Southwest Hiking Tours: Canyons and Color Country

	Big Bend Extender: Carlsbad Caverns & Guadalupe National Parks NEW	Big Bend National Park
		Grand Canyon/Havasupai
		Canyonlands/Arches
		Grand Canyon: Rim-to-River-to-Rim
		Bryce/Zion
		Capitol Reef and The Grand Staircase

Dates:
(2 days, 1 night; Sun-Mon)
March 7-8

Assembly Point:
Odessa, TX
(Hampton Inn)

Tour Cost: $500
(includes lodging, all meals, park entrance fees, ranger guided tours, round-trip transportation between Odessa and Carlsbad Caverns, leaders, tour maps & narratives)

We’ve extended the Extender for 2010; the opportunity to bag another of our national parks is irresistible. In the season ahead, we’ll visit the labyrinth of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, overnight in Carlsbad, and then head down the road to Guadalupe National Park.

One of the largest and most astounding cave systems in the world, Carlsbad Caverns National Park is actually comprised of a network of over 100 known caves within the porous limestone bowels of the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico. The park is situated about 170 miles northwest of the Midland/Odessa area, or about a 3-hour drive from the assembly location for our Big Bend Hike. The point being—how can we resist a visit to Carlsbad since we’re in the neighborhood anyway?

    We’ll give our Big Bend hikers an opportunity to take a shower, maybe do some laundry, have dinner and a good night’s sleep in Odessa and then we’re off early the next morning for Carlsbad. Following a picnic lunch at the Caverns, we’ll spend much of the afternoon exploring the spectacular Big Room, with its incredibly dramatic formations. We’ll enter the caverns and follow the Natural Entrance Route, which simulates the basic route utilized by early explorers. We’ll descend some 750 feet on a switchbacking trail illuminated, fortunately, by the park service.

    We’ll spend the evening in Carlsbad and then it’s off to Guadalupe Park early the following morning. The Guadalupe’s certainly look like mountains looming on the western horizon, but technically are the components of the Capitan Reef, an exposed formation of ancient marine fossils. In so many ways, Guadalupe is another reflection of the incredible diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert.

    Our choice of hikes will be dictated by weather and trail conditions, but among those choices is the McKittrick Canyon Trail, from the Visitors’ Center beyond the historic Pratt Lodge to the Grotto. For much of its course, the trail follows a permanent desert stream that supports a lush abundance of vegetation (7 miles). We’ll ultimately return to Midland late afternoon.

E-Mail: timber@earthnet.net