Carlsbad, Guadalupe Mountains and White Sands (Oct 2021)

Photo Album for the trip

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The Whale's Mouth

Last May when we were planning our Texas road trip initially we had thought we would add El Paso and Lower New Mexico to the trip.  But with the trip already at 2500 miles, adding New Mexico was just a bit toooo far to be reasonable on a trip that was already plenty long.  And thus this trip was born. 

The plan was a quick flight to El Paso, hit up Carlsbad Cavern, Guadelupe Mountains National Park and one of the newer parks in the system White Sands National Park (though a long time National Monument). One day per park, probably not enough but let’s see how it goes.  But this time Rebe’s sister (Yeli) and aunt (Aimel) decided they would join us, we threw them invites just as a courtesy but didn’t really think they would join us for the random quick adventure but they immediately bought flights after we did and the rest is written below. 

Most Americans know about border check points, the place where Customs and Immigration check your papers when driving in the US from Mexico or Canada.  But most Americans don't know that there are secondary checkpoints further up the road just in case someone sneaks over the border. Rebe and I first experienced one of these on long weekend trip on the way back north from South Padre Island, Texas. It's pretty low key, sometimes they ask for ID sometimes they don't and just kind of looking at who's coming by, you know... racial profiling at its best. Fast forward to today, Rebe and I were about 45 minutes ahead of Aimel and Yeli and we had just gone through the secondary checkpoint.  Rebe said, "let's call them and let them know," I was like, "Nah, it'll be funnier if we don't tell them."  Sure enough they roll up potentially thinking they were about to enter Mexico, they soon text us asking why didn't we tell them!! 😂

We had a late flight into El Paso and after a 2 hour drive through the night we arrived at our motel in White City, New Mexico.  Whites City is nothing more than a motel, a general store and a gas station.  The one restaurant in town had closed and the other hotel-like place looked abandoned too.  It’ll do for a place to sleep, plus is was clean and cheap.  Granted they had signs in the lobby stating that the Wifi, the TV, and the phones were all not working…  TV was working but it looked like someone hadn’t adjusted the rabbit ears in a while. 

Carlsbad Cavern

Since we got in at 11pm and Yeli and Aimel got in at midnight, we thought a late start would be good so we could catch up on sleep, easy morning since Carlsbad Cavern isn’t that big of a park we could take it easy on day 1. 

We had reservations for the self-guided tour at 930am, the reservation was a new thing due to COVID though I’m not sure it is needed at this time of year since the park is no where near operating at capacity.   After our lackluster breakfast of cereal and muffins provided by the motel we were off to the park.  Whites City and Carlsbad are in the Chichauhan desert and while the desert has its own type of beauty there is literally nothing out in this area of the country. Driving up to the the Visitor’s Center, there’s really nothing to see and I mean nothing.  Just some rolling hills and then atop this hill are some buildings, you would never imagine this was a national park. 

There are two ways to experience the main attraction at the Carlsbad Cavern, you can take the elevator into the cave or you can ‘hike down to the “Big Room” of the cave.’ We thought that the ‘hike down’ was literally a long hike to the cave entrance but what the ‘hike down’ really was was walking 0.25 mile to the cave entrance and then literally trekking down through the cave system to where the elevator lands. The 1.0 mile hike through the cave was simply one of the most amazing walks of my life, Carlsbad might not be the biggest or the longest cave but it just might be the most decorated.

I can’t remember all the details of what was was in these pics, but here are some highlights

The Big Room

Shop and cafeteria (yes, in the cave)

After eating our turkey sandwich lunch in the cave cafeteria, yes and there is even a legit bathroom down there too, we came out to walk down to another entrance to the cave and completed a short nature hike.  The nature hike was a quick walk through the desert but nothing really to look at other than big grasshoppers and interesting plants. 

Chihuahuan desert

At this point we had seen it all really since the park was not doing the other ranger guided tours due to COVID. We decided to drive to another section of the park to see where the park’s water source comes from.  It comes from Rattlesnake Spring, very uninteresting but I guess cool too see.  Forgot to mention our ice cream stop, shout out to Aimel for not finishing hers so the rest of us had extra ;-). 

Rattlesnake Spring

We ended the evening at the Bat Program which is held at the cave entrance we had walked through earlier in the day. Every night, thousands of Brazilian Freetail Bats fly out of the cave to start the night of hunting.  The park asks for all the visitors who see the bats turn off all electronics (no pics or noises) as to not disturb the bats and keep the area as natural as possible so the bats continue to feel safe living in the cave. 

After the Bat Program we stayed around for a few minutes to hang with the ranger and he said that tonight did not look like a normal night flight.  The bats were much more concentrated when coming out of the cave and they were making a beeline to Mexico or the southern direction. Seems like we saw a migration flight! VERY RARE!

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

We grabbed our cereal and muffin from the hotel lobby and headed straight for the park after leaving the parking lot at 745am.  The plan was to get in early so we could maximize our time the park and try to do as much as we could in one day.  It is a good size park with a few areas but since we only had one day we were going to go hard (as reasonably possible).

We started the day at McKittrick Canyon, a well hiked area with a trail that goes on for miles but we were only going to do the first couple of miles of the trail.  This led us to the Grotto, where there was a sole mule deer just hanging out. The trail was really flat, on loose gravel rocks, and well laid out. At the Grotto there were 4-5 picnic tables to enjoy your lunch.  The trail continues up into the mountains but we didn’t have time to do all that today. 

