Seeking lower temperatures, we again headed for higher ground. Our next stop was Guadalupe Mountains National Park, a relatively small and unknown national park. It is located in northwest Texas, just south of the New Mexico border.
We arrived at the park around lunch time, and checked into its "campground." The campground consisted of a blacktop parking lot with lines, a few scattered picnic tables, no hookups, and a restroom. Except for the fact that the heat was intensified by the blacktop, we really didn't mind the lack of amenities. The views of the mountains were gorgeous, the location next door to the visitor's center was very convenient, and we had the place completely to ourselves. There wasn't another RV in the whole place. There were a few tenters, but they had campsites far enough away from the RV's that we felt completely alone.
We spent the afternoon hiking the beautiful Smith Spring trail and touring the interesting Frijole Ranch Museum which did a good job of depicting the life of a frontier rancher in this desolate mountain area. Unfortunately, we both forgot our cameras, so I can't share any pictures with you.
After a simple supper in our RV, we took SiSi for a walk down the only trail on which she was allowed: the Pinery Trail, which led to the ruins of a Butterfield Stagecoach station called The Pinery. A forerunner of the pony express and the transcontinental railroad, the Butterfield Overland Mail Coach was the first successful attempt to link east and west with a reliable transportation and communication system. Its route was from St Louis to San Francisco. The stages carried passengers and mail, traveling an average of five miles per hour, twenty-four hours a day. The stages would stop approximately every 20 miles to change horses, and perhaps, get a bite to eat. The Pinery stop was located at the 5,534 ft Guadalupe pass, and was the highest stop on the route. It only operated for 11 months, though, because the Butterfield Stage's route was changed to a new route that took it nearer to Forts Davis and Stockton. The threat of attacks by the Apache Indians necessitated changing the route to one that was closer to the chain of military forts along the southern military road to El Paso.
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| The Pinery stage stop |
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| One of the views from our evening walk on the Pinery trail |
We spent just one night at Guadalupe and moved on the next day.
We drove up to. that park. The top was fogged in so we didn't see much more than the visitor center. We lived in TX and didn't know the park existed or that there was a mountain that high in TX
ReplyDeleteIt didn't "feel" much like Texas...more like New Mexico, I guess.
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