October 28, 1994: Carlsbad Caverns
	Return to the Index for Our Western Trip

After an uneventful September, with me helping Fred out at Downhill Run Acres, and Fred spending most weekends here in Dallas, we started planning our Fall trip out West. It's getting to the point where we have been to all the National Parks and all, so we are having to begin to repeat ourselves. We planned this time to repeat our visit to the Guadalupe area of Texas, and then see Carlsbad Caverns. Fred wanted to take in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and we planned to stop at some petroglyphs down below the Guadalupe Mountains, then circle down through Las Cruces and El Paso, and then home again.

Getting to Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Fred has taken a couple of vacation days from Crumps Garden, so we will leave after work on Wednesday, October 26th, and be in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park by noontime the next day.

Fred came down Wednesday evening, the 26th, and we got all packed and started out. We took our usual route on I-30 through Fort Worth, and then west on I-20. We stopped just west of Thurber, where we found all the restaurants closed, so we continued on to Ranger, Texas, and had a pretty good dinner at a local restaurant there. Then we got back on the road and drove until about one in the morning, stopping at Big Spring for the night.

We were up early the next morning, and continued on I-20 to Pecos, where we again headed north on US 285 to Orla, Texas. There, we cut west across the desolate West Texas landscape towards the Guadalupe Mountains on Texas 652. This highway took us to an intersection with US Highway 180 that runs from Carlsbad and Roswell all the way down to El Paso.

We had to jog south on this highway to get to the actual visitor center for the National Park; the campground was near there.

We arrived at the Visitor Center just before noon.

We went directly to the campsites at the Pine Spring Campground(where, you will remember, we had not been able to get a spot last time we were through here), and we picked out a good one and set up the tent.

Then Fred told me about some hikes we might do. The first year I knew him, 1992, he brought me out here to the Guadalupe Mountains where he took me to the top of Guadalupe Peak. (This hike seems to be some sort of initiation or weeding-out process for Fred's friends; he puts great store in whether someone can make it to the top without getting entirely exhausted. He has been here with Frank Roberts, Prudence, his previous partner Kerry, his brother Troy and, of course, me.)

So that hike was out for this trip. One of the best of the remaining ones, particularly considering that this was Fall and there would be "fall color" was the hike up McKittrick Canyon. This hike starts from a trailhead a few miles north up Highway 180, so that is where we headed.

Hiking the McKittrick Canyon Trail

The weather today was extremely good, with bright sunshine and blue sky, and it was ideal for hiking. Fred, I believe, has been to this particular northern part of Guadalupe Mountains National Park before, with some of the other folks he has brought out here, but this will be my first time in this area of the park.

Thousands of visitors come to Guadalupe Mountains National Park to visit McKittrick Canyon each year, especially during this time of year for the sensational fall colors. In this tiny part of west Texas, the foliage (brilliant reds, subtle yellows, and deep browns) contrasts dramatically with the flavor of the arid Chihuahuan desert that includes century plants, prickly pear cacti, blacktail rattlers, steep canyon walls and crystal clear blue skies. We are here on a perfect day.

The road in to the McKittrick Canyon trailhead is day-use only, and there is a gate at Highway 62/180 that is locked each evening at 6PM. We drove up there and into the trailhead, where stopped at the contact station at the parking area and picked up a park brochure. We also showed our entrance fee receipt from the campground to gain access to the trail.

Fred already knew that to really experience the marvel of McKittrick Canyon we would need to allow four-plus hours for the hike, and there was just enough time to finish it before the gates were locked. The trailhead also provided access to the McKittrick Canyon Nature Trail (a short loop near the parking area), but we thought we'd wait and do that later if there was time.

We headed off on the trail about one-thirty in the afternoon. The first part of the trail followed a currently dry creekbed, but soon the beauty of McKittrick Canyon became evident.

"While the towering walls of McKittrick Canyon protect the riches of diversity, its precious secrets are hidden in riparian oasis. It is no wonder that it has been described as the 'most beautiful spot in Texas.' But for all its magical power that delights thousands of people each year, its fragility reminds us that our enjoyment cannot compromise its necessity for survival. It must survive - not for us, but for all that lives within."- National Park Service Photographer Cookie Ballou

According to archeological evidence unearthed in and near the canyon, the earliest inhabitants occupied the area over 12,000 years ago. Only stone-chipped tools, bone fragments and bits of charcoal remain to reconstruct the ways of their lives. More recent discoveries, such as mescal pits and pictographs, have helped weave a more complete story of prehistoric life in the Guadalupes.