View from the trail in McKittrick Canyon

Another view from the trail in McKittrick Canyon

The Grotto

Mule Deer visit while at the Grotto

From there we were itching for lunch but we needed to get over to the Visitor’s Center to get our knickknacks because I figured if we did another long hike we might have been gone too long and then the Visitor’s Center would be closed and we’d be S.O.L. 

I've started collecting postcards from all the National Parks I've been to

We then drove over to Frijoles Ranch to make lunch and discuss plans for the afternoon hike.  We had two choices Smith Springs Trail from the Frijoles Ranch area or the Devil’s Hall Trail which trailhead is back over near the Visitor’s Center.  After a discussion we settled on Devil’s Hall since it would take us to a different area and would be slightly different from what we did in the morning. 

On the trail towards Devil's Hall

Climbing over the rocks in the river bed

More Views along the trail

The Devil’s Hall trail starts at the main trailhead with couple of the other big hikes but after a mile it drops down into a dry river bed, which is not always dry because last summer the rains kicked up some of the boulders and made the hike a bit harder. After the easy first mile we were constantly scrambling over boulders trying to find the easiest path to the hallway.  The ranger at the trailhead described some stairs that were before the hall, she said something about them being shallow… you know when someone describes something to you and you create this image in your head, but then you get there and the description fits but it’s no where near what you had imagined. 

Getting up and around the "stairs"

The "Stairs"

We eventually made it but we were a little battered, Yeli a little more than the rest of us due to her slip.  Don’t worry, she’s a trooper and was fine. 

Devil's Hall

Devil's Hall

We made it back to the trailhead in good time with some good light left in the sky so on our way out from Guadalupe and I finally got to see the signature mountains but this time in daylight. 

El Capitan of the Guadalupe Mountains

The Crew

We stopped in El Paso for dinner at Andale Mexican restaurant before heading up to White Sands (and through another boarder checkpoint) for our final full day. 

White Sands National Park 

White Sand at...well White Sands 

The park opened at 7 but we were pretty pooped from the day before, or at least I think the ladies were (the Matt-imal doesn’t fade after a tough day) so we thought we’d take it a little easy for the morning, or so we thought. 

Left the hotel at 8 and headed to the park to see what White Sands was all about (besides the obvious White Sand). First stop was a visit to the Interdune Boardwalk, this was just a simple boardwalk out into the dunes with a couple of signs to tell you about the dunes, this allowed us to kill 20 minutes before the Visitor’s Center opened.

We got back to the Visitor’s Center and got our souvenirs but also stopped by the gift shop because one of the things to do at White Sands is to buy a sled and do your best to slide down a dune.  And with the sled in hand it was now time to find a place to sled.  The Visitor’s Center is outside the gate to the park, so we had to show our park pass to the attendant again but this time we asked where’s the best place to sled.  The ranger told us, “Not into the road, not into the vegetation and not near the boardwalk..”  “Um, thanks but where’s the best place?” we asked.  Can you believe he had the nerve to repeat himself?  Guess we were on our own in figuring out where to go, so that’s what we did as we drove around trying to scope out a spot.  He did mention that the bigger dunes were at the end of the road so that would be a good starting place. 

We found a spot at the West Filming Area (at least that’s what we think it was, as you can imagine all the dunes look the same) and got to it. 

Rebe sledding curtesy of Aimel

Having conquered this dune, even shared it with a kid who couldn’t get his sled to work, we looked for something bigger and steeper to conquer.  I pointed in the general direction of another giant mound and off we went to see what else we could do.  I made a note on my phone with the gps to note where we parked because once you can’t see your car it is VERY easy to get turned around and lose your bearings.  As we were walking to our next adventure we ran into a lady who was lost and she asked where the parking lot was…granted we knew where our lot was but not sure if our lot was the one she was looking for.  Hopefully she’s not still out there.

With the 2nd dune now under our belt we still had time to hit up a few more short trails before Aimel had to head to the airport.  First we hiked the Dune Life Nature Trail which had signs explaining all the animal life in and around the dunes.  Aimel and Yeli started following footprints and left the trail so we had to yell at them to get them back on course.

The Lost Duo

Entrance into the Dune Life Trail

The next trail was the Playa Trail, which I don’t know what it was about but it was really short…REALLY SHORT (honestly I think the point of the trail is to show how the playa area, kinda like a lake, changes throughout the year). 

From here we told Aimel goodbye and then we had to game plan for the rest of the day, we wanted to do the Ranger Sunset hike but it wasn’t for another 5 hours.  We decided to drive an hour over to Las Cruces, New Mexico for lunch at La Posta De Mesilla and on the way back from Las Cruces we stopped at Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument just to have a look around.  Even found a tarantula and a rattlesnake crossing the road.

Organ Mountain area

By the time all that was complete, and we went through ANOTHER border patrol checkpoint, it was time to meet up for the Sunset Walk with the guide.  He went over the geology of the dunes and how they were formed, how the plants survive and the animals too.  It was a great way to finish the park and a great sunset too. 

Sunset on the dunes

No night is ever complete without ice cream, and thus the night was finished with custard at the Caliche’s Frozen Custard stand. 

We then drove back into El Paso in preparation for our 6am flight back to work.