Hiking Guadalupe Peak: Highest Point in Texas
Guadalupe Peak, Texas, 8,751 feet
Distance: 9 miles (round trip)
Feet: 2,982 feet of climbing
Duration: 3 hours 11 minutes
Difficulty: 4/10
Nothing to get your blood pumping for a hike like some good old doubters. Rolling into Guadalupe we were a bit late in the day. Be mindful if you do this hike, you need to know which side of the time zone marker you are on. New Mexico and El Paso are in Mountain Time while the rest of Texas, and Guadalupe, are Central Time. This may not make much of a difference to you if you are well prepared and are on time — we were neither.
We visited Carlsbad Caverns beforehand, which was cool. I don’t know if it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had — but would be cool if you were into moving slow. We were basically rushing to get through so that we would make it to Guadalupe in time. We lost an hour leaving NM heading into Guadalupe and arrived at 3pm.
A park ranger was awaiting at the entrance of Guadalupe stopping each vehicle. The car in front of us hosted a full ten minute chat before we got our chance. A very polite park ranger stopped us and asked us where we were headed. I knew where this was going.
I made him aware that we were planning to hike to the top, to which he interjected, “Yeah, so we call that an all day hike. Plan for six hours on that one. The sun starts to go down at 6pm, so you may want to try a shorter, 3 or 4 mile hike today.”
Not really seeing any point in arguing (or getting into a 10 minutes chat about possible trails), we agreed that made sense and he let us through. We flew 1,600 miles and had about 15 hours until we flew back home. We were making it to the top of that mountain one way or another, buddy.
We were on a mission from God.
We decided for speed we would go light — one water bottle each and no packs. The weather wasn’t hot; it was actually just perfectly between hot in the sun and cool in the shade. Water wasn’t a huge factor for us because it was generally cool in March, but I imagine come summer it would be rough.
We dashed through the first part which as others have stated is the hardest, most steep part. Lo and behold who do we bump into at 3:30, another park ranger.
“Where you guys headed today?”
We’re on a trail leading to the top of the mountain, where do you think?
“We are headed to the top.”
“Okay, well we call that a 6 hour hike and you have about 2 and half hours until the sun sets. And as you guys don’t have any packs, you may just want to be careful.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t need to rescue us.”
With that double dose of motivation, we set back off at a stomp.
The trail itself is pretty easygoing, almost exclusively small gravel. There are some areas that have some rocks to maneuver around, but that is likely less than 20% of your overall travel time. The hike has you feeling it in your legs, but we both had a harder time with our cardio than our strength. It just depends how fast you want to go. We were making good enough time that one party we passed on the way down said, “You guys making a speed run at it?”
Hell yeah we are, glad you heard about us.
The last little bit was a little more rocky, but it’s hardly a scramble — more like big rocks. Before I knew it, we hit the top and saw a giant metal cone signifying the top. I hadn’t seen one like it at any highpoint yet and to be honest was a little disappointed I didn’t get a Geodetic Survey Marker I have grown accustomed to. We also couldn’t find a highpoint sign out sheet as have been common at most high points — maybe we missed it.
We didn’t hang out around the high point long, attempting to beat the sun. We dashed back down the mountain, hoping we would find the ranger so dismissive of our pace. We didn’t, but we passed 5 or 10 other groups on our way solidifying that rescue wouldn’t be needed for US.
We finished out just over 3 hours, not needing to rest on the way down. It was perfectly light at 6pm. The hike overall was quiet steady as far as gain, but in my opinion this made it a bit easier. I would imagine most people who are active could knock this out quite easily, but it won’t be easy for person doesn’t move much. It was a fun hike, and likely based on the sheer size of Texas the best in a long ways, but wasn’t as cool as I had hoped. If you’re looking for a truly wild place and a bit more difficulty, go to Boundary in Nevada.
We whipped back the 1:45 to El Paso and hit our hotel just as it got dark. A few tacos and a margarita later and my head was asleep as soon as it hit the pillow. Adios, Texas!
