It’s been a few days since my last trip, so time for another adventure. This time, I met by buddy Cooper out in Arizona to summit the high point in Texas (more to come on that later) and to hit a few other National Parks and Monuments in the area.

We flew into Tuscon, AZ on Thursday evening and headed out towards our first stop; White Sands, New Mexico. White Sands is a few hours from Tuscon and right on the border of a missile testing range and military base. Apparently the Park Service has a love/hate relationship with the base. Mostly hate actually, as missiles have crashed into the park on numerous occasions. We got a tip en route that there was a cool place called Chiricahau National Monument, so we broke up the long drive with a visit. Cool place with a lot of awesome rock formations!

We made the long drive to Alamogordo and stayed in the White Sands Motel (#1 on Trip Advisor, come on!). Great spot. Cool sign.

We elected to enter the park on Friday at opening: 7 am. I stuffed down some McDonalds breakfast and coffee and off we went. While not a morning person at all, I have zero regrets. White Sands is amazing in and of its own, but the experience at sunrise – with the lighting and different colors – was well worth the lost sleep. I have been to the beach but have never seen a place quite like this.

Its gypsum that makes the sand white, and there are roughly 275 miles of it in the area. I won’t explain the geology, but its interesting.

After White Sands, we busted it towards New Mexico. We passed through the town of Carlsbad (where we would later spend the evening) and headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

This was my first real cave experience; and it was great! Carlsbad Cavern goes nearly 1000 feet under the earth’s surface, through a series of caverns, and to the “Big Room”. The hike down is about a mile (the elevators are broken, and thats cheating anyway). The Big Room is stunning. It is loaded with interesting rock formations. Bottomless pits (that are 200 feet deep…). Stalagtites and mites. Stalagmites. Actually, a sign said mites live in the cave too. No itchiness to date.

I took a picture at nearly every turn. They certainly don’t do justice to the experience, but here are a few anyway.

This is the time where I give a little love to the National Park Service (NPS). If there is any government run organization that truly does a fantastic job and is worth of financial support, its these guys. What they do to maintain the purity of some of America’s most amazing places on a relatively low budget (compared to other programs) while making them accessible to people that don’t have 6 months for an extensive wilderness expedition is fantastic. Carlsbad Caverns, with its paved path to the bottom and lighting, was no exception.

They even took time to put a bathroom at the bottom of the cave. For real! Can you believe it?

Since we were only 30 miles away and had some daylight to burn, we decided to scout Guadeloupe Mountains National Park, which contains the Texas high point Guadeloupe Peak. We were close to just going for the summit, even though there were only about 2 hours of remaining daylight. Wisdom won out (we are old, after all) and we decided to save it for Saturday. We did get some nice pictures of El Capitan, which sits right in front of Guadeloupe Peak (and looks higher from here, though its actually 1500 feet+ lower).

We drove back and spent the night in the town Carlsbad. It was expensive and beer supplies were found to be lacking. It is at least 1000 times less cool than the caverns. I highly recommend not staying there, but it seems to have a monopoly on travel to the surrounding parks as there are, basically, no other legitimate cities anywhere close by. I suggest El Paso (1 hour from Guadeloupe Mountains) or camping. And definitely…bring your own beer. If you do wind up there, Albertsons is your best play. They had Sierra Nevada, Left Hand, and a few other reputable brews available. We did enjoy some nice Carolina BBQ from My Daddy’s BBQ.

Tomorrow it’s time for Top of Texas!