Most Beautiful Spot In Texas

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I headed south today, into Texas.

Unbelievably, the land gets even drier and turns back to desert.

The Guadalupe Mountains near the road slowly rise to form a cluster of high angular peaks.

They end at the El Capitan, a navigation landmark for early settlers.

The surrounding land is all deserts, creating another landscape straight from the myth of the Wild West.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park protects the highest part of the range, which is so far west many people don’t even know it’s in Texas.





The mountains have smoggy views for such an isolated area.

A signboard at the visitors’ center gives the reason.

The park sits downstream of an air current that blows across southern California.

That current takes the polluted air over the Los Angeles basin and carries it all the way to the park.

During summer, this remote park can have the worst air quality of any park in the west.

McKittrick Canyon

I had time for a single hike, so I went to McKittrick Canyon.

Guidebooks call it “the most beautiful spot in Texas”.

Texans have a well-known propensity to brag, so I wasn’t sure how much weight to give that description.

Now that I’ve seen the reality, it’s quite accurate.





Reaching the canyon requires pain.

The land was originally owned by Wallace Pratt, who used it as a vacation retreat.

When he donated it to the park in 1960, the range land between the canyon and road was not included.

Park managers had to negotiate an easement, and one of the conditions is that the access road is only open certain hours.

I found this even more annoying than the limited hours in Carlsbad Cavern (see Most Beautiful Spot In Texas).

It was worth it for the beautiful canyon.





The road ends next to a wide ravine surrounded by desert hills.

The trail drops down the side of the ravine to the wide wash.

Looking upstream, white limestone peaks rise to form the canyon proper.

The trail heads for them along the dry wash, passing through desert scrub.

A curious sight, two electric wires, follows the path of the trail.

Even though it’s early November, the hike is still hot and exposed.





Past the initial hills, the ravine becomes a canyon in the California sense, a tall narrow V shaped ravine (see Granite Majesty).

The vegetation changes, with juniper and pines appearing along the floor.

While certainly nice, it’s not anywhere near what I had been promised.

I then turned the first corner, and saw it.

The view shows the canyon stretching through the distance between pine covered peaks, becoming deeper and narrower.

It’s beautiful.

In the empty deserts of west Texas, this place is an oasis.





Further along, the vegetation becomes even more lush.

Cottonwood and pine trees now crowd the canyon floor.

During the last ice age, plants from much further north migrated to the Guadalupe Mountains.

The colder air at high elevations, shade, and relatively reliable water provided conditions for them to thrive even after the glaciers retreated.

The mountains now contain an environment unknown in the rest of Texas, including many endangered plants.





The trail crossed the wash again, and this time it had water in it.

The stream was shallow and spread out, flowing over limestone ledges.

Green algae covered much of the bottom.

A sign warned to stay on the trail; the creek forms a rare perennial water source which harbors many rare species.





As the hike continued, the canyon became deeper and narrower.

Now, the lower slopes of the mountains contain pine trees, with bare vertical limestone cliffs above.

The trees change again, to species with red and orange leaves.

The depths of McKittrick canyon hold oak, maple, and other tree species normally only found much farther north.

Given the time of year, the leaves were in full foliage.

The scene can’t compare to the glorious forests of Colorado (see Mountain Majesty), but it was certainly pretty.

Soon these colorful trees filled the canyon, with white peaks above.





The trail finally reaches a place where the canyon splits.

A big picnic area sits on the left across from an old stone wall on the right.

Big trees with orange and red leaves surround the junction, making it seem like somewhere in New England, not Texas.

One branch of the trail passes through a gap in the wall to another picnic area next to three stone buildings.

These are the vacation home Wallace Pratt built in 1931.

Looking in the windows shows simple rooms with rough rock walls.

Pratt did not rough it though; the electric wires seen earlier end here.





The Pratt Cabin makes a fine turn around point, but I wanted to see more.

I pushed further up the main trail, through a world of red and orange trees.

White limestone cliffs tower above.

Wow, this place is beautiful.

Eventually, the foliage thins out a bit with yellow cottonwood trees mixing in.

