Info/Tips
There is no drive through of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the park is mostly for hiking. It has several districts of the park and no easy access to some of them. Pine Springs and McKittrick Canyon are more accessible. Dog Canyon is about 2 hours drive away (access is from New Mexico). Dell City is about 45 mins away on the west side of the park.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is in Mountain timezone but very close to Central timezone so depending on which cell phone tower the phone is connected to it may show the wrong time. During our visits we noticed that the phone time was switching between mountain and central time.
There is no hotel close to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, we stayed at whites city close to Carlsbad Cavern National Park (about 50 miles north of Guadalupe).
There is no gas station close by (Other than Whites city 50 miles north, the closet gas is about 80 miles south of the park in Van Horn, TX)
Things to do
McKittrick Canyon
We stopped by McKittrick Canyon visitor center the first afternoon and planned on doing a short hike, the ranger recommended the natural trail (0.9 miles loop) or the canyon hike to Pratt Cabin (about 5 miles round trip). We picked the Pratt Cabin trail. There are some foliage color on the canyon trail but to be honest this is our least favorite hikes on this trip. The saving grace was seeing a Tarantula spider on the trail.
Devil’s Hall Trail
Devil’s Hall Trail is 4 miles round trip. It is now rated as streneous and requires rock scrambling for some part of the trail. This is a fun trail and beautiful hike. Kids enjoyed this trail a lot.
El Capitan Lookout
El Capitan lookout is outside of the National Park on highway 62, it has a great view of El Capitan.
Return to New Mexico and Texas 8 Days Itinerary
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