1. Williams Ranch
A jounce-provoking road that crosses the Butterfield stagecoach route (see below) leads to the lone building that remains from a ranch started in 1908. Creosote and cactus grow where 3,000 longhorn cattle grazed. Now all is solitude with just a whisper of the Old West.
2. Guadalupe Peak
The highest point in Texas is 8,749 feet above sea level and 3,000 feet from the ground, a bump in the range that geologists refer to as the Western Escarpment.
3. The Bowl
Thick forest covers a mountaintop depression 2 miles wide, where elk, mule deer and wild turkeys roam.
4. Butterfield Stage Station Ruins
Starting in September 1858, the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach passed through Pinery Station on its biweekly run from St. Louis to San Francisco. The stage route lasted only 11 months, but portions of the station's limestone walls remain.
5. Frijole Ranch Museum
Six springs in the foothills made this ranch possible. The house and outbuildings are intact, and an intriguing little museum in the living quarters describes cowboy activity early in the last century.
6. Manzanita and Smith Springs
An easy trail loops past both of these oases in the desert. Cattle drank here, and these days, park rangers close the trails in early evening so the deer feel free to slake their thirst.
7. McKittrick Canyon
Hardwood trees prevail in a gap that provides welcome shade in summer, vivid colors in the fall and impressive mountain scenery all year long. A cabin deep in the woods was once the summer hideaway for a Houston oil geologist.