Guadalupe Peak
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| Objective: |
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| Date: |
July 4-5, 2002 |
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| Photogallery: | |||||
| Party: |
Nina Lanza and Mouser Williams |
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| Summary: |
A strenuous hike with full backpacking gear in the afternoon sun of
Texas summer, 3.3 miles and 2000' up to the campground. A vicious storm
just missed us at the campsite. Another mile to the peak in the
morning, followed by a five-mile round-trip bushwack traverse to the top
of El Capitan's 1,600' cliffs.
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| Route: |
From Carlsbad, drove down Hwy. 160 to the Guadalupe Mountains National
Park visitor's center. Parked at Pine Springs campground trailhead.
Followed well-signed trail to Guadalupe Peak Campground (3.3 miles).
Followed well-signed trail to summit in the morning. To traverse over
to El Capitan, we left the summit trail at the first switchback beyond
the bridge, where an old knurled pinon pine lies dead. From there we
contoured over two washes and hiked down the slight ridge to the bowl
between Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan. Then up the rockiest ridge on El
Capitan to the cliffs. Followed the cliff edge up the side of El
Capitan. Descending we followed the cliff edge down to the low notch,
then down the wash to the bowl and back up to the trail the way we came.
Returned to the car via the Guadalupe Peak trail.
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| Noteworthy: |
My 22nd state highpoint, Nina's 3rd. The highest state highpoint yet
for both of us.
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| Lessons Learned: |
Freeze-dried chili mac is way better than freeze-dried lasagna.
When hiking off-trail in the high desert, bring long gators.
My GPS doesn't make good trail plots unless I hold it out in front of me
for the entire hike.
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Day 1 - Thursday, July 4, 2002
We started at the visitor's center at about 2:00pm. A ranger explained that we would have the entire Guadalupe Peak campground to ourselves, and that there was a good chance of storms that night. The previous night there had been continuous lightning strikes for many hours on the summit. She explained that we shouldn't hesitate to come back down the trail if this started happening again. Finally she advised us on the best route for bushwacking over to the summit of El Capitan and where the best views were available.
Once we had our permit in order, we headed off to the Pine Springs campground trailhead and got our packs on. We promptly forgot to sign in on the trailhead register and headed up the trail. I had my new Etrex Vista GPS unit on me and was goofing around with it for most of the ascent.
The first portion of the trail is about 1.5 miles of steep switchbacks, no shade, and grueling heat. We went through a lot of water on this trail. With the five liters of water we were each carrying, our packs came out to about 40 pounds each. There are no natural water sources on this trip so we had to pack in that much.
After ascending over 1000', we finally made it over the first ridge and onto the forested side of the mountain where we found some shade. The remainder of the hike was less steep and there was shade. It took us about 3.5 hours to go the 3.3 miles to Guadalupe Peak Campground, over 2000' above the visitor's center. I had already drank 1.5 liters of water.
The high campground is one of the best I have ever been to. Great views, very secluded, and on this night, empty. There are only 10 camping sites available, and each includes a large flat packed dirt pad for a tent. One of them had a low wall constructed of dead juniper on three sides. With the rumors of poor weather, we took this site hoping the wall would shield us from possible wind and rain.
We set up the tent and took a nap, as the hike up had been rather exhausting. We woke up a couple hours before nightfall and set up the stove to make dinner. I had purchased some freeze-dried meals from REI which I had never tried before - chili-mac and lasagna. They were surprisingly easy to cook, tasted good, and required very little water (2 cups each). The containers they came in also served as serving bowls and trash bags, so there was hardly any trash and nothing to clean except for the spoons.
As I was taking down the stove, Nina noticed our impending doom. Out of nowhere a giant thunderhead anvil was forming just upwind of us. It was so low and close that we could see it growing and boiling. It quickly obscured the setting sun and a strong wind came up out of nowhere. The sky had been clear until dinner.
As the thunderhead grew more menacing, something really weird happened. A cloud below us got blown into the mountain by the increasingly hard winds. Hitting the cliff upwind of us, it got sent soaring straingt upwards in a wall of cloud. This was all about 100' in front of us. To see a cloud coming up from the ground at high speed with a giant thunderhead above is a pretty odd site. We packed everything up really quick and got to work putting large rocks on top of the tent stakes and in the corners of the tent.
There was lightning in the cloud but somehow none of it ever came down near us. We missed most of the rain as well. All we got were intense winds that blew one corner off of the tent fly, lifted most of the stakes out of the ground, and rolled our hold-down rocks around. The tent survived with only minor damage (two of the fly stake lines had snapped cores, though the mantle held).
