Guadalupe Mountains National Park: Fun Facts & Family Guide

The park includes the highest peak in Texas and the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line.

The highest point in Texas used to be underwater. Not a lake or a river, but a tropical sea, complete with a living coral reef.

That was about 265 million years ago. The sea dried up, the reef got buried, and much later the ground pushed it thousands of feet into the air.

What's left is called the Capitan Reef, and it's the best-exposed fossil reef anywhere in the world. Climb these mountains and you're climbing an ancient seabed.

Guadalupe Peak stands 8,751 feet above sea level, the highest natural point in Texas. Nearby, a huge limestone cliff called El Capitan juts out over the desert.

El Capitan was a landmark long before anyone measured it. Apache people, settlers, and stagecoach drivers all used it to find their way.

The Mescalero Apache lived in these mountains for centuries. Springs at the base of the cliffs provided water in an otherwise dry landscape.

In 1858, a stagecoach company built a relay station near those springs. The Butterfield Overland Mail carried mail and passengers all the way from St. Louis to San Francisco.

The route ran over Guadalupe Pass, and the station was called the Pinery. Its stone ruins still stand today.

The whole operation lasted barely a year here. The Civil War shut the route down.

The park exists because of one man's donation. A geologist named Wallace Pratt loved a canyon here so much that he gave his 5,632-acre ranch to the government in 1961.

That land became the seed of the park, which opened on September 30, 1972. Carlsbad Caverns sits about 35 miles north in New Mexico, formed from the very same reef running underground.

Hike the 8.4-mile round trip to Guadalupe Peak, where a metal pyramid marks the top of Texas. Walk into McKittrick Canyon in late October, when the maple trees turn bright red and gold. Follow the short Pinery Trail from the visitor center to the old stagecoach station ruins.