Here's Fred at the trailhead for the McKittrick Canyon trail. This mountain scenery is typical of the Guadalupe area, which is very dry most of the year. It's also rocky, with scrub vegetation at the lower levels and wooded areas a bit higher. The mouth of McKittrick Canyon is predominately scrub desert where yuccas like the "Spanish bayonet" (Yucca faxoniana), sotol (Dasylirion leiophyllum), and ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) thrive. To the untrained eye, it seems impossible for anything to grow in such harsh conditions, yet the plants have evolved to meet the challenge.

Much later in history, around the early 1500s, the Mescalero Apaches inhabited the canyon. The Guadalupes provided ample supplies of game, water, and shelter locations, and remained their unchallenged sanctuary until the arrival of settlers, cattle drovers, and stage lines. As the land was taken from the Indians, conflicts arose. Skirmishes turned to bloody battles. Settlers demanded protection. The Mescalero were forced from the area as cavalry troops penetrated the Guadalupes, raiding and destroying Apache rancherias, rations and supplies. By the late 1800s, nearly all of the surviving Mescalero Apaches in the U.S. were on reservations.

It was such a nice day for hiking that we quickly decided that we would try to get all the way to The Grotto, which would result in a 7-mile roundtrip hike. We thought the timeframe would be sufficient for the trip, even considering that we'd be making stops along the way. The first half-mile or so of the hike was along and across a mostly dry creekbed.

Fred in the Dry Riverbed

(Picture at left) Sure enough, as we got higher, there were more trees, like some of the ones you can see here along this dry riverbed. I had completely forgotten, but it was Fall, after all, and there was a lot of color in the trees. There is much more later, but you can see some of the color on the trees in the distance. Fred, as usual, was carrying his backpack with the tripod and his panoramic camera and film and stuff. This riverbed did have some water flowing through it, but most of it was dry.   (Picture at right) In this picture Fred took, you can see the beginning of the Fall color that we had come to see. When we first started out, it seemed chilly, and I had thought about bringing a jacket, but as we got going, the combination of the exercise and the sunshine made it quite warm. I think that the mixture of Fall color and the evergreens offers a beautiful contrast.

Me at the Edge of the Riverbed

Once the Indian threat was abated, the rugged land was tamed for ranching and farming. The Native Americans were quite right- grazing and hunting, farming and the inevitable fence-building took its toll on the land. Wildlife disappeared - Merriam's elk, desert bighorn sheep, and blacktail prairie dogs were all extirpated from the Guadalupes as a result of extensive hunting and trapping. Though settlement occurred slowly in the Guadalupes, people were here to stay. McKittrick Canyon was named for one of those settlers- Captain Felix McKittrick, a rancher who moved to the mouth of that canyon in 1869.

Here is some of the mountain scenery along the McKittrick Canyon trail. I am always impressed by this part of Texas, since I am so used to the flatness around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I realize that these mountains are not all that high, only about six or seven thousand feet, but they are still beautiful. Here, you can see that water that is indeed flowing through the area, although a bit lower along the trail most of it disappears underground, so that by the time you reach the area where we crossed this river, there is only about a six-foot-wide stretch of shallow water flowing along. Again, you can see the beautiful color of the trees.

As we hiked through the desert plants and into the beautiful trees and grasses, these breathtaking vistas opened up. It is hard to imagine that this is a mere reflection of recent geological time. 250 million years ago, during the Permian Age, a vast inland sea covered this land.

Within the waters of this sea a reef formed as calcium carbonate precipitated from the water and formed a seabed that was enlarged by the accumulation of skeletal remains and the algae and sponges that settled to the bottom. As the ocean floor sank and the reef grew, a shallow lagoon formed behind the reef. The sediments that settled in the lagoon make up a formation know as the back reef. Sediments that broke off the front and tumbled to the bottom made up the fore reef.

The sea eventually dried up and the water became too salty for the survival of the reef-building organisms. Rivers washed sediments over the reef and buried it thousands of feet deep. Geologists surmise that around twelve million years ago an uplift took place. Wind and rain eroded away the sediments leaving the reef exposed and creating the mountain range of the Guadalupes. McKittrick Canyon cuts a significant slash through this range, exposing the backbone of the Capitan Reef- one of the most extensive fossil reef formations known on earth.

