Guadalupe Mountains National Park landscape · Landscape in Guadalupe Mountains National Park
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Landscape in Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Landscape in Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Upon approaching Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the mountains and surrounding desert flats appear very rugged and desolate. There are no trees visible- only boulders, cacti, and a few hardy shrubs. Once you hike up into the mountains, you will find an extremely different environment with temperate and alpine forests, streams, grassy meadows, and a wide variety of plants and animals. Views of the mountains are stunning from the parking lots, but by far the best views are to be had atop the mountains, with views of over a hundred miles common.
The Guadalupe Mountains, or "Guads" in local parlance, are formed of limestone laid down in a vast, prehistoric reef and subsequently fossilized. The most prominent summit is El Capitan (no connection to the feature of the same name in Yosemite National Park, but similarly imposing) at the southern end of the range; nearby Guadalupe Peak is higher (the highest mountain in Texas), but less conspicuous. The limestone composition of the Guads creates challenges for the hiker, as the rock tends to break into chunks that are rapidly worn smooth and behave like ball bearings underfoot. This is a good park in which to wear sturdy hiking boots when you're on the trails. The Guads continue north into New Mexico and contain a great number of caves, including the famous Carlsbad Caverns; Guadalupe Mountains National Park contains a few of these caves, but in general they're smaller and less spectacular than the ones on the New Mexico side of the state line, and in any event are not generally open to the public.
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Guadalupe Mountains National Park Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.