Guadalupe Mountains National Park

March 25

The Guadalupe Mountains are part of one of the finest examples of an ancient marine fossil reef on Earth. Here's how the brochure describes the process of their formation: the reef was formed into a 400-mile long, horseshoe shaped reef. Eventually the sea evaporated. As the reef subsided, it was buried in a thick blanket of sediments and mineral salts. The reef was entombed for millions of years until a mountain building uplift exposed part of it. Other parts of the reef are exposed in the Apache Mountains and the Glass Mountains in West Texas.

The park can be explored mostly on foot on the many hiking trails. There are pine and fir forests in the higher elevations with much different habitats than are found in the surrounding desert at the base of the mountains.