Day 30: To Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TEXAS

March 26, 2012

This morning I will ride unloaded up to Carlsbad Caverns. I left the campsite at 8:15. The park road is 7.5 miles long, climbing 780 feet in a desert canyon to a giant parking lot and visitor center on top of a ridge. The ridge is the north end of a huge escarpment that starts near here and gets gradually higher as it goes southwest to the Guadalupe mountains.

A fire came through here last June, burning the vegetation for half of the climb. The road is also freshly repaved. It looks much different than my previous visit a few years ago in a car.

At the visitor center I waited in line a long time to show my Inter-agency Annual Pass which gets me into the cave for free.

The main cave tour is a long self-guided walk. 1/4 mile above ground to the natural entrance. Then 1 1/4 miles downhill on a paved path into the cave. Then a 1 mile paved loop path in the Big Room 750 feet underground.

The cave wasn't very crowded. Morning must be the best time to visit.

Looking back at the last natural light coming into the cave.

I used my ZipShot tripod for all the cave photos. The photos are ISO 400 time exposures with fill-in flash. Time exposures capture good color from the cave's lighting system. Fill-in flash improves detail up to about 50 feet range. Using the camera's standard flash mode with a short exposure results in pictures where everything is white in the foreground and dark in the distance.

The walk into the cave is quite easy. Steady downhill on a paved pathway with continuous railings to keep visitors from wandering off the path.

The temperature is 56F (13C) year-round, with 90% humidity. Most of the cave is dry now. Only a few places are still dripping, building formations.

I walked more than a mile in the big room.

The caverns seems to sell less food in the underground snack bar than they did in the past. I passed on the underground snack bar and ate lunch at the restaurant above ground in the visitor center.

Next to the snack bar is an elevator lobby. You're allowed to walk up the 1.5 mile trail to get out of the cave, but most everybody takes the free elevator ride 750 feet up to ground level.

People who don't want to walk 1.5 miles into the cave can take the elevator both directions, and simply walk the level 1 mile loop in the big room.

Snack bar 750 feet underground. 56F and 90% humidity all the time.

I was in the cave at 9:45 and out of the cave at noon. A total of 2.5 miles hiking, mostly underground.

Descent from Carlsbad Caverns to White City.

It didn't take long to descend to my campsite in White City. I quickly packed up and stopped at the store for ice cream on my way out of town. It was 1:55 PM when I left White City-late to start a 35 mile climb.

Only 100 miles (160 km) to services if you go south to Van Horn instead of west to El Paso.

US 180 is a 4 lane divided highway to the Texas state line. The terrain is rolling hills with an uphill trend. In Texas the road is only 2 lanes and the grade gets gradually steeper, eventually 5-6%. The headwind was 10 mph when I left White City but it grew to 20 mph.

This is my first time to bike in Texas since I moved away in 1991.

Soon after entering Texas I stopped at a fascinating new highway rest area. It's quite deluxe and remote. And off the grid, powered by a single wind turbine. The area is very windy, with road signs warning about dangerous wind gusts.

Remote highway rest area powered by a single wind turbine. The power house probably has huge batteries and inverters.

The long uphill into a 20 mph headwind was very slow and depressing. It seemed to take forever to get up to the Guadalupe mountains. The sun was setting behind the mountains, so there was no good view of the mountains.

Creek that flows out of the Guadalupe mountains.

On the left is 8085 foot (2450 m) El Capitan. On the right is 8750-foot (2651 m) Guadalupe peak, the highest peak in Texas.

The Pine Springs campground is 1 uphill mile away from the highway, at the foot of the mountains. It's a rare tents-only campground and every campsite is walk-in.

I arrived at 7:15 PM, just before sunset. It was dark by the time I made dinner. The evening was windy and the temperature drops rapidly at 5800 feet elevation. The campground has water and flush toilets, no showers. I arrived too late to make a shower.

Today was too long and strenuous. I'm not sore, just exhausted. If I could do it over again I would spend a full day visiting Carlsbad Caverns, then spend the next day pedaling from White City to Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

When planning this tour I had in mind to hike to the summit of Guadalupe Peak - a 9 mile hike with 3000 feet of climbing. The weather would probably cooperate tomorrow, but I don't have enough food or energy to do an all-day hike tomorrow, then a very long ride to Van Horn the following day.

Distance: 52.4 mi. (83.8 km)

Climbing: 3430 ft. (1039 m)

Average Speed: 8.6 mph (13.8 km/h)

Hiking: 3 mi. (4.8 km)

Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 1,640 miles (2,639 km)

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