Many animals make the canyons of the National Park their home, but almost all of them are nocturnal, and so rarely seen by casual hikers. These include bobcats, mountain lions, raccoons, ring tail cats, and many species of bats. Our hiking brochure advised us to look instead for their signs- scent, nests, tracks, scrape marks, and scat. During the daylight hours mule deer, javelina, wood rats, vireos, towhees, fence lizards can be spotted. And our brochure also cautioned that both black-tailed and rock rattlesnakes make the area their home.

Here is Fred and more of the beautiful Fall scenery along the McKittrick Canyon trail. The higher we got, the more trees there were. There were a lot of evergreens, but also a good many other hardwoods that show Fall color. The hiking was fun, as it always it when Fred is along. The peaks that you can see behind Fred are part of the Guadalupe group, the same peaks that we hiked to the top of the last time we were through here.

Here, further along the trail, trees stood as sentinels, silently guarding the canyon. Alligator juniper, velvet ash, ponderosa pine, and big tooth maple sheltered agaves under their shady limbs. The most intriguing tree though is the Texas madrone with its smooth red-orange bark and shiny green leaves. In spring, it has urn-shaped, cream-colored flowers that fill the air with a sweet fragrance. In fall its red berries provide food for American Robins and Townsend Solitaires. This tree is a remnant of the past; surviving from a time of more significant rainfall and a less distinct desert climate. In the distance, the gurgling water of the perennial stream is its lifeline.

In 1921, a young geologist named Wallace E. Pratt came to McKittrick Canyon. He was captivated by its beauty and geology and began buying land in the canyon. In 1931-32, he had a cabin built at the confluence of the north and south McKittrick canyons.

The magnificent structure, built only of stone and wood, was furnished with rough plank reclining chairs, four beds, an assortment of hammocks, and a special table to seat twelve. The cabin served as his part-time home and summer retreat. There were picnic tables near the cabin, and our trail guide suggested that we sit for a spell on the porch. Fred and I were both impressed that the roof was also made of stone. The rangers at the cabin said that it was very prone to leaking as the weather caused small cracks to appear in the cement between the stones, and that they were always having to repair it. While both Fred and I found the site quite pretty, it is certainly a long way from anywhere

We did learn that these two rangers stay in the cabin for a few nights at a time, hiking out some afternoons to get supplies and stuff, so I guess they have to be pretty self-sufficient. While we were there, one of the rangers was in the middle of preparing a dessert for their dinner that night. The two rangers seemed to be a couple, although the female seemed to be a good deal older, but who knows.

In 1957, Wallace Pratt donated 5,632 acres of his beloved property to the U.S. Government for the creation of a national park. His gift along with a 70,000 acre purchase from J.C. Hunter Jr.'s Guadalupe Mountain Ranch ensured that Guadalupe Mountains National Park would be authorized by Congress as a National Park- which it was, officially, in 1966. The park opened six years later in 1972.

Wallace Pratt died on Christmas Day, 1981; he was 96 years old. As per his request, his ashes were spread over the canyon he loved. The Stone Cabin remains as a monument to this pioneer conservationist.

As we continued our hike beyond Pratt Cabin towards the Grotto, the forest became denser as the trail ran parallel to the stream. Occasionally, the trail would open out a bit, particularly near the streambed. Supposedly, rainbow trout are visible in the clear water, but we didn't see any.

Several species of prickly pear cacti (Opuntia sp.) live in the canyon. Their beautiful yellow-orange blossoms can be observed across the landscape in late spring, and if your timing is right, you may also enjoy the brilliant red-orange blossoms of the claret cup cacti (Echinocereus triglochidiatus). Cacti and other desert succulents avoid drying out by storing water in their succulent tissues. To protect from water evaporation, the stems have a thick waxy coating. Their leaves, reduced to needles, provide protection from predators while reflecting the radiant heat of the sun.

We passed the Pratt Cabin about two-thirds of the one-way distance into the hike on our way to the Grotto. After another hour or so of easy hiking, we reached that area. At the Grotto, dripping water percolates through the limestone, methodically redistributing calcium carbonate into stalagmites and stalagmites in the tiny "cave." There were rock benches and tables and I guess this would be a great place for a picnic.

