McKittrick Canyon

McKittrick Canyon is the green surprise of the Guadalupe Mountains. A spring-fed stream runs through it, and its walls shelter gray oak, velvet ash, alligator juniper and bigtooth maple, trees that belong to wetter country. The maples turn red and gold in the fall, and the canyon is the park's best-known place to see them. Mule deer and porcupines live here, and wild turkeys and black bears range higher up.

The canyon owes its protection to an oil geologist. Wallace Pratt first came to the Guadalupes on business in 1921, bought ranch land with partners, and by 1930 owned the lower canyon. In the winter of 1931 to 1932 a small crew built him a stone cabin where the north and south forks of McKittrick Creek meet, of limestone quarried a few miles away and yellow pine shipped from East Texas. The Pratts spent summers there until 1940, and geologists came from all over the world to study the canyon. Pratt gave his McKittrick land to the National Park Service, a gift that helped bring about the park.

The canyon is day use only. The trail starts behind the McKittrick Canyon visitor center, reached by a side road off US-62/180, and the gate closes each evening, so watch the time. Pratt Cabin is just over two miles in and makes a natural turnaround; its porch and picnic grounds are open to hikers, and the cabin itself only when a ranger or volunteer is there. Farther on are the Grotto and the Hunter Line Shack.