12/23/02

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      highpointersclub
      Participant
      [Ed: Imported from Americas Roof ‘Summit Trip Reports’ forum]
      [By: mark on January 6 2003 at 11:34 PM]

      …After visiting Houston, getting my hubcaps stolen in San Antonio (i will now surely remember the %@#! Alamo), getting a speeding ticket in Loving, New Mexico (and all this time i’ve been paying a therapist big bucks to tell me i go too fast in loving), i spent 12/22 seeing Carlsbad Caverns. Pretty amazing. The 2 self-guided trails are both wonderous. The King’s Palace tour was a little less wonderous, and i think i would recommend planning ahead and reserving one of the more “natural” cave tours instead of King’s Palace.

      In the pre-dawn of 12/23 i drove to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The area had received about 2 inches of fresh snow overnight. The trail up to the peak was a little steep, but very easy. Snow depths reached about 4 inches by the top, there were some very light flurries along the way, temps were in the 20s and 30s, and winds were uncharacteristically moderate. Fog limited visibility, but El Capitan was spectacularily eerie enshrouded in the fog. Seeing all the juniper and cactus coated with new snow was breathtaking. I wish i were a good photographer. I resolved to buy a good lightweight tracks-and-scat guide before my next trip. There were so many tracks in the snow, and other than deer and rabbit, i’m just not sure what they were. None were big enough to be mountain lion or bear, i’m 99% sure. Probably fox or coyote or bobcat…? I don’t remember how long it took me to get to the top…3 hours or something like that. I was first up, and 4 others came behind me that day. HP #6! I camped at Pine Springs. It was cold. upper teens. I had all the right equipment except a winter tent. So i was warm in my bag with my family of water bottles and fuel canisters, but the wind just seeped through my 3 season tent. With this in mind, i ditched my backpacking plans for 12/24-25 (2000 ft. colder and windier…no thanks), and instead stayed camped at Pine Springs. I dayhiked McKittrick Canyon, part of the Tejas trail, and the Foothills trail. Really neat country. By the way, this whisper-light MSR stove i bought surprised me with how fast it heated things up…

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