The trail also passes the occasional prickly pear cactus, looking really out of place.





Eventually, the trail forks again.

The left branch drops toward the creek over a series of narrow ledges.

Rock scrambling becomes necessary to follow it.

It ends at a flat area next to the creek.

A shallow cave exists in the hillside here, the Grotto.

Since all the rock is limestone, it’s filled with stalactites.

The flat area has a few historic picnic tables, built by the same crew as Pratt Cabin, which are made entirely out of rock slabs.





Thanks to the limited access hours, I knew heading in exactly what time I would need to head back out.

As much as I’d like to go further, the Grotto is the limit of what I can see.

The nice thing about McKittrick Canyon is that it’s just as pretty heading back as getting here, and nearly as flat.

Dense northern forest turns into high desert forest and then desert scrub.

At the end I was back on open range.

Pinery Station

The Guadalupe Mountains contain historic as well as scenic treasures.

The main road follows the route of a historic trading route, the Butterfield Stage Route to California.

It was the slow mail route the Pony Express was created to replace (see Pioneer Trails).

Like the Pony Express, the Butterfield Stage set up way stations to provide provisions and fresh horses.

Only a handful of those stations survive, and the park contains one of them, the Pinery Station.

A path goes through the site, basically a foundation and the remains of stone walls.

A signboard explains their role in western history.





I drove out of the park heading south.

The road passes the El Capitan and then climbs over a pass, Guadalupe Pass.

Afterwards, it drops into a valley.

That quickly ends to reveal a flat desert that appears endless.

I’ve been in some empty places on this trip, but this place is emptier still.

The Llano Estacado is as flat as this, but at least it had vegetation; this desert doesn’t even have that.





The road now heads south ramrod straight with no sign of civilization except for the pavement itself.

No cattle, no fences, no other cars, not even telephone poles.

This is the landscape that inspired an apocryphal story among long distance drivers; one about a truck driver that fell asleep behind the wheel out here and woke up an hour later still on the highway.





In the hour it took me to reach the next town, the only change was the periodic dips where the highway crosses washes.

Each one has a flood warning, plus a gauge to show the depth of the water.

Every single one was bone dry.

At this point, residents would welcome any moisture, from drippy fog to a deluge.

West Texas has not seen rain in over a year, the most severe drought in US history since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.





I had dinner when I reached the interstate at Van Horn.

I ate it at another diner attached to a truck stop, a glorious old eatery where every regular knows ever other, things seem to never change, and people like it that way.

Meat made up a good portion of the menu.

I heard my first instance of Texas drawl tonight too.





After dinner, I pushed on southeast.

Night had fallen by this point, so I didn’t see much of anything.

Like before, the highway was long and profoundly empty.

Only one strange thing broke up the monotony.

Close to the next town, Marfa, I saw a small building in the distance lit up with a surreal yellow glow.

Passing by it, things became truly weird.

The building looked exactly like the display counter of a high-end accessories boutique behind glass.

It had shelves filled with shoes and handbags.

Somehow, part of an expensive mall store got teleported to the emptiness of West Texas.

This is bizarre, although a good preparation for what supposedly exists in the town itself.





I wanted to stay in Marfa tonight, because I’m going there tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the town has little accommodation, and what it does have is surprisingly expensive for somewhere so remote.

I ultimately drove to the next town over, Alpine, which is much larger and has a wider range of hotels.

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Photos

McKittrick Canyon
The most beautiful spot on Texas, deep within the Guadalupe Mountains

Canyon entrance
The trail enters McKittrick Canyon through desert scrub

McKittrick foliage
Incredible foliage along the McKittrick Canyon trail

Pratt Entrance
The entrance to the Pratt vacation complex

Pratt Cabin
Wallace Pratt's former vacation house

McKittrick Canyon
More canyon beauty on the way to the Grotto

The Grotto
Grotto cave in McKittrick Canyon

The Pinery
Remains of the Pinery Station on the Butterfield Stage route

Sunset
El Capitan framed by a west Texas sunset