McKittrick Canyon - Guadalupe Mountains National Park

McKittrick Canyon is located in the northeast corner of Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. It is accessed via a 200-foot wide corridor of Guadalupe National Park property centered on a 4¼-mile paved road from US 62/180 to the visitor center parking lot. The paved parking lot has spaces for about four dozen automobiles, nine RVs or busses, and four handicap placarded vehicles. 

The visitor center is only staffed during peak seasons in the spring and fall. Our stop in September 2021 was a bit early for the fall colors. The visitor center has a ranger office/information desk and there are picnic tables nearby. The restrooms with flush toilets were open. There are several interpretive signs and a video interview of Wallace E. Pratt who in 1957 donated over 5,000 acres of land in McKittrick Canyon for the creation of the park. The park was authorized by Congress in 1966 but wasn't established until 1972 when most of the land and mineral rights had been purchased.

As this part of the park closed and the gates are locked at 4:30 PM, we didn't have time to hike during our short one afternoon visit to the park. However, this park of the park is unique and we wanted our daughter to have some idea of what was here for her next visit whenever that may be.

View from the 200-foot corridor (notice the fence posts) into New Mexico

McKittrick Canyon Visitor Center

View of McKittrick (7064') from the trail

View of McKittrick Canyon from the trail

Camp Wildernesss Ridge and McKittrick (7064')

Sun setting behind an unnamed peak

Lonesome Ridge in Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico

A last look at McKittrick Canyon

An entry fee of $10 per person is valid for seven consecutive days at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Fees may be paid with cash or card at the visitor center or they may be paid with cash at the trailhead by using the green envelopes provided. Other fee payment options include the America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands passes including the Annual Pass ($80), Senior Pass ($80 for a lifetime), Access Pass (free with a documented disability), and Military Annual Pass (free for active-duty personnel). A pass holder can bring up to three additional adults (age 16 or older) with no additional fee. Also available is a Guadalupe Mountains National Park Annual Park Pass for $35.

The Guadalupe Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm.

Manzanita Spring Trail - Guadalupe Mountains National Park

On our first visit to Guadalupe Mountains National Park back in May 2015, I hiked the entire 2½-mile Smith Spring Loop Trail and posted about it here. On this trip, we didn't have time for more than the short ¾-mile roundtrip stroll on the sidewalk from the Frijole Ranch parking area to Manzanita Spring.

According to the park service, the historic Frijole Ranch house is "the most complete remnant of early farming and ranching enterprises in the Guadalupe Mountains." The front rooms were built by the Rader brothers in the 1870s or 1880s. The Smith family moved here in 1906 and stayed until 1940. They added the kitchen, two bedrooms, and the second floor.

With the asphalt path washed out in a couple of places, I would not recommend this hike for visitors in manual wheelchairs. We tried to pack as much as we could into our afternoon visit to give our daughter a good overview of the park. We visited in September 2021.

Trailhead information and fee drop

Concrete sidewalk leads from the parking area to Frijole Ranch

Approaching the ranch near Nipple Hill (5682')

One of the ranch outbuildings

Frijole Ranch house

Frijole Spring - 6 gallons per minute

The first washout behind the ranch

Another outbuilding at the ranch

Looking southwest at Guadalupe Peak (8749')

Guadalupe Mountains and Frijole (8243')

One of several dry streambeds in the area

El Capitan (8085')

The second washout

More of the Guadalupe Mountains

Trailside interpretive sign and bench

Trans Pecos West Texas

Manzanita Spring

One more view of the mountains

An entry fee of $10 per person is valid for seven consecutive days at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Fees may be paid with cash or card at the visitor center or they may be paid with cash at the trailhead by using the green envelopes provided. Other fee payment options include the America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands passes including the Annual Pass ($80), Senior Pass ($80 for a lifetime), Access Pass (free with a documented disability), and Military Annual Pass (free for active-duty personnel). A pass holder can bring up to three additional adults (age 16 or older) with no additional fee. Also available is a Guadalupe Mountains National Park Annual Park Pass for $35.

The Guadalupe Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm.

Tejas Trail Sample - Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Since we only had one afternoon to spend at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, we chose to hike a short (~850 feet one-way) section of the Devil's Hall and Tejas Trails to get a better perspective of Pine Spring Canyon from the dry creekbed and a bit beyond. We started at the composite trailhead in Pine Spring Campground during our September 2021 visit. About 100 feet from the trailhead, we left the Devil's Hall trail and turned right onto the Tejas Trail. The trail passes through a mix of vegetation with trees,  cacti, shrubs, and grasses all intermixed. I would describe the short section we walked as easy to moderate, but don't be fooled by that as the trail climbs 2000 feet in the next 4 miles rating it as strenuous.

Trailhead

Typical trail surface

Tejas Trail intersection

Typical Tejas Trail surface

Another view of the trail

A ridge extending from Guadalupe Peak

Pine Spring Canyon

The flanks of Hunter Peak

An ephemeral stream has carved this bluff

Crossing Pine Spring creekbed 

Unusual rock formation

View upstream of Pine Springs Canyon

Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa)

View east toward the Great Plains

The ridge of Hunter Peak

An entry fee of $10 per person is valid for seven consecutive days at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Fees may be paid with cash or card at the visitor center or they may be paid with cash at the trailhead by using the green envelopes provided. Other fee payment options include the America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands passes including the Annual Pass ($80), Senior Pass ($80 for a lifetime), Access Pass (free with a documented disability), and Military Annual Pass (free for active-duty personnel). A pass holder can bring up to three additional adults (age 16 or older) with no additional fee. Also available is a Guadalupe Mountains National Park Annual Park Pass for $35.

The Guadalupe Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm.

Pine Springs Visitor Center - Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park was the fourth and final national park on our September 2021 trip to Texas and New Mexico. The park is southwest of Carlsbad Caverns National Park and across the border into Texas. The visitor centers are about 30 miles apart but plan on at least 45 minutes to drive from one parking lot to the other. 

The visitor center houses an information desk, a small bookstore, a camp store, a museum a theater, and restrooms. Due to coronavirus restrictions, occupancy was severely limited as were my photographic opportunities. A few more photographs are available in my previous post from April 2015. The theater was obviously not in operation, but the slide show on my previous visit wasn't up to the usual park service standards. 

Visitor Center

A side of the museum

Another side of the museum

Pine Springs Canyon

Hunter Peak

A ridge of Guadalupe Peak

El Capitan and a glimpse of Guadalupe Peak

An entry fee of $10 per person is valid for seven consecutive days at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Fees may be paid with cash or card at the visitor center or they may be paid with cash at the trailhead by using the green envelopes provided. Other fee payment options include the America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands passes including the Annual Pass ($80), Senior Pass ($80 for a lifetime), Access Pass (free with a documented disability), and Military Annual Pass (free for active-duty personnel). A pass holder can bring up to three additional adults (age 16 or older) with no additional fee. Also available is a Guadalupe Mountains National Park Annual Park Pass for $35.

The Guadalupe Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm.