Guadalupe Mountains National Park, a great place hike

With the purchase of our National Parks pass we always try to see the parks that are along the way to our final destination and they never disappoint. In fact, Guadalope National Park should be on everyone's short list, especially if you like to hike a diverse mountain region. This area was spared the fires but it still was hard hit by the droughts in the South West. We were lucky to travel on two of the ranger guided hikes and thrilled with the level of knowledge of both rangers. Michael was our guide for the McKittrick Canyon hike that took 4 hours and had stops at Pratts Cabin, the Grotto and Hunter Line Cabin. He was a wealth of information on the geological finds in the region formed 260 million years ago and the more resent history of the farms and inhabitants along the wash.
One would never guess looking at the bluffs that they were formed by an ancient tropical ocean which covered Texas and New Mexico. We all enjoyed the fossils embedded in the lime-stone rocks along the journey. We also witnessed the traces of a cougar kill that happened that morning. The big cat drug the mule deer kill almost 1/2 mile along the trail near the visitor center and up into the bluffs. Just a short distance further down the trail we found the Cat scat that told us this big cat was here a short time before we were.
The small group of 6 had a wonderful time and we became friends quickly. Best of all, the canyon was in full fall color and the day was perfect for hiking, warm, but not so hot that you would get winded.
The following day we walked to Devil’s Hall with Ranger Michel. She was a wonderful hiking master with excellent knowledge of the terrain, plants and natural history. This was a windy day and not as sunny but still a good day for hiking. Hell, lets face it, any day you can get out and walk for 4 hours is a good day! Blue missed us but we enjoy these beautiful days outside as much as we can. I guess we are still living the impending doom that we would experience back home in MN. We’ll get over it shortly.

On our last day we hiked the Tejas trail that took us high on the mountain to the south of the campground. As we climbed a Mule deer watched us. The ranger that we passed on the way down said that he saw she was watching us and on the other side there were 4 more watching him. After the previous days kill, I can understand why they keep tabs on movement in their territory. It was a great trail and the views from the top were spectacular!