Texas & New Mexico’s National Parks

As we continued our journey largely paralleling the US/Mexico border, we came across seven more compulsory border patrol checkpoints that we mentioned at the end of our last blog. We now have the routine down to a fine art…no we are not citizens, here are our green cards, a super brief glance at them, and then we drive on!

Big Bend National Park

Or as Ben likes to call it Big Ben National Park. This National Park was incredible and so diverse. It has sections that follow the Rio Grande River at ~1,700ft to mountainous peaks at nearly 8,000ft. We decided to explore both of these different micro climates, so we stayed for 3 nights and 4 days, but we could have extended it.

First we explored the area around the Rio Grande River. This included the Santa Elena Canyon which has 1,500ft cliffs towering above the water and slightly further downstream a natural thermal spring (105F/40C), which Ben obviously had to test out… At both of these points, the river denotes the US/Mexico border. We saw plenty of hikers that couldn’t read the map and had strayed over international lines… Given all our border patrol encounters to get to the park and the fact we didn’t have our passports, we made sure we stayed firmly on the US side of the border!

Next we did some exploring in the mountains and stayed a couple of nights in the Chisos Basin. Nestled in a natural bowl beneath some fantastic mountain peaks, the view from our campsite was second to none both in the daytime and after dark. Three of our favourite hikes were in this section of the park - Lost Mine, Balanced Rock and The Window were all worth the hype.

Like many of the parks, there were lots of ‘Be Bear and Cougar Aware’ signs, but what we hadn’t expected was to encounter a bear right next to the visitor centre. He had climbed a tree, feasting on berries leaving a path of broken branches at the base of the tree. Amazingly we saw the same bear the next day in the same tree as we returned from a hike. Apparently when you find a good spot to eat you head back time and time again! Given the 75F/24C weather in November, we were intrigued enough to ask one of the Rangers if the bears in the park hibernate for Winter. Apparently they don’t properly hibernate but go into a torpor state, which is involuntary and lasts just a few hours during the day - so no different to Ben in winter time!

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Guadalupe Mountains National Park

This park was about 4.5 hours North West of Big Bend but still roughly parallels the Mexico border. The park contains mountains (clearly!), canyons, deserts and dunes and is home to the 4 highest peaks in Texas.

This park is best explored on foot, so we were in our element. One of the must do hikes was an eight mile round trip to the summit of the tallest peak in Texas - Guadalupe Peak. It was probably the hardest hike we’ve done so far this trip given the 3,000ft of elevation gain and a crazy amount of wind. You would round a corner and get hit by gusts up to 60mph, which were strong enough to push you off course, but we made it safely up and back in one piece.

The second must do hike in the park was McKittock Canyon trail that explores the geology of the Permian reef and takes you to several historic structures associated with early efforts to preserve the park. This was a beautiful, no elevation, seven mile hike along the canyon and remarkably still had trees showcasing autumn/fall colours.

The Guadalupe Mountains took us back into Mountain Standard time for the first time since Colorado but as it was on the edge, our phones couldn’t figure it out at all! The McKittock hike trailhead gate closes at 5pm. We were thoroughly confused what the actual time was, so fast hiked back to the car to only find out we had an hour to spare. Better than being an hour late!!!

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Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Another WOW moment for us! This park is literally a 30 minute drive from Guadalupe Mountains so super accessible. Having done Mammoth Cave and loved it, we weren’t sure how the Caverns would differ but they were incredible.

To explore Mammoth Cave, you needed to join an organised ranger tour, to guide you through the thin passages, but Carlsbads Caverns offers a 2.5mile self guided trip, 800 ft below the surface into these vast caverns that you explore at your own pace.

After about 1.2 miles of steep decent from the natural entrance, you find yourself in the ‘Big Room’ an aptly named cavern that is the 5th largest underground chamber in the US. It’s a whopping 4,000ft across and 255ft high. This room has a 1.25 mile loop, which takes you around these drastic formations. This included the worlds largest stalagmite at 62ft tall. Lucky for us the park service has built a lift/elevator at one end of the Big Room, so the journey back to the surface was way quicker.

The only thing we weren’t able to see were the Brazilian free-tailed bats which fly out of the cave in their thousands at dusk. Unfortunately it wasn’t the right time of the year, and the bats had migrated for the season, but it would be epic to see - something maybe for a future trip?

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White Sands National Park

275 square miles of small grains of gypsum make up the White Sands National Park. There is only one road in the park, which goes a total of 8 miles and the last 4 are compact sand which the park service plow everyday. Ben was pleased to try out Dora’s new all-terrain tyres we got the previous day in El Paso - good timing…

We hiked the 5 mile Alkali trail. Given the sand dunes move, there is no defined path to follow. Instead, you make your way bouncing between orange markers that have been placed in the sand. It can be quite disorienting at times, when all you can see is sand in every direction, and the next marker isn’t clearly insight.

It was way harder to walk on this type of sand than you think. Barefoot made it a little easier until we both ended up with blisters on our big toes 4 miles in. Given neither of us took shoes with us, we were committed to walking the last mile barefoot. We’ll know for next time… It was a great stop but you don’t need more than half a day here.

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What’s Next?

Time to head to head into Arizona to explore its two National Parks - Saguaro and Petrified Forest.