Round-Trip Backpacking Distance: 20 miles
Day Hikes: ~14 miles: Devil’s Hall, Carlsbad Caverns, Buttercup Stagecoach and Frijole Ranch
Sometimes you pick a vacation because you just need to get away. Looking through the list of national parks we haven’t visited (more than 90% of them), I found something warm and south. Texas sounded good in a wet April in Portland. Not knowing much about the area and with a little research, I discovered it didn’t have a huge bug problem in April (no-see’ums are in Utah then) and the weather is almost always dry. So I booked our first national park adventure by airplane.
Two weeks out, the weather looked ominous, possibly rain and large storms with massive flooding in eastern Texas. Our area looked good except for a “little wind”. Each day I looked the wind and my concern increased.
The last time I flew with the kids it was to Disneyland a few years ago, and I’m not sure, but I think flying with kids is stressful and full of anxiety to just think. Well I packed for the trip I made sure to pack enough snacks for the flight. On a plane you can take dry snacks, but not liquids, so I made sure to pack, spice cake with frosting, buttered popcorn, Pringles, and trail mix, and top it off with a soda from the airport vending machine. With the looks at the end of the flight, I was probably the least popular person on the plane with each tasty odor that drifted over our seats as the kids ate treats while watching movies and filling out their Junior Ranger books. Who can resist the smell of butter popcorn, ginger sugar frosting, or sour cream Pringles? I’m pretty sure the flight attendants sold more food on that trip than most others as I overheard, “No we are out of those now” then most other flights I’ve been on.
Well booking our trip we discovered you can save almost $100 on a 5-day car rental by just booking the car off airport premises. However, one big learning lesson on our trip is if you rent a car close to a border you MUST have a credit card. We don’t, so we paid a little extra.
When we finally got our car, we drove to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and set up camp and hiked Devil’s Hall. Devil’s Hall is a short 5-mile out and back hike up a wash to a slot canyon that is maybe 10 feet across, known as Devil’s Hall. We had high winds that night that kept me awake for most of the night. Even though our tents were staked down and we were in them, I was pretty sure they were going to blow over.
By the morning the wind had died down and we were up early and on our way for our ranger-led hike in Carlsbad Caverns. If you have hiked there before 1990 then we did the same hike as you, however after 1990 they closed half the caverns off to general population and we took the hike through the area that is now closed to the public.
Planning on returning that night for the bat program, we picnicked nearby at Rattlesnake Springs and found the remains (feathers) of a wild turkey. The kids had a hay-day just picking up the feathers. We learned the bat’s had migrated so we only saw 15,000 of what is generally 500,000 bats leave the cave. It was pretty cool for all of 5 minutes and then we hit the road. We had an early day again tomorrow.
The next day, we saw the remnants of the Butterfield Stage Coach Line, which was replaced by the Pony Express 18 months later, and then the Pony Express was replaced less than 2 years later by the railroad. It’s an interesting part of American History because the mail went from 2 months to 6 weeks, to 2 weeks, to 1 week and then today we now have the mail in something like 3-5 days.
After the Coach stop we made our way over to McKittrick Canyon Trailhead. The canyon was wonderful. As we packed in something like 20+ lbs of water, we came across a stream. I may never hear the end of packing in water from Will.
When we approached 2.5 miles we found the Pratt Cabin. It was around mid-day when we reached the cabin and stopped for pepperoni cheese rollups, thinking we had made great time, little did we know what lay ahead. We were fortunate enough to have a ranger showing a friend the cabin and we were also able to go inside and look around. To think that a bleeding edge geologist of the 19th century brought in architects from Houston and Dallas and had ranch hands build a solid stone house (including roof) in little less than a year was awe inspiring.
As we began to climb the mountain thinking we were more than half way to our destination Noah started to feel ill. Over the next 3+ hours that poor kid went through some pretty serious food sickness. We had no water extra water to clean anything and no extra clothes. However, we made the decision to press on, there wasn’t anything we could do for him and we couldn’t stop to camp, we were what we thought was halfway to our destination and Noah was game for pushing on.
