huachuca wrote:
Guadalupe Mountain - We like the Dog Canyon CG but would pass on the Pine Springs facility. I think the remoteness is the appeal and the resident ranger before his retirement, was a special guy. We were there a few years back during the Turkey Vulture migration. Watching several hundred buzzards trying to find a roosting spot on a small stand of alligator junipers is hilarious.
The camping areas in Guadalupe Mountains NP are in Texas, not New Mexico although to get to Dog Canyon one needs to travel thru New Mexico.
The entire park is mainly a hiking park, good trails out of both Pine Springs and Dog Canyon. No hookups, but parking space for RVs and tent camp sites in both - about six RV sites at Dog Canyon and a parking lot that will hold about 10-12 RVs at Pine Springs. Guadalupe is the highest point in Texas, so the hike at Pine Springs up the hill is the bragging hike; a more scenic hike is the one up Hunter's Peak though.
Pine Springs gets used a lot by Boy Scout troops training for their trip to the Scout Ranch in New Mexico and by college students, so gets crowed around the holidays during the school year, but it's usually the tent sites that fill up. Only saw one time that the Pine Springs parking lot was full on a holiday and that was last Thanksgiving. Usually Dog Canyon has very few campers of any type. Some good long hikes out of there.
Near Pine Springs there are a couple of other interesting spots without camping. The old stage coach waystation site, the Frijole Ranch and McKittrick Canyon. The canyon has a nice hiking trail that connects up with the other trails and some very nice scenery.
