Date: Friday June 1, and Saturday, June 2, 2007
Group: Just me and a couple of spirits
Route: Standard Guadalupe Peak Trail plus Bushwhack to El Capitan
Total elevation gain: ~4,250ft. (including side trip to El Capitan)
Note If you don’t read any other part of this TR, read this:
I know it’s a peak in the state of Texas, and it’s not even 9,000ft high, and has a well established trail all the way to the top. Why even climb it you say? Well, it is one of the 50 state high-points, and you do ascend 3,000 vertical feet to gain the summit, and, I’ll be so bold to say that it’s a pretty spectacular summit. AND (this is important), if you do climb Guadalupe Peak, you really, really, really should take the time to scramble to El Capitan…FANTASTIC. This made it all worth while to me. (more on that later if you take the time to read the rest of the report…)
With my wife in France for two weeks, and the kids in Michigan with G’ma and G’pa, I needed to find something to do with myself. Bagging TX’s highpoint has been on my mind for a while, so I decided this is the time. I also wanted to get a state highpoint for TM (even though he had climbed it last year), and for my friend Vern Brown, who also died way too young.
I left Las Cruces around 11:30, had lunch in El Paso with a buddy, then hit the “Texas Mountain Trail” (yes, that’s what they call US62 as it heads east from El Paso). You catch the first glimpse of Guadalupe Peak and El Cap when you’re still about 60 miles away, but it really stands out in contrast against the salt-flats just to the west. My plan was to either camp at the park HQ, and hike Saturday, or if I got there early enough, backpack to the Guadalupe Peak backcountry campground and get an early summit (this would be the best chance to get out to El Capitan too).
Photo 1, Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan from US62 at the Salt Flats
As you climb towards Guadalupe Pass, El Cap sticking out there all by itself really stands out. It was about here that I decided I wasn’t doing this trip without also getting out to the end of El Capitan.
Photo 2, El Cap from US62
After registering at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park Headquarters for the backcountry campsite, I left the car at about 3:30 pm. Since there is no water available in the park, I was carrying about 2 gallons of water, which made for a quite heavy pack.
Photo 3, The trail switchbacks up this sheer face
The trail is well established, but steep (see comment above about 2 freaking gallons of water).
Photo 4, The trail cuts through some cliff areas
Photo 5, After cresting the first ridge, the trail switchbacks up more forested terrain
Photo 6, Indian Paintbrush along the trail
I reached camp about 6:00 started dinner and went to meet the neighbors (there was one other group camped in the area). Turned out to be 3 young guys that a) brought a 1.75 liter bottle of Captain Morgan (yes TM, everyone has a little Captain in them) and b) not enough water for themselves. I gave them a quart and a half of water, and they gave me some of the Captain
Photo 7, looking south from camp (you can just make out some of the wind turbines on the ridges)
Photo 8, my route in the morning since I’m camped at 8,100 feet, it should be a short trip to the summit in the morning.
I debated whether or not to bring my tent. It wasn’t supposed to rain, and I worried that the notorious winds would cause the tent to flap all night, keeping me awake. On the other hand, the moon was going to be bright (just past full), and sleeping under the stars might be like sleeping under a street lamp, and a little shelter from the wind might be nice. In the end, I went without the tent. When I got to camp, I made a makeshift windbreak from some old dead logs, and strung up my rain poncho as a “moon shade”.
I slept fitfully…the moon had indeed come up brighter than hell, and the wind had gotten up too. The wind was kind of strange. I could hear it constantly whistling in the tree-tops, and over the top of the ridge above my campsite. Every few minutes it would start to sound like you were standing at the end of the runway at DIA, and a jet was starting it’s take-off roll. The sound of the wind in the trees would gradually increase to a literal roar, then my rain poncho would shake like crazy, then everything would calm down again (except for the much lower wind in the treetops). Finally around midnight, I just took the poncho down, and used it as a ground cloth. I must have slept good after that, because the sun was just about to come up when I woke up again. I made coffee and breakfast, packed up camp, and rolled out of there (leaving the big pack, and just carrying lunch and water in a day pack) at about 7:30. I made quick work of the last 700 or so vertical feet to the summit, arriving at 8:00 even after stopping for some photos.
Photo 9, same as photo 8, but with morning light, the trail is clearly visible.
