Guadalupe Mountains National Park

The Guadalupe Mountains rise out of the desert on the New Mexico line, and the park holds the four highest peaks in Texas. The tallest, Guadalupe Peak, stands 8,751 feet above sea level. A maintained trail climbs about 3,000 feet from Pine Springs to the summit, the park's most popular day hike, and a stainless steel pyramid on top was set there by American Airlines in 1958 to mark the centennial of the Butterfield Overland Mail, which passed south of the mountain. The summit runs about ten degrees cooler and much windier than the trailhead.

For centuries the range was Mescalero Apache country, and the Apache held it as one of their last strongholds after the army pushed them off the plains below. In December 1869 a cavalry troop under Lt. Howard Cushing attacked a Mescalero camp in the mountains. Ranchers followed. Most of the park was the Guadalupe Mountain Ranch, where J. C. Hunter raised Angora goats and in 1928 brought in elk from South Dakota to replace the native elk hunted out by the 1880s. His son sold the ranch to the government. President Johnson signed the act creating the park in 1966, and it was established in 1972.

The Pine Springs Visitor Center, on US-62/180, is the place to start. There is no gas for 35 miles in either direction and no lodging or restaurant in the park, so fill up in Van Horn, 60 miles south, or Whites City, New Mexico. The park keeps Mountain Time.