Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns

In this video we travel to West Texas to take on the Highest Peak in Texas trail in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park! We’ll show you what it’s like to glamp in Dell City, just 30 minutes outside of the National Park and also take you across state lines to New Mexico where we explore Carlsbad Caverns in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. If you find any of this information helpful, please consider Subscribing to help us reach our goal of 1000 subscribers by the end of the year!! Thanks for watching!
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is in West Texas, just a little over 100 miles East of El Paso and 25 miles South of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. We stayed at a glamping site about 30 minutes away from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The site includes permanent tents, yurts, and some trailer options. There is no running water or electricity. So although it’s technically considered glamping because of the permanent tents, it is still a very primitive campsite, but there are toilets on site. The property we stayed at is called The Guad and our Campsite was Boo’s Hideout. We stayed for two nights at $80 a night in April 2023. You can find their listings on Airbnb and on their private website at www.desperadotravelco.com/the-guad
Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas with an elevation of 8,751 feet above sea level. The trail is 8.4 miles long, roundtrip, with a 3,000 foot elevation gain. “At nearly 9,000 feet above sea level, Guadalupe Peak is a mountain environment with associated risks not found elsewhere in Texas and is considered very strenuous.” The average person finishes the roundtrip in approximately 6-8 hours. Courtney and I are very proud to have completed it in 5 hours and 36 minutes, not including our lunch at the top.
If you are going to attempt this trek I strongly recommend you check the wind report for the area before you go. This can be researched up to 5 days in advance. We lucked out that there was almost no wind on the day we went, in fact people were talking about how strange this was at the peak. If you watch the video carefully you can see our campsite is extremely windy the day before we did the hike. March is considered the ‘windy season’ and winds are often above 30 miles per hour and known to get up to 80 miles per hour at times so CHECK THE WIND FORECAST BEFORE YOU GO at: www.wind.willyweather.com/tx/culberson-count/guadalupe-mountains.html
The suggested best times to do this trail are in the Spring and Fall as temperatures rise exponentially in the Summer and fall dramatically during the winter and snow will become an issue on the trail. Here are the average minimum and maximum Fahrenheit temperatures for the year:
January - 32/54
February - 34/56
March - 40/63
April - 46/71
May - 88/79
June - 64/88
July - 64/87
August - 62/84
September - 58/80
October - 50/72
November - 40/61
December - 33/54
Guadalupe Mountains National Park Fees:
Age 16+ - $10 per person
Age 15 and younger - Free
Park Annual Pass - $35
Senior Annual Pass - $20
Senior Lifetime Pass - $80
U.S. Military Lifetime Pass - Free
(Lifetime pass holders admission includes up to 4 additional persons)
Other helpful websites on the Guadalupe Mountain National Park include:
www.nps.gov/gumo/index.htm
www.mileswithmcconkey.com/guadalupe-mountains-national-park-what-you-need-to-know/
Carlsbad Caverns is open daily from 8a-5p and is $15 for ages 16+. Last entry into the cave is 2:30p. It is required to have a reservation to enter the cave and you cannot enter without one. The reservation fee is $1 per person. You can book your 60 minute window reservation here at: www.nps.gov/cave/planyourvisit.fees.htm or call 877-444-6777.
Carlsbad Caverns is amazing. If you have the opportunity to check it out we highly recommend it. It is massive and by far the biggest cavern we have ever been in. We live not too far from Natural Bridge Caverns in Texas and the sheer size of Carlsbad puts Natural Bridge to shame. We wish we would have had time to take the walking trail descent into the cavern but we wanted to save our legs for Guadalupe Peak and we were running low on time. The walking trail is a steep 1.25 mile descent (about 75 stories) and takes the average person about one hour to complete.
Here are a few helpful Amazon links to some of the gear we use on our adventures or gear seen in this video: #ad #paidlinks
- Camping Stove: amzn.to/42nfUaX
- Propane: amzn.to/43oKphU
- Electric Lantern: amzn.to/3CdIzVo
- Outdoor Pop-up Privacy Tent: amzn.to/3qrnLHe
- Water Pump: amzn.to/45NUEy4
- Trekking Poles: amzn.to/3qpa1wL
- Camelbak: amzn.to/43BGdek
- Outdoor Products 2 Liter Hydration Reservoir: amzn.to/46a81Zq
- Hanging Tent Light: amzn.to/3WT3ma3
- Camping Fan: amzn.to/3qoO2Ge
- Camping Towel: amzn.to/45J68Ts
- Citronella Candle: amzn.to/3quYImM

[@Julietothemoon]

LIFETIME PASS?!?! Cool trip! Glamping in style 😎

[@Castaways_Travel]

😎

[@jamessolimine7102]

Very nice video. FYI: It is illegal to fly drones within ALL National Parks.

[@Castaways_Travel]

Thanks. We’re still learning. Don’t tell on us.