the edge! Images
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Guadalupe Mountains National Park
