A few days prior to Memorial Day Weekend I came up with a crazy idea. I had three days off, and hadn’t been on a road trip in several months. So naturally I decided to drive 1500 miles round trip to go get another state highpoint.
I left Denver on Friday 5/23 and drove about 7 and a half hours to a field in southern New Mexico. I had found this website called “Hipcamp” which is basically like Airbnb but for campsites. You can pull up a map and see a list of all the camping options in an area. Designated campgrounds, dispersed sites, and people with land who allow camping on their property. I found a few sites on this privately owned 20,000 acre ranch – literally just some guy who set up a few fire pits in a massive field surrounded by mountains and charges people $10 a night to camp. It was an absolutely stunning spot and got to see the best sunset of my life.
I set up my tent, cooked a burger and hot dog on the fire pit, stargazed a bit, and went to sleep. I woke up around 4am, made breakfast, and got back on the road. I had about a 2.5 hour drive to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, right on the TX/NM border. I arrived at the trailhead at about 8am, and took off running.
I was excited for this peak for many reasons – I had never been to Texas before, I was able to check off a National Park and a State Highpoint at the same time, and I was planning to do the peak as a trail run. I had only run up one other state high point before: Oklahoma’s Black Mesa.
Guadalupe peak’s standard route is 8 miles with just under 3,100 ft of vertical. I knew I would have to make decent time to avoid the heat – it was already 90 degrees when I started out at 8am. The run was beautiful; it was a gradual well defined trail with insane views of the Texas desert. The heat however, was one of the most intense things I have ever experienced. I love running in the heat, and I love to sweat (Im a psychopath I know) but this heat was something else. So incredibly dry and so so hot, it was suffocating. It felt exactly like how I feel trying to run up 14ers back home. By the time I got back down my car, it was 112 degrees outside. Still finished in just under 2 hours and 30 minutes round trip! My 28th state highpoint.
