Guadalupe Peak, Texas (May 1998)

Up until 2008, our past endeavors were retained only as memories and on 35mm slides. While our memories may have faded (just a bit), the slides haven’t – and we have a lot of them. So we’re digitizing a select few to bring a bit of our past into the 21^st Century. The photos below are from a few of those old slides.

In 1998, we were starting our attempt to climb the 48 highest points in the continental United States. Guadalupe Peak (8,749 ft / 2,666 m) in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, is the highest point in Texas (Texans likely yearn for Guadalupe to be the highest point in the U.S. but it’s not ). We were planning to do it in May when we learned that our long-time friends, Wayne and Diane, would be in New Mexico then and could join us. So we organized a four-day trip that encompassed a hike up Guadalupe Peak, a descent into Carlsbad Caverns National Park (complete with the deepest lunch counter and a massive swarm of bats at dusk), a guided off-trail hike in the caverns, and a hike to two old cabins (Pratt and Hunter) in McKittrick Canyon (also in Guadalupe Mountains National Park). This mountain range has to rank, along with Palo Duro Canyon and Big Bend National Park, as one of the most scenic places to visit in Texas. It was a great trip with good friends at just the perfect time of year with respect to the weather and other visitors. 😀

Guadalupe Peak

As for our high point quest, that fizzled out several years later at 44 out of 48. The remaining four (Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming [two attempts foiled by weather]) are among the hardest of the 48 and were ones we should have done first, during the full bloom of our youth. Ah, hindsight. Instead, we said “next year” one too many times, until a cocktail on the couch was more inviting than clinging to some cold, windy summit. Sigh. 😥 Post-dated note to self: make use of your youth while you have it… 😉