Despite high wind warnings of gusts up to 90mph and after careful consideration with the rangers on duty, Michael Ambrisco and I decided to make an early start up Guadalupe Peak to try and get ahead of the predicted weather.  The morning (Saturday, March 12th) was pleasantly warm and the views were spectacularly clear.  The trail of this 8,749ft peak begins with a number of switch backs which wrap around the mountain and then the trail eases off to a more gradual climb.  Most of the hike was protected from the wind until the final push to the top, in which the ridge begins to open and becomes exposed to the elements.  Upon reaching the top we could feel the wind picking up and were happy we decided to climb early, as others who started later in the day were unsuccessful in their attempt to climb the peak, due to high winds.  The monument at the top commemorates the 100th anniversary (1958) of the founding of American Airlines and is dedicated to the pioneer airmen and stage drivers of the mail services we know today.  Kind of a cool looking monument!

Well it’s off to Florida for high point #9!  Just a couple of side notes on this trip.  Michael and I were recruited on our first trip to the Carlsbad Caverns to assist bird researchers.  Because we had arrived late (hoping to see the bat flight) we were told not only would there be no bat flight, but we couldn’t go to the bottom of the caverns.  But, we were offered a free ticket to go as far down as we could until one of the ranger’s turned us around.  We took them up on the offer and proceeded to climb down.  Needless to say, we were stopped and told to turn around soon thereafter.  The ranger must have taken pity on us because she offered us a chance of a lifetime.  To come back to the cavern at 5pm and help bird researchers.  She also told us that there will be a bat flight, but it is not advertised yet and if we helped we would see it!  It was a chance of a lifetime.  Not only did we assist in a cool project about swallows, we soon heard and saw 20,000-30,000 bats coming our way.  We all sat quietly in awe for about 20 minutes watching and listening to them, thinking how spectacular this was…  We were unable to take photos during the bat flight (they were afraid we’d scare them off, as this is their spring/summer home and they had barely just arrived!).   We did go back two days later and did climb down and up the cavern.  A must see.  And we ran into the ranger who gave us the opportunity to experience something really out of this world and thanked her.  We then drove to Roswell (UFO sighting capital of the world) and saw lots of things from out of this world…