Another great national park with lots of hiking opportunities and endless scenery. One of the hiking trails started out as an interpretive trail, large, wide, paved, signs and quickly turned into an uphill overgrown thicket of brush. My husband, luckily, just missed stepping on a Black-tailed Rattlesnake eating a rodent right on the overgrown trail. The snake quickly, as quick as he could, dropped the rodent and begin rattling like crazy. Luckily (ha,ha), the trail was so overgrown that we could not see him but we could hear him. I ran back up the trail and now the snake was between my husband and I. This quickly turned into a battle of who was going to join the other person and having to walk through thick brush and risk getting a bite. I was screaming, “I will take the bite” as my husband was screaming, “Are you insane?”. My thoughts were if I get the bite then my husband can carry be back down the mountain whereas I was unsure if I could carry him down the mountain. There was no one around for miles and we were over 10 miles from the Visitors Center and several hours to El Paso. I f anyone had overheard they would have known we were crazy. Suffice it to say, we DID make it. Be careful of those overgrown trails that “APPEAR” to be maintained.
Campground: Pine Springs Campground
Location: Guadalupe Mountains National Park – Off US Hwy 62 and 180
Site: 31
Cost: $25
Services: Dry camp
Comments: Basically a parking lot but with fantastic scenery.
Link to Map in “Where We’ve Been”
Leave a Reply