Guadalupe Mountains NP Trips:
Hike: McKittrick Canyon 4/22/1985
Hike: Guadalupe Peak summit 4/23/1985| Flickr album
Backpack: Feb-March 1986 | Flickr album
Backpack: Sep 25-29 1986 | Flickr album
Backpack: Oct 29-Nov 3 1986 | Flickr album
Camping: Dog Canyon (& Rattlesnake Springs CCNP visit) March 1988
Guadalupe Mountains-Guad Peak Aug? 1988
Guadalupe Mountains-Guad Peak August 28 1997
Backpack: Guadalupe Peak summit February 2000| Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon May 2011 (after fire)| Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon May 2012
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon May 2013 | Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon April 28-May 2 2014 | Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon April 26-29 2016 | Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon April 25-30 2017 | Snow | No Snow
Backpack to Shumard backcountry site, 11/16/2017| Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon May 2-6 2018 (Also Carlsbad Caverns NP) | Flickr album
Camp & hike: Dog Canyon & Gypsum Dunes November 14-16, 2019 | Flickr album
Camp & hike & backpack: Pine Spring/Guad. Peak, Dog Canyon/Marcus backcountry February-March 2022
There’s a very interesting administrative history of the park, published in 1973, here (PDF here). If you’re interested in the background of the park you may find interesting its history from the time of its early landowners through the political and bureaucratic shenanigans of how it came to be . Quite a debt is owed to J. C. Hunter (Senior and Junior) for being somewhat conservation-minded for the time; also to Wallace Pratt for envisioning the land as a park. Did you know Pratt (among others) had foreseen a “Skyline Drive” not unlike what is at the Blueridge Skyway? And there was long a desire to build a series of trams from the visitor center at Pine Springs to the summit of Guadalupe Peak? To this day the wilderness boundary excludes the proposed path of that tramway. (See the “Master Plan” here:PDF here )
I’ll add more here some day, but for now the takeaway is: in the earliest days of Guadalupe Mountains National Park there was a decision made between keeping it mostly wild, not easily accessible, and a “hiker’s” park, or fully accommodating automobile and other passersby and making it a “drive-thru” park and the choice was made to keep it the former.
Visitor use of the park will be seriously impeded until motels,restaurants, and campgrounds become available within a convenient distance. Because it contains no existing facilities, this park offers an excellent opportunity for an enlightened approach to meeting essential visitor needs while maintaining a regard for park values.
–from Appendix A of the 1973 Master Plan