Honeymoon Road Trip

I'm very happy and proud to report that I finally managed to finish all posts describing our honeymoon adventures!

Below they are listed in the chronological order:

1. Honeymoon
   
2. Honeymoon Overview
   
3. Death Valley NP - Darwin Falls Hike
   
4. Death Valley NP - Mosaic Canyon Hike
   
5. Death Valley NP - Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
   
6. Death Valley NP - Devil's Golfcourse
   
7. Death Valley NP - Zabriskie Point
   
8. Death Valley NP - Dante's View
   
9. Death Valley NP - Artist's Drive and Palette
   
10. Death Valley NP - Badwater Basin
    
11. Snow in Death Valley
    
12. Grand Canyon NP - Grandview Trail
    
13. "For the record, I am dying..." - Hiking on the Grandview Trail in Grand Canyon
    
14. Grand Canyon NP - Viewpoints
    
15. Petrified Forrest NP - Giant Logs Trail
    
16. Petrified Forrest NP - Crystal Forest
    
17. Petrified Forrest NP - Newspaper Rock
    
18. Petrified Forrest NP - Painted Desert
    
19. Route 66
    
20. On the Way to Chaco Canyon NM
    
21. Rio Grande Overlook
    
22. Bandalier NM
    
23. Los Alamos - Bradbury Science Museum
    
24. Kasha-Katuwe NM
    
25. Great Sand Dunes NP - The High Dune Hike
    
26. Great Sand Dunes NP - Dunes Overlook + Medano Creek Hike
    
27. Great Sand Dunes NP - Sunset
    
28. Zapata Falls
    
29. City of Taos and Taos Pueblo
    
30. Santa Fe
    
31. El Santuario de Chimayo
    
32. Roswell - Extraterrestrial Hwy 285 and the City
    
33. Roswell - International UFO Museum and Research Center
    
34. Carlsbad Caverns NP - The Natural Entrance and the Big Room
    
35. Carlsbad Caverns NP - King's Palace
    
36. Carlsbad Caverns NP - Bat Flight Program
    
37. Carlsbad Caverns NP - Desert
    
38. Guadalupe Mountains NP - McKittrick Canyon Hike
    
39. Change of Plans
    
40. Alamogordo - Museum of Space History
    
41. White Sand Dunes
    
42. Lower Antelope Canyon
    
43. Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam
    
44. Bryce - Fairyland Trail
    
45. Bryce - Queen's Garden & Navajo Trail Loop
    
46. Bryce NP - Viewpoints
    
47. Mojave Desert
    
48. Joshua Tree - Lost Palm Oasis Hike
    
49. Joshua Tree - Cholla Garden
    
50. Joshua Tree - Skull Rock Hike
    
51. Joshua Tree - Arch Rock Hike
    
52. Joshua Tree - Keys View
    
53. Joshua Tree - Indian Cove Nature Walk
    
54. Joshua Tree - 49 Palm Oasis Hike
    
55. Santa Monica
    
56. Santa Barbara
    

Guadalupe Mountains NP - McKittrick Canyon Hike

From Carlsbad Caverns NP we ventured into Texas and Guadalupe Mountains NP located there. The two parks are actually located in the same mountain range and are only about 25 miles (40 km) apart.

Guadalupe Mountains NP looks pretty inconspicuous and I'm sure most visitors (including us) must wonder why it deserves the status of national park. This question gets addressed in the park's leaflet: the park protects the world's finest example of a fossilized reef.

In the park we went for a hike in McKittrick Canyon, which offered a very welcome change of the scenery for us. We had spent so many days in deserts that we were very happy to finally find ourselves in a forest. In fact, we must have been so fed up with hot and arid places, that we continued the hike despite two thunderstorms that were following us, both on the way to the Grotto and back. (Yes, I thought it was amazing that the wind's direction changed as soon as we started hiking back, and that we needed to run away from rain and thunder twice...)

All in all, the hike was 6 miles round-trip and took us around 3h. It was nice, but nothing too impressive... I guess we would have to be geologists and/or fossil hunters to be able to appreciate it more.

My Jedi:


McKittrick Canyon:


The historic Pratt Lodge, former vacation home of Wallace Pratt, a petroleum geologist who donated the lodge and land to the NPS to establish the park:


Grotto:


There were some pretty plants in the park:








The park was full of huge crickets who were also unbelievably loud:


My hiking shoes were shining after the hike ;) :