Guadalupe Mountains National Park

The highest ground in Texas is the remains of an ocean reef. About 265 million years ago, sponges, algae and other organisms built the Capitan Reef along the edge of a shallow inland sea, and later uplift lifted it thousands of feet above the desert. Geologists consider it one of the finest exposed examples of a fossil reef on Earth. Guadalupe Peak, at 8,751 feet (2,667 m), is the state's highest summit, and the sheer face of El Capitan beside it served for centuries as a landmark for travelers crossing the Chihuahuan Desert.

Congress authorized the park in 1966, and it was formally established in 1972, built around land donated by petroleum geologist Wallace Pratt, whose stone cabin still stands in McKittrick Canyon. The park covers about 135 square miles (350 km²) and holds the largest wilderness area in Texas. Ruins of the Pinery, an 1858 station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, sit near the Pine Springs visitor center. Fall color in McKittrick Canyon draws crowds, and Carlsbad Caverns, carved into the same reef, lies about 25 miles (40 km) north in New Mexico.

• New Mexico
  The Land of Enchantment, high desert and southern Rockies borders
• Texas
  The Lone Star State, second-largest in area and population located in
• The Chihuahuan Desert
  The largest desert in North America located in
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
  Vast limestone caverns carved from an ancient reef in New Mexico near
• El Paso
  A desert border city at the pass of the Rio Grande near
• Big Bend National Park
  Desert, river canyons and mountains on the Texas-Mexico border related