The Guadalupe Mountains are a mountain range located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. This range includes the highest summit in Texas,
Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 feet, and the West Texas peak, known from ancient times,
El Capitan, 8,085 feet, both of which are currently located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The Guadalupe Mountains are bordered by the
Pecos River valley to the east,
Western High Plains (Llano Estacado) to the east and north, Delaware Mountains directly to the south, and to the west, the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico.
The NNN is
Guadalupe Mountains Ecoregion Information:
Description:
Location:
Coordinates:
31.8912239, -104.8605030
Elevation:
8,751 feet
Geographical Region:
Northern Sierra Madre
Geology:
Exposed
Permian Period Reef
One of the clearest exposures of a prehistoric reef is preserved in the bedrock geology of this mountain range, which bedrock contains fossils of reef-dwelling organisms from the Permian period.
The reef traverses mostly underground in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico, but in three uplifted mountain ranges, the Guadalupe Mountains, Apache Mountains and Glass Mountains, the reef is exposed. These exposed reef areas are widely studied by those known as stratigraphers, paleontologists, and paleoecologists.
For thousands of years now, the Guadalupes Mountains have witnessed a constant movement of human travel through the area, starting with the
Athabascan migration across the Bering land bridge onto the North American continent. These indigenous people, who were part of the third major migration, worked their way south through the interior of the continent and eventually arriving in the vicinity of the
Colorado Plateau where many moved through the lands of what they called the
Anasazi a Navajo word for ancient enemies and proceeded on to lands south and east.
Much later these steps include bloody conflicts between Mescalero Apaches and Buffalo Soldiers, the passing of the Butterfield Overland Mail, and the coming of ranchers and settlers.
Even later after that, the existing government created a national park upon the area of these ancient steps and have preserved much of this history in locations like Frijole Ranch, Williams Ranch and the ruins of the Pinery Station
First Wayƒarer
The Earth
Guadalupe Peak
8751 feet
Highest elevation in Texas.
Bush Mountain
8631 feet
Shumard Peak
8615 feet
Bartlet Peak
8508 feet
Hunter Perk
8368 feet
Blue Ridge
8360 feet
Mount Pratt
8342 feet
Blue Ridge North
8280 feet
El Capitan
8085 feet
The Modern Man
The Steps
Steps Afoot
Steps Afield
The Appendixes
Pine Springs Campground, Guadalupe Mountains National Park
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