Fred at the Grotto

(Picture at left) The McKittrick Canyon trail goes up to the crest of the Guadalupe Mountains, but we decided not to go much further than the Grotto. Here, dripping water created cave-like limestone formations, but since the area was not enclosed, like an actual cave, other erosion forces were also at work. The kind of cave area did not go back very far, but it certainly gives the impression that it does. There is nothing here to keep hikers from touching the formations, so even if they had been delicate at one time, they aren't so now. It was real interesting, and there were some neat echoes here.   (Picture at right) Here I am looking out of the Grotto; it was tough to get enough light on Fred, what with the bright light in the background. Notice the effect caused by some formations being very close to the lens.

Fred at the Grotto

After spending some time at the Grotto, we hiked a bit further up the trail, but knew we would not have the time to go to the top of the ridge, and so we turned to return to the parking area. It was on this return trip, in the afternoon sunlight, that the fall colors in McKittrick Canyon really showed themselves.

Fred in the Trees Above the Grotto

(Picture at left) Up here by the Grotto, there were lots of trees and lots of color. Fred was the one who set up this "artistic" shot. He is actually dropping a handful of leaves, although it's hard to see the ones that are falling down. This picture shows off Fred to good advantage, though.       (Picture at right) After a bit past the Grotto, we started back down the trail, stopping more frequently to look at the colors of Fall. Here, in this beautiful shot of the small stream that flows down from the Guadalupe Mountains alongside the trail, you can see the full range of the visual effects of the area, from the bare peaks, to the forested areas, to the colors of the trees.

The Stream Alongside the Trail

Sometimes we are deceived by the showy colors of a plant. For example, Indian paintbrush flowers are inconspicuous; it is the bright red bracts beneath each flower that catch the eye. Indian paintbrush is a hemiparasitic and depends on a host plant to supply its water and nutrients. Among the many common wildflowers in McKittrick Canyon are gayfeather, plains blackfoot and butterflyweed.

Here is Fred along the McKittrick Canyon trail; he is almost lost in the shadows beneath the very colorful trees.

Our hiking brochure cautioned that we might see a wide variety of fauna, although I can't recall anything save birds and the occasional ground squirrel. But animals here take full advantage of the camouflage nature provides. Along the stream we saw dragonflies, and there are species unique to this canyon. In addition, there is a small population of rainbow trout, the fish having been introuced in the 1930s.

There are various mammal, bird, and reptile species here in the canyon- over 50 species of mammals, and more than 300 bird species that live in, or migrate through the park. Forty of these bird species have been known to nest in McKittrick Canyon.

If we realize that only decades ago humans were personally responsible for the extinction of the Merriam's elk and the extirpation of desert bighorn sheep, grizzly bears, gray wolves, bison, and blacktail prairie dogs from the Guadalupes, we might be more inclined to carefully notice the animals, birds and insects, and their habitats that still remain today.

Before we came back down out of the hardwoods and back into the more typical West Texas landscape, we had more opportunities to photograph the Fall color.

Me Along the Trail

(Picture at left) Fred set up this shot, placing me among some of the trees that were showing a wide range of colors. Later, he remarked that it was almost as if I had chosen the shirt I was wearing to blend in with the colors that we found along the trail.       (Picture at right) In the fading afternoon light, here is more Fall color along the McKittrick Canyon trail. I knew that if I metered the light on the background, the shadows in the foreground would be too dark, so I chose to overexpose the picture somewhat.

Fall Color in McKittrick Canyon

Fred took a couple of neat panoramic shots of us and the fall color. Here is one of them:

The other one was a vertical panorama, so you will have to use the scrollable window, below left, to see the whole thing:

McKittrick Canyon is a confluence of diversity. Trees of the east, north, and west, the grasses of the plains, and the cactus and succulents of the desert join with the animal life of both mountain and desert here in this canyon. McKittrick Canyon is more than a single place, it is a collection of places.

We continued down the trail to the trailhead. There, we took a side trail that was a short nature walk, with many of the plants and such labeled. After the pleasant hike, we drove back to the campsite. By that time, it was getting late, so we just relaxed and Fred began cooking dinner. That is one of the many things that Fred likes to do on our trips- actually cook a meal at the campsite. He does very well, too. The diet is usually a stew or some other dish like that, with chips and salsa and bread or something else. We usually have something simple, like cookies, for dessert. I was the designated dishwasher at the station set up for that purpose up near the "facilities." Our campsite was a good one, and we had no trouble sleeping, especially as it was quite cool.

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	October 28, 1994: Carlsbad Caverns
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