We fared much better than the people we saw hiking down from the previous night's storm. They had 1-inch hail that ripped right through their tents and numerous close lightning strikes.
Within an hour, the storm had blown over to the south and we were able to come out of the tent and watch the far-off lightning. The wind was still strong but nothing like during the actual storm. Our new windproof jackets came in handy!
Day 2 - Friday, July 5, 2002
We woke up at sunrise and had a light breakfast of granola and fruit. Nina packed a summit pack of water and snacks and we headed for the summit. The weather was clear again with no sign of the previous night's storm.
The trail from the campground to the summit is only about a mile long and involves less than 1000' of gain. In the cool morning air and with no heavy packs it was considerably easier than the previous day's slog. The summit has a strange metal pyramid monument on it placed by American Airlines back before the Guadalupe Mountains National Park was formed. The registry was filled with an unusual amount of childish and vulgar sign-ins. Texas, I guess...
The view from the top is great, and the best part is definitely the view of El Capitan from the top. Although it appears square from far away, with a flat top, it has an odd wavy wedge shape with one low side and one very sharp summit ridge. This was our next destination.
We climbed down from the Guadalupe Peak summit and headed back down the trail. There was a switchback just after the bridge that looked like the best place to contour over onto the El Capitan ridge. I marked a waypoint with my GPS and we went off-trail. Contouring across the two washes proved not too difficult. The plants were all cactus and low shrubs that all wanted to scratch up our legs, but there were significant paths of rock that allowed us to avoid most of them.
I only had my low gators on and Nina had none, and as a result our legs ended up rather scarred. I recommend long gators for this traverse as some of the scratchy plant life is unavoidable.
Once the contouring was complete, we descended a low ridge to the bowl-like saddle between Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan. From here, the wedge of El Capitan's summit rose very steeply. This climb was difficult and we chose a sub-optimal route. For future hikes, I recommend taking the wash up to the low notch on the west side, then following the cliff ridge along to the summit. This is how we descended and it was much easier. We ascended the rockiest route, hoping to avoid the plants. But the limestone was very sharp and this route involved some tough class 3 scrambling. A fall here would have hurt - not because of a long fall, but because it almost certainly would have been broken by a cactus.
Although this ascent looked brutal, it was always easier than it looked. The view from the cliff edge was amazing. The wind shear was somewhat intense so we bellied up to the edge and looked down 1600' to the desert below. The best view was along the cliff ridge back towards Guadalupe Peak. I could just make out the metal pyramid shining away up there.
We had a snack and took a lot of pictures, then headed back down to the saddle. This took awhile as we were negotiating a new route and it was very steep and again laden with cactus. The climb back out of the saddle to the countouring point seemed to take forever but was not difficult. The weather was starting to get hot again, though.
Once on the trail everything was easy again. We took another nap at the tent before packing everything up and heading back down the trail to the car. The hike down took only two hours. With 4.5kg less water each, the packs seemed featherlite.
This was a great overnighter and I highly recommend it, though it might have been a little less brutal on the way up during the winter. After returning the the car, we went for steaks at the Velvet Garter in Whites City.
We started at the visitor's center at about 2:00pm. A ranger explained that we would have the entire Guadalupe Peak campground to ourselves, and that there was a good chance of storms that night. The previous night there had been continuous lightning strikes for many hours on the summit. She explained that we shouldn't hesitate to come back down the trail if this started happening again. Finally she advised us on the best route for bushwacking over to the summit of El Capitan and where the best views were available.
Once we had our permit in order, we headed off to the Pine Springs campground trailhead and got our packs on. We promptly forgot to sign in on the trailhead register and headed up the trail. I had my new Etrex Vista GPS unit on me and was goofing around with it for most of the ascent.
The first portion of the trail is about 1.5 miles of steep switchbacks, no shade, and grueling heat. We went through a lot of water on this trail. With the five liters of water we were each carrying, our packs came out to about 40 pounds each. There are no natural water sources on this trip so we had to pack in that much.
After ascending over 1000', we finally made it over the first ridge and onto the forested side of the mountain where we found some shade. The remainder of the hike was less steep and there was shade. It took us about 3.5 hours to go the 3.3 miles to Guadalupe Peak Campground, over 2000' above the visitor's center. I had already drank 1.5 liters of water.
The high campground is one of the best I have ever been to. Great views, very secluded, and on this night, empty. There are only 10 camping sites available, and each includes a large flat packed dirt pad for a tent. One of them had a low wall constructed of dead juniper on three sides. With the rumors of poor weather, we took this site hoping the wall would shield us from possible wind and rain.
