The Devil's Hall

Before we departed Guadalupe Mountains National Park after 3 nights of camping, we decided one more hike.  We elected to head west from campground up the canyon below Guadalupe Peak to the "Devil's Hall", supposedly a limestone slot canyon.  Really?  Let's go see..  All photos are with iPhone.

Sunrise over campground

 Where these names are derived is baffling to me.  In Death Valley there is "Devil's Golf Course".  Maybe the Devil comes to his hall here to lick his wounds after shooting 20 over par like the rest of us.

Yucca Flower

 We stop and look at this interesting yucca plant flower blooming  BIG

Yucca Flower again

 Pretty open in bottom of canyon.  It gets narrower and narrower

Up the canyon we go

 One mile into the hike we are not hiking up the river bed for next 1.1 miles.  

River Bed 

 Lots of bouldering here.  Glad we brought our hiking poles.  Saw lots of people on trail.  few with poles.  We will be sore but not as sore as they will be.

interesting flower growing out of river rock

 Looking up at peaks above.  We are hiking at roughly 5900 ft elevation up to 6700 ft

North Canyon Wall

 Now you don't see trees like this very often.

Alligator Juniper in perfect gymnast split position

 We keep walking.  Cairns were set up to note the path through the river bed. Giant boulders had to be gone around.

More river Bed

 Lots of these lizards and butterflies.  A few birds

Cute lizard.  we saw many

 We turn back 180 degrees up the canyon and think we are at our destination when we see this cool limestone wall.

Wow.  Cool limestone wall here.

 We decide to keep going.  Not sure how much further trail goes.  Let's find out.

Still going

WOW.  The Devil's Hall.  Limestone Slot Canyon.

Devil's Hall

 At the other end of canyon is this.  Whew.  Now we can say we hike to the end of the trail.

End of Trail

 Looking back we see the canyon again.

looking back on Devil's Hall

 We enjoy the moment,  look at the time and decide to head back down.  We made good time, about half of the trip up.  Tired and satisfied we are ready to begin our northern migration

Returning to campground below

So we end our Texas experience and head towards points north.  Stay tuned