Photos 10 and 11, some low clouds rolled in, making for some interesting views down into the valleys.
Photo 12, looking down at El Capitan from the summit of Guadalupe Peak
Photo 13, Summit marker. Why? I don’t know, Texans like to do silly things like this.
I was hoping to find TM’s entry in the log from last year, but alas, the log was less than a month old. I signed the log “in memory of David Worthington and Vernon Brown”, and left some TM mementos.
Photo 14, TM mementos (left as bookmarks in the summit log)
Photo 15, Another view of El Cap. The vertical cliffs are ~1500 feet, the valley floor about 4,000 feet lower.
Photo 16, looking west
Photo 17, looking north (the dramatic drop-off continues northward)
Photo 18, Obligatory summit shot.
Photo 19, Looking east (my camp must have been just beyond this ridge, the trail cuts across a very narrow ridge here)
My original plan for the bushwhack to El Capitan was to follow one of two westernmost gully’s from near the summit of Guadalupe Peak (the other gullys appeared to have more vegetation), but there was no obvious safe entry points into the gully’s, and the top portions of the gully’s were steeper than they looked from afar (and loose). So, I followed the trail down to the about the 3rd switchback, and stepped off onto a confluence of ridges near the top of the eastern two gully’s. From there, it looked easiest to follow the center ridge all the way to the confluence of the gully’s at the bottom.
Photo 20, looking down at my route to El Cap (blue-outbound, red-return)
Photo 21, looking up at the descent from Guadalupe.
The ridge crest was a mix of scrub, solid and loose rock. The solid rock was delightfully grippy, but if you fell, no matter what you put your hand on, it was going to be bad. The rock was sharp, and every variety of plant seemed to be sharp. There was one little plant that looked like tiny banzai trees (I avoided stepping on them, who knows how long they took to grow, and who pruned them).
Photo 22, Banzai Tree?
Photo 23, Banzai Tree? (penny for scale)
From the confluence of the gullys, I scrambled through a brushy section to re-gain the ridge at the ridge’s obvious low point. OH MY GAWD!!! Was that a spectacular place. The cliff was actually overhung slightly, and straight down 1,500 or so vertical feet. Small birds (swifts or swallows?) came buzzing by so fast and so close, that they scared you.
Photo 24, trying to capture the spectacular cliff from the ridge’s low point.
From there, I scrambled along to the left (east) of the ridge crest, across several small summits. The final false summit was relatively rounded, and pretty heavily treed with stunted (about 8 feet tall) pinon pine trees. Reasonable route-finding can keep the ridge traverse at or below class 3. There are some class 4 sections, but they could be easily avoided. Then relatively suddenly, BAM, out of the trees, there’s a narrow ridge leading to what felt like the end of the earth. Seriously, it was a sheer drop all the way around except for the ridge I had come out on. It was a spectacular place to eat a little lunch. At one point I heard a helicopter, when I finally figured out where it was, it was just a little speck flying along below the south end of the ridge.
Photo 25, Looking North trying to get a feel for El Cap (the picture doesn’t do it justice, you can’t “feel” the cliff behind or to the right of you).
Photo 26, Me on El Cap (Sorry about the sweat, it was getting hot)
Photo 27, Looking above the Pinon Pines on one of the El Cap summits, back at Guadalupe Peak
I knew I would have to re-climb most of my lost elevation to regain the Guadalupe Peak trail, but I hoped to avoid some of it by climbing further to the right (east), and catching the trail on a lower switchback. (see route in previous photo). I decided on the right (east) most gully. That didn’t pan out as the gully was heavily overgrown. So, I went for the ridge East of that. Unfortunately, ridge was considerably steeper than the one I descended. It was mostly a class 3 scramble to regain the main ridge, and the traverse across to lower switchbacks looked a little dicey, so I ended up re-climbing to exactly where I left the trail in the first place. If you do bushwhack to El Cap, I recommend gaiters or long pants, otherwise, your legs will definitely get scratched up!
I followed the main trail back to camp, re-gathered the rest of my stuff and followed the trial back to my car. On the way down, I started playing a little game I know called “He’s not gonna make it” (see separate thread in the forum).
Photo 28, some wildflowers and persistent low clouds in the canyons.
Photo 29, Hey kid, get away from my car.
Photo 30, one last view looking up from the highway at El Capitan (left) and Guadalupe Peak (right).
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