We set up the tent and took a nap, as the hike up had been rather exhausting. We woke up a couple hours before nightfall and set up the stove to make dinner. I had purchased some freeze-dried meals from REI which I had never tried before - chili-mac and lasagna. They were surprisingly easy to cook, tasted good, and required very little water (2 cups each). The containers they came in also served as serving bowls and trash bags, so there was hardly any trash and nothing to clean except for the spoons.
As I was taking down the stove, Nina noticed our impending doom. Out of nowhere a giant thunderhead anvil was forming just upwind of us. It was so low and close that we could see it growing and boiling. It quickly obscured the setting sun and a strong wind came up out of nowhere. The sky had been clear until dinner.
As the thunderhead grew more menacing, something really weird happened. A cloud below us got blown into the mountain by the increasingly hard winds. Hitting the cliff upwind of us, it got sent soaring straingt upwards in a wall of cloud. This was all about 100' in front of us. To see a cloud coming up from the ground at high speed with a giant thunderhead above is a pretty odd site. We packed everything up really quick and got to work putting large rocks on top of the tent stakes and in the corners of the tent.
There was lightning in the cloud but somehow none of it ever came down near us. We missed most of the rain as well. All we got were intense winds that blew one corner off of the tent fly, lifted most of the stakes out of the ground, and rolled our hold-down rocks around. The tent survived with only minor damage (two of the fly stake lines had snapped cores, though the mantle held).
We fared much better than the people we saw hiking down from the previous night's storm. They had 1-inch hail that ripped right through their tents and numerous close lightning strikes.
Within an hour, the storm had blown over to the south and we were able to come out of the tent and watch the far-off lightning. The wind was still strong but nothing like during the actual storm. Our new windproof jackets came in handy!
Day 2 - Friday, July 5, 2002
We woke up at sunrise and had a light breakfast of granola and fruit. Nina packed a summit pack of water and snacks and we headed for the summit. The weather was clear again with no sign of the previous night's storm.
The trail from the campground to the summit is only about a mile long and involves less than 1000' of gain. In the cool morning air and with no heavy packs it was considerably easier than the previous day's slog. The summit has a strange metal pyramid monument on it placed by American Airlines back before the Guadalupe Mountains National Park was formed. The registry was filled with an unusual amount of childish and vulgar sign-ins. Texas, I guess...
The view from the top is great, and the best part is definitely the view of El Capitan from the top. Although it appears square from far away, with a flat top, it has an odd wavy wedge shape with one low side and one very sharp summit ridge. This was our next destination.
We climbed down from the Guadalupe Peak summit and headed back down the trail. There was a switchback just after the bridge that looked like the best place to contour over onto the El Capitan ridge. I marked a waypoint with my GPS and we went off-trail. Contouring across the two washes proved not too difficult. The plants were all cactus and low shrubs that all wanted to scratch up our legs, but there were significant paths of rock that allowed us to avoid most of them.
I only had my low gators on and Nina had none, and as a result our legs ended up rather scarred. I recommend long gators for this traverse as some of the scratchy plant life is unavoidable.
Once the contouring was complete, we descended a low ridge to the bowl-like saddle between Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan. From here, the wedge of El Capitan's summit rose very steeply. This climb was difficult and we chose a sub-optimal route. For future hikes, I recommend taking the wash up to the low notch on the west side, then following the cliff ridge along to the summit. This is how we descended and it was much easier. We ascended the rockiest route, hoping to avoid the plants. But the limestone was very sharp and this route involved some tough class 3 scrambling. A fall here would have hurt - not because of a long fall, but because it almost certainly would have been broken by a cactus.
Although this ascent looked brutal, it was always easier than it looked. The view from the cliff edge was amazing. The wind shear was somewhat intense so we bellied up to the edge and looked down 1600' to the desert below. The best view was along the cliff ridge back towards Guadalupe Peak. I could just make out the metal pyramid shining away up there.
We had a snack and took a lot of pictures, then headed back down to the saddle. This took awhile as we were negotiating a new route and it was very steep and again laden with cactus. The climb back out of the saddle to the countouring point seemed to take forever but was not difficult. The weather was starting to get hot again, though.
Once on the trail everything was easy again. We took another nap at the tent before packing everything up and heading back down the trail to the car. The hike down took only two hours. With 4.5kg less water each, the packs seemed featherlite.
This was a great overnighter and I highly recommend it, though it might have been a little less brutal on the way up during the winter. After returning the the car, we went for steaks at the Velvet Garter in Whites City.
Written by Mouser Williams on
2002.07.08