THE GROTTO TRAIL
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| Small Texas Madrone on trail to The Grotto |
We took a breather at Pratt Lodge and pressed on through the most beautiful part of the trail toward the
Grotto. After about a half mile, we found a pretty spot under the shade of a maple to have our lunch. It was our standard fare for the entire trip—sandwiches, trail mix, fruit and nuts. Above our heads, a small madrone tree was growing right out of a large boulder. It was small but healthy with glossy dark green leaves. I imagined that it was planted there by a small animal foraging for food in the sparse environment. Amazingly, the Texas madrone seems thrive in any terrain in the Guadalupes, but it is next to impossible to transplant and very difficult to grow from seed anywhere else no matter how well cared for. We had learned from one of the Rangers said that a few people had gotten the trees to grow, but with great difficulty, in Carlsbad. There is speculation that the madrone depends on nearby junipers which may provide a beneficial fungus, and the few who have gotten seedlings to grow in the Texas Hill Country say that they grow best under juniper mulch. But if they survive for long under the protection of the juniper, the tree can be wiped out in a single season by adverse weather conditions. It is obviously hopeless for me to even think about planting a Texas madrone in my yard in Dallas, although it would be my ideal tree for our new garden. In a way, I’m glad that I can’t have one. The rarity of this rainforest relict makes it all the more beautiful, and it will be the first image to flash upon my inward eye whenever I remember the Guadalupe Mountains.
ELUSIVE BEAUTY
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Bigtooth Maple canopies
on trail to The Grotto |
The beauty of this place cannot be adequately described in words or captured in a photograph. The trail in the narrowing canyon runs on a slope between a bluff above and a clear running stream below. In places, the Bigtooth maples only allow fragments of the sun’s rays to reach the canyon floor, and your skin glows red and orange in the filtered light under the autumn leaves. The brilliantly colored forest is dotted with evergreens like the juniper, the pine, and the beautiful madrone. There is no sound of automobiles or anything else that would remind you of civilization—only the faint murmur of the water running over the rocky stream bed and the hushed sound of rustling leaves in the wind. Added to all of this is the knowledge that you are standing in an ancient place that once nurtured a vast amount of marine life—a place that later rose high above sea level like a sky island in the desert to sustain species that are remnants of the last ice age. As I stood there, taking it all in, I understood the elusive beauty of McKittrick Canyon and why Wallace Pratt and others would say that this is
the most beautiful spot in Texas. After my own firsthand experience, I would say that it rates pretty high in my book too.
The beauty of Guadalupe Mountains National Park still eludes the appreciation of many as it eluded me for most of my life. Efforts to establish this place as a National Park were almost aborted because of the objection that much of the land was
"unattractive and unproductive". But thanks to visionaries such as Wallace Pratt, J.C. Hunter, Stewart Udall, and others who pushed to establish Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the elusive beauty of this place can now be enjoyed by those who make the effort to discover it for themselves.
Not wanting to overextend our physical abilities by attempting to ascend the steeper parts of the trail, we slowly headed back toward the trailhead, enjoying the stream and autumn colors. It was a warm afternoon, and as the trail took us back to the mouth of the canyon and beyond, the afternoon sun was bearing down. We thought it best to put on our long sleeve shirts to prevent sunburn. Although the part of the McKittrick trail that we hiked was not particularly difficult, there were large stretches of loose rock that made it tiring to walk. We seemed to have missed the original trail back up towards the Visitor Center and ended up on an extremely steep and unfamiliar narrow stone ledge. Don’t look down! We were happy to get back to the trailhead and shed our hiking boots. We soon returned to the Inn in Carlsbad for a much needed rest.
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