We learned that day, that hiking a mountain is twice as far as you think it is. As we climbed on the sun started going down and we were sure we were close. It was just around the next bend or it was just after the next switchback, we had to be at the top, right? No. We kept hiking well past dark and with our slimmed down packs (to hold the water) we not only took out the extra clothes we only brought 3 of our 4 headlamps, because Isabel hates headlamps so why bring it. I learned you bring it anyway when you are hiking a 2700’ elevation with massive switchbacks and grades in the dark… as it starts snowing! Yep, we were so high and it was so cold that we hiked right into the clouds and the clouds were so cold that it was ice crystals floating in the air. It was crazy!
At about 7pm we said we had to find a place to camp, whether we were at our destination or not, but the slopes were so steep and the trail so narrow, there was no option except to hike on. The trail wasn’t even wide enough for our tent. We hiked for another 2 hours, when I told everyone to stay put and I would hike on to find a flat spot, we had to be close to the top at this point, right?
After about 20 minutes of hiking without a pack, I found a flat enough spot (in the middle of the trail) that we could put our tents. I ran back the best I could in the dark to tell everyone else. At that point, Will was freezing and beginning to panic from being so cold, in the mountains, and not having a place to camp. Noah was exhausted and had no base layer due to the ninja poops from earlier, and Isabel was scared because she couldn’t see. I told everyone my find and everyone begrudgingly hiked on. We found my spot and as we put up one of the tent, I suggested maybe all of us could fit into a single two-man tent. It would keep us warmer than 2 separate tents, especially because of the cold. Will didn’t care at that point, he climbed in and said make it work. We were all so tired we made the decision that dinner was pepperoni cheese roll-ups and we would deal with tomorrow, tomorrow. We even ended up eating in the tent. We were all cold, wet, and tired.
In the morning, we woke up to the most beautiful sunny vista, we had indeed made it to the campsite, even though we weren’t in an official tent site. We were that tired and we couldn’t see. We were glad to have flat ground to sleep on. The map says our hike should have been 7.6 miles, but both going and coming out, both Will and I, paced on our Fitbit’s 10.2 miles. We are pretty sure the map isn’t accurate.
One interesting phenomena was the trees were raining. Even though the air was dry in the morning, the few trees we came across (Pines) had absorbed so much water from the night before they were dripping water.
We hiked in with over 3 gallons of water, but it wasn’t enough. By the time we hiked out we were all incredibly thirsty. We came across the stream and wished we hadn’t stripped the 3 ounce water filter from our pack to save weight… another life lesson. Bring the filter no matter what. We said that in Yosemite, but didn’t think of it here because we didn’t think we had water, but 3 ounces isn’t much when you are thirsty.
After hiking out, we made our way back to the campground (first come, first serve) and thought it was a slam dunk to find a site on a Tuesday during the school year, but the whole campground was full. There was a note that you could drive halfway back to Carlsbad Caverns and there was free BLM camping, so we climbed back into the Yaris and made our way down dusty, backroads of New Mexico and found a “campground” (3 firepits in the dessert).
We woke up to cows in camp, but it was a beautiful view. Totally flat with mountains in the distance as the sun rose. Picture perfect New Mexico. We made our way back to El Paso, passing by Guadalupe Mtns again and stopping at our last stop the Frijole Ranch. This ranch is the coolest place on earth. One day when I retire I’m going to find a place just like this.
The homesteaders who lived here were some of the most industrious people. The spring bubbles something like 6 gallons a minute, which the homesteaders enclosed to keep the bugs out to make drinking water, they then trenched the water around the cellar to keep it cool, then made a waterway under the outhouses to keep them clean and out into the orchards to fertilize. They also discovered that the local rock (calcium carbide) when mixed with water and held in a tank creates an acetylene reaction to make electricity for the house.
We made our way back to the airport and flew home.