McKittrick Canyon - Nov 2005

McKittrick Canyon is located in Texas in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It is near the New Mexico border and about 100 miles east of El Paso.

It's claim to fame is that it is home to the highest point in Texas. At 8,749', Guadalupe Peak is impressive as is nearby El Capitan at 8,085'. Who said Texas doesn't have mountains! That said, the mountains were not the reason we ventured to this park - rather it was the report of amazing fall colors in McKittrick Canyon. We had originally planned to tour the Ozarks this autumn, but the reports seemed to indicate that it wasn't going to be a stellar year for fall foliage, so we opted to change our travel plans and head for San Antonio (where we're landing for the holidays) and Guadalupe Park seemed like a good substitute that was also a convenient stop on our way there.

The Pine Springs campground was nothing more than a parking lot with stripes painted on it to delineate the rv spots. There were no hookups and only one wimpy water spigot to fill our water tank. However, the views were great and we were lucky that there were only a few other campers there, so we were able to snag a site with a little tree and some grass. It was odd to awake each morning and see deer standing on the asphalt grazing on our grass patch.

On Wednesday we tackled the trek into the canyon and all I can say is "ouch ouch ouch -- my aching feet!" We hiked almost 7 miles on a very rocky trail. The trail base was rounded rocks of varying sizes -- most about the size of golf balls. It was the worst stuff to walk on -- hard and ankle twisting. Yowser -- my feet were bruised all the way up to my knees. The ranger called the trail base "cobble", but we thought a more appropriate term would have been "hobble!"

We began our hike about a mile away from the canyon and we had to cover some pretty boring terrain -- mostly cactus and yucca and very little shade. About 1.5 miles into the hike, we started walking alongside a dry stream bed that eventually had a tiny bit of water in it. As we got further up the canyon, the stream got bigger and a couple of times we had to do some rock hopping to cross over the water.

Two miles into the hike, a few colorful trees began to speckle the landscape. The occasional flame-red maples were a startling contrast to the still green oaks and evergreen junipers. We were also treated to the sight of several very large Madrone trees loaded with red berries. There were also a few pines sprinkled in to remind us we were still in the mountains.

Once we made our way into the heart of the canyon the views were exquisite. The maples were stunning with their flaming red and orange leaves and the oaks were aglow in a golden shimmer. The weather was perfect providing us with big blue skies and warm sunshine.

We wound our way through an assortment of colorful scenes - sometimes in brilliant sunshine and sometimes in shady groves. Each bend in the trail rewarded us with another sublime setting and encouraged us to continue on even though our aching feet were warning us to turn around.


At times, we were totally surrounded in a cocoon of autumn hues. There were overhanging branches above us, trees on both sides and the ground was littered with colorful leaves. It was like walking through a tunnel of color.

After a refreshing pause to rest our feet and enjoy a picnic lunch, we decided it was time to head back. On the last leg of our hike, I'm sure we looked like a couple of stable horses heading for the barn -- heads down, staring at our feet with nothing on our minds except getting back to the car. We laughed and said that on the Ibuprofin scale of 1 to 4, this was a 3! I took my dose with dinner and hoped that I'd be able to get out of bed the next morning.