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| Dog Canyon |
This was our last day, and not wanting to waste any of it, we decided to make the 60 mile drive to
Dog Canyon on the north edge of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This route took us over “Dark Canyon Road” (County Road 408), a narrow paved road that ran through desert and ranch lands. There were mesquite trees growing in the shoulders of the road, and in some places they overlapped the pavement, so we couldn’t pull the car off the road for fear of puncturing a tire with one of their hard woody thorns. Much of the countryside was open range, and cattle frequently wandered into the highway. We turned south on Highway 137 toward the little hamlet of Queen, driving through Lincoln National Forest in the high country. The approach to Dog Canyon took us through a broad valley bordered on the east by the steep escarpment of the Capitan Reef and on the west by the Brokeoff Mountains. The campgrounds and trailhead area were remarkably grassy and beautiful. For such a remote place, it was very busy with campers and hikers. Autumn is peak season in the Guadalupes, and many hikers favor Dog Canyon because it is the easiest point of access to the high country of Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
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Walkingstick Cholla
in Dog Canyon |
During a brief hike through the grassy lowlands, we met a friendly Ranger on her way to feed the Park mules. We also ran into a rather disoriented hiker who had just descended from the high country of the Park wanting to know where he was on our map. I guess he was lucky to find his way to Dog Canyon campground rather than to some remote dead end trail in the Brokeoff Mountains. I was aching to hike up to the top of the ridge into the Guadalupe Mountains high country, but sundown was fast approaching leaving no time for such pleasures. I had to leave with only the hope that I would someday return and explore the remote conifer forests in the high country of the Park. We also never had the pleasure, or punishment, of climbing Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas or of climbing the Permian Reef Geology Trail to see the many fossils in different strata of the Capitan Reef. Unfortunately, our time had run out, and we departed while the sun was low, knowing that it would be dark before we reached Carlsbad.
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| Sunset over Dark Canyon Road |
We saw two deer on the road as we retraced our route back through the Lincoln National Forest. I had been expecting this at such a late afternoon hour, so I had been driving slowly to avoid a deer collision—one of the most frequent of the accidents that befall Park visitors. By the time we were back on Dark Canyon Road, we were driving east away from a beautiful deep red sunset. Looking back along the winding road, there was a farmhouse set deep into the pasture under the fiery clouds, and in that house we could see a single faint glowing light shining through of its front window. I took some pictures of the sunset and others earlier in Dog Canyon, but they somehow they failed to capture what we saw. There is just no substitute for being there. I can hardly wait until our next National Park trip.
Sunday
AN UNEXPECTED MIRAGE
We departed Carlsbad at little after 8 AM and headed home for the day long drive back to Dallas through Hobbs, NM. As we were approaching Hobbs, I spotted a long mountain range far in the distance to the north. This was most surprising, since I had no recollection of any mountains in this area from my studies of maps in preparation for this trip or from previous road trips through New Mexico. Mary Ann carefully studied the road atlas to try to identify the name of the range and determine their elevation. Frustrated in her efforts, she found nothing drawn or noted on the map. How could this be? It seemed unmistakable. We clearly saw light gray clouds rising over well-defined darker peaks that jutted through the tops of the gray cloud layer. As we drove closer, Mary Ann figured it out first. These weren’t mountains at all, but simply a mirage created by an autumn cold front rolling into Texas. What an amazing natural painting! I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture.
Our return route through Lamesa and Snyder took us through more farmland than our original route through Andrews. The most remarkable sight was miles and miles of wind farms from Snyder to Sweetwater on US 84. This time we got to see the wind turbines at close range. Call me crazy, but it was thrilling to see them close up!
The traffic was busy from Abilene to Dallas, especially through Ft. Worth, and it occurred to me that this was actually the most dangerous part of the trip. It was much safer to be in the wilderness among the retiring mountain lions and bears, that never showed themselves to these visitors. Anyway, it was good to get home. I guess I’ve grown accustomed to the dangers and predators in the steel and concrete jungle of Dallas.
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| "Vaya con Dios" |
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