Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Hiking Date: October 26, 2023
Trails: Devil’s Hall Trail, Manzanita Spring Trail
Starting the Day
This park was the beginning of a 5-day long hiking trip in Texas and New Mexico. The purpose of this trip was to visit three national parks: Guadalupe Mountains, White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns. Admittedly, the national park I was most excited for was White Sands (which I think must be a shock to some national parks enthusiasts!). Guadalupe Mountains was planned as sort of a “we’re in the area so we might as well!” sort of stop. I had seen online before that a lot of people rank Guadalupe Mountains pretty low on their “Best National Parks” list, so I didn’t have very high expectations for the park.
With that in mind we set off for our first park of the whole trip, heading out from El Paso before the sun was even up. It was nearly a two-hour drive and we wanted to get there at sunrise. This ended up being a great decision. Slowly the rays of the sun peaked over the mountains in the distance, fanning across the sky. It was absolutely beautiful! The drive from El Paso was a straight road into the park, so we got to enjoy the rays grow brighter and longer the whole way there. I wish it could have recorded well on camera, but it was simply something you had to see in person.
Eventually we made our way to the visitor center, greeted by El Capitan on the way in. The sunrise had finally arrived, covering the mountains and surround plant-life in a pinkish hue. I couldn’t imagine a better start to the day. And so, we set out on our first of two trails in the park: Devil’s Hall Trail.
Devil’s Hall Trail
Length: 3.8 miles, out & back
Elevation Gain: 600 ft
AllTrails Info
This is a trail of two halves. The first half goes into the Pine Springs Canyon along a dirt path, steadily gaining elevation at a leisurely pace. Then the second half takes you down into a wash with lots of large boulders to scramble over and loose rocks to balance on. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but let’s just say this trail was a bit more than we bargained for.
So first things first, we started by hiking into the canyon. Just before the hike we read a plaque by the visitor’s center explaining that Guadalupe Mountains are a part of an ancient marine system. So basically, this whole area used to be underwater! What you’re looking at today is a fossilized reef structure. As a amateur geology enthusiast, this was incredibly cool to learn about. I think learning this fact made the hikes in this park a lot more exciting.
The hike into the canyon was just beautiful. This was our introduction to what we would see in the coming days in the Chihuahuan Desert. The most striking feature was that there were towering sotol plants everywhere! They stretched out all around us, climbing up the foothills of the mountain range. But of course, there were also cactus like the spindly tree cholla and fruit-bearing pricky pear (the latter, which I’ve since learned, makes a great gummy candy!).
I was so excited to be on my very first trail of our trip that I chatted away about my excitement to my hiking partner, Gina. Little did I know, my loud voice scared off a potential wildlife encounter! As we rounded a bend we saw a deer nearby through the brush, quickly moving away from us. I promptly shut my mouth, a little disappointed that I had scared away the deer. From the quick glances we could get, we could tell that the deer looked much different from the ones we have back home. I have to remember that I shouldn’t be so loud first thing in the morning. Fortunately for us, we would get a second chance at seeing this elusive deer the next day on a different hike.
As we hiked further into the trail, we came upon an unexpected surprise. Fall colors! It had not occurred to us at all that we would see any fall colors on this trip; we had picked the dates we did because it worked with our schedule and coincided with good weather for the parks we wanted to see. But as we hiked in, beautiful reds, yellows and oranges intermingled with greens, popping against the white stone of the wash.
And speaking of, we were now hiking through the wash. This ended up being a tough section of the hike for us. When I had first picked out trails for us to do on our trip, I thought I had read that the wash section was just a short part right before getting to Devil’s Hall. I figured we could easily do a tiny bit of scrambling at the end, no problem. Instead, it turns out the wash makes up half of the entire hiking trail. I have one bad knee, and Gina has two, which made the task of climbing over boulders and navigating loose gravel a bit more daunting. At the time it made for a mildly miserable hike, but looking back on it I don’t think it was so bad. I think what made it seem so bad at the time were a couple things: 1) it was a surprise to us how much hiking we had to do through these loose rocks and boulders, and 2) this was the first hike of the day in which we were slated to do at least three more hikes. Had we known ahead of time what to expect, and had this been the only hike of the day so that we could properly take our time, we probably would have felt a lot better about it. We joke now if we would ever do this hike again, and I think we’ve agreed that we could be convinced. I mean, reviews on AllTrails talk about literal toddlers making the hike, how hard could it have been??
