All Adventures

Franklin Mountains State Park

Hiking Date: October 27, 2023
Trails: Tom Mays Nature Walk, Aztec Cave Trail

Starting the Day

This park was a quick stop as part of a longer New Mexico & Texas journey. We slept in El Paso, TX the night before so we already got a small glimpse of the Franklin Mountains. And what a sight! Compared to where we live, it was so surreal to see a large city at the base of such large mountains.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for this park. The main focus of the trip was three national parks (Guadalupe Mountains, White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns), so this park didn’t seem as interesting in comparison… on paper. But just getting that first view the night before really made me excited to check it out. And a lesson I should’ve learned by now: a park is ALWAYS more interesting in person than on paper.

We drove into the park, first stopping at the visitor center. The drive alone into the park was gorgeous and the visitor center was picturesque. I got my passport book stamped (thank you Texas for having a passport stamp book!) and we headed towards our first trail of the day: the Tom Mays Nature Walk.

Tom Mays Nature Walk

Length: 0.8 miles, loop
Elevation Gain: 68 ft
AllTrails Info

My hiking buddy, Gina, particularly loves seeing wildlife. So I made it a point to include this hike on our trip so that we could potentially see some local birds. Plus, this was rated as an easy, short hike – a big plus when we had so many other hikes lined up for the day!

At the start of the trail we came upon some bird feeders. Early in the morning there were already many birds flocking about. Then we saw the bird blind and slowly crept up to see what was on the other side. It was quails! There were so many of them, clucking and fussing about, strutting around and drinking water from a nearby fountain. I fell immediately in love with them. They reminded me so much of guinea pigs (my favorite animal), but just in bird form. So chatty and round and ridiculous. I especially love their head plumes, which we affectionately dubbed “head dongles”. It was a great start to this trail.

We continued on with our hike. It was a relaxing stroll through the Chihuahuan Desert, the trail marked with small signs that pointed to local flora. In October, there were no abundance of wildflowers to see and many of the cactus were starting to fade in color, but it was still a gorgeous walk. We saw rainbow cactus, barrel cactus, plenty of sotol (pretty much the symbol of the Chihuahuan Desert for us) and many other plants that I carelessly didn’t record. We also saw a small desert rabbit by itself, though it was hard to spot!

This hike provided a good warmup in preparation for our second hike in the park: the Aztec Cave Trail.

Aztec Cave Trail

Length: 1.2 miles, out & back
Elevation Gain: 419 ft
AllTrails Info

Before I get to the hike I have to mention another wildlife encounter we had along the way to the trailhead. We were driving down the road when Gina slowed down the rental car very suddenly. There was a tarantula in the middle of the road! I was amazed to see one in the wild; up until that point I had only ever seen them behind glass at a museum. They slowly drove around the spider and I was flabbergasted. “Don’t you want to stop and look at it?” I asked them. And then, as if suddenly realizing that Oh! We’ve never seen one in the wild before!, they drove the car back around so we could take a closer look. By that point the spider had made its way to the side of the road and into the brush. Still, a very cool encounter.

Eventually we made our way to the second trailhead of the day and parked our car. I had picked out this trail for several reasons: 1) though steep, the trail was decently short and 2) it had something cool to see at the end. We always pick trails based on a effort-to-payoff ratio, and this seemed to potentially have a great payoff for the effort.

We set off. Even from the base of the trail near the parking lot you could see Aztec Cave at the end. It seemed so small at first, but I knew from pictures I’d seen on AllTrails with people posing inside the cave that it was going to get a LOT bigger. Almost ten minutes into the trail we had another wildlife encounter; this time, a deer. We had only caught a glimpse of this type of deer in Guadalupe Mountains the day before, but this time we could very clearly see it. It was far away, but we could make out its huge ears spread out like wings on each side of its head. This deer looked so unlike the deer we have back at home and we dubbed it a “Donkey Deer” because of its color and large ears. Later, we found out that they’re called mule deer, so we weren’t too far off! But honestly, I think donkey deer is a more fun name.

The trail was steep. If I had to evaluate our hiking level, I’d put us at an intermediate level. We can do steep hikes, as long as it doesn’t involve too much climbing, and the maximum length we’d ever hike at once comfortably would be about 8 miles (10 if we hate ourselves). So for our intermediate level, this was steep, but doable. There were several sets of steps at particularly tough spots, but sometimes there were rocks you had to pull yourself up on. Gina was (and is) in much better shape than I so they were able to trudge on ahead while I had to take a couple of breaks. However, taking these breaks allowed me an opportunity to absorb my surroundings. From this elevation you could see El Paso down below in the distance. And all around you had the typical cactus and sotol, and the tall peaks of Franklin Mountains shaded us for most of the journey. It was beautiful and serene.

Soon enough, we made it to the top. There are actually two caves, but only one – the right one – was immediately accessible via the trail. We only visited this side, as getting to the other one would require some off-road scaling. Plus, I was pretty winded at this point.

But we had the entire cave to ourselves! Getting up early had rewarded us. And while the cave was not too particularly deep, it was TALL! We sat down on a nearby rock and ate some snacks in the cool shade of the cave.

And soon we had to do the trek back down. And not a moment too late; as we went down we saw a family with young kids and a trail runner with music playing come up towards us. We really had just barely missed the crowd. I can imagine that this urban park gets very noisy on a weekend. The hike down was much easier than the hike up as it was all downhill.

And that was the end of our day in Franklin Mountains State Park. On the way out of the park, we had one final wildlife encounter. This time, it was a roadrunner! Surprisingly, this was the only roadrunner we saw the entire 5-day trip. But it made for a lovely final goodbye to the park.

Final Thoughts

What was originally just “a stop on the road” ended up being quite the memorable visit. After we returned home, Gina ended up rating the Aztec Trail as their favorite trail of the trip! And I would agree that it was remarkable. I’m unlikely to find myself in the El Paso area ever again, but if I do, I wouldn’t mind revisiting this park.

Tips for Visiting

• Get to this park early (before 10am) if you want to beat crowds. Get there even earlier (shortly after sunrise) if you want to see birds!
• It’s in the desert with steep terrain, so I’d recommend lots of water and a hiking pole.
• Texas state parks are pay to enter, so you’ll need to secure a pass online beforehand or buy one at the visitor center.
• If you’re looking for a good eating spot near the park, we enjoyed Desert Oak Barbecue.

For more information on the park, visit the park website.