Southwest Trip

This was a big week of driving - more than 2100 miles. We started by heading to the Oklahoma panhandle to hike the tallest peak in Oklahoma, Black Mesa. This peak was near the three corners area, where Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico meet at a single point (called Preston Monument). From there we spent two days in New Mexico and then headed to Guadalupe National Park in Texas where we hiked the tallest peak in Texas. We continued on to Tucson where we joined the Four Corners Airstream club’s rally at Catalina State Park.

The map below shows our route through four states.

The drive from Colorado to Oklahoma was very remote. Almost nobody lives in this part of the country.

It was surprising how many abandoned houses we saw in the three corners area.

Staci at the start of the Black Mesa hike. The trail to the top is 4.2 miles and gains 720 feet. It is a beautiful and well-maintained trail to the top. The entire area is now a nature preserve.

The top of Black Mesa is 4,973 feet high but it doesn’t look like much of a mountain. It is a long mesa of black pumice formed by a lava flow.

The summit marker on top of Black Mesa.

Staci running down from the peak.

After Black Mesa we needed to find a place to camp. We discovered an incredible campground in Clayton Lake State Park where we were able to camp above the lake.

Another Milky Way photo! This area has some of the darkest skies in the entire country and is great for viewing the stars and Milky Way. This is a single 20 second exposure at ISO 6400 and F2.0.

Also at Clayton Lake was an area called Dinosaur Tracks. There are about 500 footprints of three different dinosaur species found in the sandstone near the lake. It is estimated they are about 90 million years old.

Since we had to drive past Roswell, New Mexico we decided to spend a night there. The alien theme is definitely visible everywhere you go.

The Alien museum was a lot of fun. It had a lot of the original newspaper articles and interviews from people involved with the Roswell UFO crash in 1947.

From Roswell, we travelled to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Carlsbad has an extensive cave network that you can walk through. The above photo is the entrance to the cave where you walk down 800 feet deep in the cavern.

Some stalactites..

The cave is very dark except for a few lights on interesting formations.

These stalagmites looked like aliens from a horror movie.

The caverns are located beneath the New Mexico prairie. Our camper is in the distance.

Guadalupe Peak - the highpoint and tallest mountain in Texas.

Guadalupe Peak is 8,749 feet high and has a rugged trail that ascends 3,000 feet in 4.1 miles.

The summit marker on top of Guadalupe.

Looking Southeast from the top at a very remote area of Texas.

We drove from Texas to Catalina State Park in Tucson. Catalina State Park is in Oro Valley on the opposite side of the Santa Catalina mountains from Tucson. Sabino Canyon is about 10 miles beyond the mountain tn this picture.

Lots and lots of Airstreams.

Amazing Saguaro cacti everywhere.

We hiked into Romero Pools, which provide a small oasis in Romero Canyon.

Romero pools.

Driving home through New Mexico, passing El Malpais National Monument. We want to spend more time in this area on another trip. It has amazing sandstone bluffs, lava flows and cinder cones.

We drove from Tucson to Boulder in one day - about 16 hours and got to see a beautiful sunset on Interstate 25 in southern Colorado.