Guatelupe Mountains NP

After the caverns, I did a nice hike the next day to stretch my legs and just see how good of shape I may still be in.  The area was called Slaughter Canyon. Turned into about a 6 mile hike, but is was very flat. The toughest part was sections of the trail that went along the dry riverbed.  Big, loose stones that i could have easily twisted an ankle on.  And, there were several times I wasn't sure if I was still on the trail. But luckily it was pretty easy to follow and there were a lot of cairns.

I got lucky and found a campsite at Guatelupe.  Not many spots left so I was very thankful.  Met a lot of Texans there, apparently hiking to the summit is a fairly popular achievement for outdoors people here.

The next morning I chatted with a guy at the trail head of the big summit, and he asked if we could hike together.  We ended up hiking all the way up and back together.  Was good to have someone to talk to for a bit.  He is a jack of all trades and has dabbled in a lot of interesting careers.  It was a long hike, but I had good company so the 8 hours went faster than usual.  We definitely kept each other motivated!

I rewarded myself at the summit by eating two of Mom's home made cookies she sent along with me.  Was a nice treat and made it even more special.  The views were spectacular, as you can imagine, when you are on the highest point in the state.  Good day, but the wind picked up and we had big gusts all night long.  They really shook the tent, and I had a lot of problems sleeping.  I even put in ear plugs to cut down on the noise of my fluttering tent, but alas, sleep escaped me for quite a while.

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