Once I’d finally hiked down the Permian Reef Trail to the McKittrick Canyon Visitors Center, I weighed my “down” pack at 45 lbs. I then drove to the Guadalupe Park Headquarters to buy two cold Diet Cokes. It was about 1:00 PM on Saturday, and it was good to be off my feet.
In the Headquarters I bought a Guadalupe Mountains T-shirt and talked to the ranger behind the desk about the looming rain clouds outside, and how I got rained on Thursday evening on the trail. He asked where I’d been hiking, so I showed him my route up to Wilderness Ridge and my day-trip into the Lincoln National Forest. He knew the area, and asked if the gate between the two parks was marked or sealed. I said, “No, just an orange homemade turnstile metal gate.”
Two days earlier I’d hiked up the Permian Reef Trail under dark gray rain clouds and occasional sprinkles. I tried to hurry so I could set up camp before the rain started, but my “up” pack weighed 65 pounds and it slowed me down a bit.
Once I finally cleared the ridgeline and entered the pine trees it started raining hard, so I sat on a log under a low pine tree, took off my backpack and dug out my tent’s rain fly for a makeshift shelter. I guess I sat there for 15 to 20 minutes in the rain. There was a lot of thunder right over my head and I knew I was taking a chance with lightning by sitting under a tree (there were burned trees all around), but getting struck by lightning was merely a possibility, while getting soaked by rain was certain.
When it quit raining I crawled out from under my shelter, rolled the rain fly up loosely under my arm (in case it started raining again), shouldered my backpack, and took off down the trail. I found the campsite almost right away and set up my new REI tent in a slight drizzle. I got it set up by 5:00 PM and moved my wet backpack and all my stuff inside before the rain started again. All in all, it was a beautiful afternoon.
I keep coming back to the Guadalupe Mountains because they have a profound effect on me. They aren’t visually breathtaking in the same way as the snow-covered Rocky Mountains in Colorado, but they feed my heart. The very harshness of these desert mountains speaks to me. They seem bold, brave, dependable, robust and courageous … like I hope to be.
Looking out across the desert from up on top of these mountains feels like peering into infinity. The only sounds I could hear were distant airliners flying overhead, the faint rustling of leaves from very
slight breezes, and occasional birds singing. And I could hear my own pen scratching on the paper of my journal.
This was my first time up this trail, and I didn’t know what to expect about the camp site. Wilderness Ridge sounded like a Disney Resort with stylized log cabins where the staff wears coonskin caps and says
things like, “Well, lookee yonder!” But my concerns were unfounded. It was a beautiful place to stay.
At dusk I sat on the cliff edge overlooking McKittrick Canyon, and I could see the visitor center parking lot 2,000′ below. It was completely empty except for my car. Apparently I had this entire portion of the park all to myself. It didn’t feel lonely, however; it felt strong. It felt like ownership.
On Friday I took an 8-mile day-hike through the orange gate into New Mexico, into the Lincoln National Forest. I ate lunch while sitting on a big flat rock overlooking Devil’s Den Canyon. (Why are places like
this always named “Devil’s” Den instead of “God’s” Den?) I was sitting very close to the edge of a 1,000′ cliff, with my feet hanging over the edge, eating a Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar, when it occurred to me
not to fall off since no one would ever find me. I couldn’t imagine this canyon got many visitors at all.
I read from my Daily Bible, from Proverbs, and the author used the phrase “apply your heart to my teachings” twice. I thought about how different that was than saying “apply your mind,” or “apply your
behavior,” to my teachings.
Back at the Park Headquarters, the desk ranger looked up from my trail map, after he asked about the gate, and said, Well, the Lincoln National Forest was closed to all visitors on May 1st due to the high fire risk. I guess they didn’t see you.”
“There can’t be many corners of the Lincoln Forest more remote than where I was.”
“You’re right. And they weren’t watching for hikers coming into the park through an obscure backcountry gate.”
“I certainly wasn’t carrying anything that could start a fire.”
“No?”
“Well, maybe MacGyver could have started a fire with what I was carrying, but I couldn’t.”