Now that negativity is out of the way, I want to reemphasize that this hike was BEAUTIFUL. After we made it through the wash, we had finally come upon what I was so excited to see: the step-like rocks of Devil’s Hall. Or at least, the beginnings of it. The geology was such that it looked like someone had laid out stone bricks to form a treacherous staircase. At the top of the staircase laid a small pool of water, hidden in the cool shade, reflecting the warm light of the canyon beyond. It was stunning. We climbed up the staircase and around the pool, venturing just a little further in. Our map showed us that there was still a little more to go, but we felt like we saw what we wanted to see and had our snack there before turning around. I later learned that the staircase with the small pool was, in fact, NOT the Devil’s Hall that the trail was named for. That little bit of extra trail that we ended up skipping due to our impatience to finish up the hike was the little bit that went through the hallway. I only realized our mistake after we returned home and I watched a video of someone else doing the hike. A bit of a bummer that we missed it, but honestly, the staircase and pool were so amazing on their own that I don’t feel too torn up about it.
And so we made the hike back to our car, going back the way we came. I do want to note that to get into the wash, you had to descend a very steep section of the trail that is not marked very well. It was fine coming down, but when we were hiking back we struggled to find that spot. The only reason we found it at all was that other hikers came through and we were able to see where they came down. I hope someday they can put a signpost up or something to point hikers in the right direction.
With that adventure wrapped up we were off to a much easier, but still beautiful, hike within Guadalupe Mountains.
Manzanita Spring Trail
Length: 0.5 miles, out & back
Elevation Gain: 13 ft
AllTrails Info
Thank goodness we got our hardest hike of the entire trip out of the way first thing, because every hike that came after it was a breeze in comparison. Although, this hike in particular was very, very easy, no comparison necessary! I wanted to do at least one more trail in Guadalupe Mountains before moving on, and this was an obvious choice. We drove over to the Frijole Ranch trailhead and set out.
There were many signs with information about the Frijole Ranch, but things like that (what I would call “human history”) is not as interesting to me as all the natural history. However, if you were into that sort of thing, it seemed like a great spot to learn more about the area. For us, we headed straight for the trail. The first thing we saw out in the distance was a pointed mound. It was very notable as much of the land surrounding it was relatively flat. I’ve now come to learn that this mound is named “Nipple Hill” (a cousin to the Grand Tetons, perhaps?). Regardless, it made for a great vista out in front of us.
The short, flat trail took us out and around a small spring a short distance away. As we approached, the breeze blew through the tall grass surrounding the water. It made for quite the laid-back hike. And lucky for us, we spotted a lizard friend sunning on a nearby rock. He patiently waited for us to snap a couple of photos before scurrying off. All in all we only spent maybe 20 minutes on this trail, but it was a worthwhile stop.
And that concluded our time in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I do feel like we missed out a little bit by not climbing the eight-mile Guadalupe Peak Trail that would have taken us to the highest point in Texas (not to mention it’s the namesake of the park), but that long of a hike was a little more than what we wanted to do when this park wasn’t the main focus of our trip. Plus, we both tend to prefer experiencing more, littler adventures than one big trail. So it still was an excellent trip.
Final Thoughts
I was surprised at how much I liked this park. Even though many people would rank this park low on their national parks list, I was still blown away by what I got to see. I think it just goes to show that even though it may not be the most jaw-dropping national park, it is still striking and more awe-inspiring than most of your local parks (at least for us on the east coast). It’s a national park for a reason! I hope one day I can come back, because I do feel like there is more to see here.
Tips for Visiting
- This park is right on the edge of a timezone change, so make sure you take that into account when planning your trip.
- As a desert park with steep terrain, water and hiking poles are a must.
- There is a fee to enter, check the park website for the amount.
- If you’re leaving the park back to El Paso, check out the Salt Flats on the side of the road. It’s fenced off, but you get to see a good view of the flats with the mountains behind it.
For more information on the park, visit the park website.
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