north toward the distant hills. This is West Texas desert ranchland, classic cattle country, sparsely studded with creosote and mesquite. There are no signs to mark it, but after roughly 25 miles, all the open country you’ll see to the east of the highway belongs to Jeff Bezos, the billionaire CEO of Amazon. The visionary entrepreneur purchased 290,000 acres here, and he’s using the land as a testing ground and launch site for reusable rockets and suborbital vehicles under development by Blue Origin, his privately funded space-flight company. The long-term goal is to promote space tourism and to provide a launchpad for commercial payloads headed into space. You won’t see much indication of this activity from the highway; the project is closely guarded, and for now at least, the public isn’t allowed anywhere near the place.
| Coming from the WestIf you’re coming from somewhere west of El Paso, there’s no need to go all the way to Van Horn to begin this route. Instead, you can exit I-10 at Canutillo (Exit 34), about 30 miles east of Las Cruces. Follow TX 375 through Franklin Mountains State Park until you reach US 62/180, then follow that road east to join the route. This option is not only more scenic, it’s shorter. |
TX 54 merges with US 62/180 about 55 miles north of Van Horn. You are headed northeast now, straight into the heart of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, a beautiful tract of wilderness that includes 8,749-foot Guadalupe Peak, the highest in Texas. The visitors center is near the south entrance to the park, just off the highway; stop in if you’d like information about camping or hiking trails that ramble through the stunning terrain. One highlight is McKittrick Canyon, an oasis of green that contrasts sharply with the earthen hues of the surrounding desert. Cacti and wildflowers bloom in the spring; in the fall, native oaks and maples create a brilliant autumn display. There are Texas madrones here, too, rare holdovers from an ancient time when this area was a rain forest. You’ll recognize this “relict species” by it showy, peeling bark and the bright red berries that appear in the fall and winter. Early morning and late afternoon are best for roadside photos: stunning mountain views against the vast West Texas sky.
US 180, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas
| Texas Highlights | |
| Hotel El Capitan100 E. Broadway, Van Horn, TX 79855(877) 283-1220thehotelelcapitan.comBlue Originblueorigin.com | Guadalupe Mountains National Park400 Pine Canyon, Salt Flat, TX 79847(915) 828-3251nps.gov/gumo |
Carlsbad
Leaving Guadalupe Mountains National Park, continue northeast on US 62/180 and you’ll soon cross into New Mexico. A few miles farther, you’ll reach the turnoff for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. If you’ve never experienced the wonders of a major underground cave system, you should stop here. The caverns rank among the true wonders of the natural world, a jewel in the crown of the National Park system. The visitors center is about 7 miles back from the highway, after a beautiful drive on a very curvy road through an extension of the Guadalupe desert mountain range. Keep a sharp eye out for wildlife along this route, especially deer and pronghorn antelope.
If your time at Carlsbad Caverns is limited, head straight for the Big Room, one of the world’s largest subterranean chambers. You can hike in from the cave’s natural entrance, about a mile’s walk along the trail used by the cave’s earliest explorers, or you can use the elevators in the visitors center, which drop you 750 feet straight down to the floor of the cavern in a minute flat. The best thing about those elevators? When you’re done exploring, they lift you all the way back up again!
The Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns National Park
A self-guided tour will lead you along a very easy loop trail that takes about an hour; much of the loop is wheelchair-accessible. Go at your own pace past a wide variety of extraordinary formations—it’s like a crystalline forest of icicles magically turned to stone, all set aglow by concealed, low-intensity lighting. Ranger-led tours take small groups deeper into the vast system of caverns; tours are limited, so advance reservations are recommended. If you’re in the park at dusk, you can watch from the small outdoor amphitheater as hundreds of thousands of bats emerge from the caverns, a primordial smoke-like swirl of living creatures, off on their nightly bug hunt. Alas, no cameras are allowed; the bats are disturbed by all things electronic.
Leaving the park, head north on US 62/80 to the town of Carlsbad. When you reach the intersection with US 285, stay left and follow US 285 through the downtown area. Just beyond it, you’ll see signs for the Living Desert State Park. This nice zoo and botanical garden is like a microcosm of the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert, the second largest desert in North America, encompassing a major portion of the southwestern U.S. and much of northern Mexico. This is a fun stop for families; be sure to check out the art gallery, featuring the work of Maggie, the black bear who paints with her feet.
Just north of town is Brantley Lake State Park, a recreation area centered on an impoundment of the Pecos River, popular with local boaters and fishermen. If you’re spending extra time in and around Carlsbad, consider a side trip to Sitting Bull Falls, a series of spring-fed cascades spilling 150 feet into a rocky canyon. It’s not a huge volume of water, but lovely nonetheless. Getting to the falls requires a 60-mile round-trip on county roads; follow the signs off US 285 at Queen’s Highway (NM 137). Allow at least 2 hours, and call ahead to confirm hours of operation and road conditions; in some seasons it is open weekends only. If you decide to overnight in Carlsbad, consider the beautifully renovated Trinity Hotel. It’s small but well appointed, located in a historic bank building that dates to 1892.
| Carlsbad Highlights |
| Carlsbad Caverns National Park727 Carlsbad Caverns Highway, Carlsbad, NM 88220(575) 785-2232nps.gov/caveLiving Desert State Park1504 Miehls Drive N., Carlsbad, NM 88220(575) 887-5516Brantley Lake State Park33 E. Brantley Lake Road, Carlsbad, NM 88221(575) 457-2384Sitting Bull FallsU.S. Forest Service, Guadalupe District Office5203 Buena Vista Drive, Carlsbad, NM 88220(575) 885-4181Trinity Hotel201 S. Canal St., Carlsbad, NM 88220(575) 234-9891thetrinityhotel.com |
Roswell
Leaving Carlsbad, you’ll head north along the Pecos River, which enlivens an otherwise barren landscape, much of it dotted with oil wells and petrochemical facilities. Beyond the oil fields are irrigated fields, most of them devoted to grasses and alfalfa destined for animal feed; these are interspersed with stands of lush green pecan trees, all lined up in perfect rows.
Keep the Pecos on your right for 100 miles until you reach Roswell, the town that’s famous throughout the world for something that probably never happened: the so-called Roswell Incident. Certainly something crashed on a ranch northwest of town on a dark night in 1947. Some locals claimed it was a flying saucer, while military investigators insisted it was a weather balloon. That official story didn’t explain all the secrecy and military security that surrounded the crash site, and soon UFO rumors were rife, as were claims of a massive cover-up: There were multiple flying saucers; there were dead aliens; there were possibly even live aliens—in the custody of the Air Force!
Image from outside wall of El Toro Bravo Mexican Restaurant in Roswell: “Are there aliens among us?”
The Roswell Incident has been officially debunked at least a dozen different ways. In fact, in 1994, the military finally admitted that the U.S. Army Air Forces had, in fact, covered up a crash—not of an alien spacecraft, but of a high-altitude,
