Texas

When in Texas recently we spent a day at Garner State Park, hiking and bird watching. Garner is in the hill country west of San Antonio, an area in which we spent many happy hours with our family when they were growing up and we lived in Houston.

After leaving Canyonlands and Utah, we drove to the Rio Frio in the hill country of Texas, west of San Antonio, and spent a day at Camp Riverview and Garner State Park. Many years ago when our children were small we camped almost every summer at Camp Riverview. The river there is clear, shallow and flows over stone, making it ideal for swimming and tubing. The river was very low this year but it was nice to see a place that brought back many memories.

El Capitan is one of the peaks in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

We are home again as of 5:00 am today and it is good to be back. We drove all day yesterday and through the night from Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona with only brief stops for petrol, food and one short hike to Horseshoe Bend in northern Arizona near the town of Page. We drove over 5000 miles (8100 km), visited six national parks or monuments and several other locations besides, hiked around 60 miles (97 km) of trails, biked 20 miles (32 km) in San Antonio, Texas, and kayaked 10 miles (16 km) in Big Bend National Park. This photo was taken in Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the Texas-New Mexico border and is a photo of the most dramatic, though not the highest of the peaks, El Capitan, visible for many miles from the surrounding deserts. It is 8085 feet (2464 meters). We spent two days in the park camping and hiking. When we arrived El Capitan was hidden in the clouds but appeared the second day in all its dramatic beauty. We had only a short stop on our way to Grand Canyon, but now want to go back againand do more hiking. The Guadalupe Mountains extend into New Mexico just south of Carlsbad Caverns and both can easily be visited at the same time, though hiking the park, a necessity, requires more time. They are considered to be the remains of an ancient reef as are other nearby areas.

This is El Capitan from the highway that winds up into the mountains and into New Mexico. We had planned to climb the peak behind it, Guadalupe Peak, but the weather forced us to change our plans and we were not able to do that hike.

This was El Capitan, the most prominent peak in the Guadalupe Mountains, at sunrise. The Guadalupe Mountains are on the Texas and New Mexico border.

The Guadulupe Mountains are in Texas but lie on the border of Texas and New Mexico. This is El Capitan, not the highest but the most prominent of the peaks. When we first saw it the peak was covered in clouds but the weather cleared the next couple days and we were able to get some better photos.

McKittrick Canyon is in Guadalupe Mountains National Park on the Texas-New Mexico border. We hiked the canyon while there in February of 2020.

This was the trail through Mckittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park when we hiked there in 2020.