Hiking Guadalupe Peak - The highest point in Texas

We were up early this morning, making the drive towards Guadalupe Mountains National Park as the sun was rising. The first rays of sunlight were turning the mountains to a nice shade of pink this morning. This drive is 30 miles south from the BLM Chosa Campground where the motor home is parked, and we actually crossed back into Texas to get to this national park.

The most impressive peak that greets visitors to the southern entrance of this big park is El Capitan. That's the dome-like mountain on the left. But our destination is the taller peak on the right--Guadalupe Peak. This is the tallest point in all of Texas. We came here for a day-trip in 2017, but we didn't have time to tackle this tallest peak on that day six years ago. 

But today we are stoked and ready for this hike! We had read all the reviews and checked the weather. Temperatures were in the 40s this early morning, so we were wearing coats and gloves and ear warmers.

We had read that the parking lot closest to the trail often fills up by 8:00, so we were there early. The next parking option adds another mile to the hike, and this trail is strenuous enough without adding extra steps because of late parking.

While the trail up and back today is nine miles, the thing that makes it strenuous is the elevation gain. We'll be going up almost 3,000 feet in elevation. While we have done that much elevation a few times before, Denisa tries to limit us to 1,500 feet. That means that we are climbing up twice as much as she likes to do in one hike. Yikes!! The first section had some steps to make the rise easier. Just imagine going up 3,000 of those steps today. 

We had read that the first mile is the steepest, and we would agree. It was also the coldest and windiest. Hiking up steep switchbacks with a 30-mile-per-hour wind in our faces made it feel even steeper.

But it also meant that we were eye-to-eye with some of the surrounding peaks rather quickly.

The reviews also mentioned that the trail gets narrow as it snakes up and around the surrounding mountains. While we didn't see any horses on the trail today, signs warn riders that they must dismount and lead their horses around some of the narrow sections.

We would definitely rather be walking than riding on a horse with drop-offs like this.

As we looked behind us, we could see the zig-zags of the switchbacks in the grass far below us now.

We were working hard, but it was still cold enough that we were wearing our coats and gloves.

Part of the preparation for this hike was getting our backpacks filled with enough water and calories for the day. We have food for a picnic lunch, plus snacks along the way. We're also each carrying around two liters of water in our camel backs.

We have been hiking around cliff edges all morning, until we got to the wooden bridge that was added to get by a particularly narrow spot.

This is a good sign, because the ranger we met on the trail told us that we were approximately 3/4 of the way to the top when we crossed the bridge.

The Guadalupe Peak Trail is very popular, because who doesn't want to claim the achievement of being on top of the tallest point in Texas? So even on a week day in March, we saw lots of hikers. We don't mind being passed by hikers that are a third, or even half of our ages. But this next hiker passed us easily. We stopped and talked to Pam, a retired volunteer ranger. In her sixth year volunteering at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, she gets a place to live in exchange for her hours of work on the trail. Her job is hiking the trails, picking up trash, giving advice, and helping hikers. She keeps track of her climbing stats, and this is her 214th trip up Guadalupe Peak. She gave us some great advice for a place to stop to get out of the wind to eat a snack. We talked to her about her life here in the national park, and shared one of our tree-ripened tangerines with her. She wanted a picture so she could brag to the office staff about the snack she was going to enjoy on the trail today. That's when we found out that we had been passed on the trail by a 75-year-old.

Looking down from our special rest stop out of the wind, we could see the undulating layers of the desert valley far below us. It reminded us of the view you get from an airplane window.

The peaks that we had been looking up to all morning, were now at our eye level as we continued up the steep trail.

The third mile is the easiest, with less elevation gain as we traversed around more mountains on our way to Guadalupe Peak.

But the last half-mile was the very steepest as the trail got rockier and windier to the peak. From here we could look over the top of El Capitan. From the views this high we are reminded that we are definitely wandering more of God's wonders.

We knew when we got to the top because we spotted the stainless steel marker proclaiming that this was the highest point in Texas. We got our first picture of our achievement, with the top of El Capitan in the background. We're at 8,751 feet in elevation at this point, and we're the tallest man and woman in Texas right now.

It was cold and windy, with nothing to block the wind when you're the tallest thing for many miles.

We walked the entire perimeter of the summit, taking pictures from all the angles. From here we could see the salt flats to the west . . .

and the rest of the Guadalupe mountain chain to the north.

Jan had been stopping to talk to hikers all along the way, and she made it to the summit while we were still at the top. Count this #214 for her, and #1 for us. Jan took another picture for us before we started the long trek back down.

It was all downhill from that point. Sometimes it's harder on the knees to go downhill, but definitely easier on the lungs. We stopped in our special out-of-the-wind spot for a picnic lunch, as we watched a pretty steady stream of hikers trying to make it to the highest spot in Texas. The temperature warmed up and the winds slowed so that it was actually quite pleasant for the hike down. We didn't take pictures going down because we were focused on getting off our feet and resting. We ended the day with 9.02 miles and 3,002 feet in elevation gain on this hike to Guadalupe Peak--the highest point in Texas. We think our legs deserve to take a day off tomorrow!