Getting the flavor of ... West Texas as it was

West Texas as it was

Texas’ Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a “vivid reminder that not all of the West was won,” said Jim Atkinson in The New York Times. Located where the Rockies end and the Chihuahuan Desert begins, the 86,000-acre park is a vision of the “untamed West in all its cranky, craggy, dusty, arid majesty.” Millennia ago, ocean covered this amber landscape, and the range itself was a single “huge, ancient fossil reef.” Now, under a sun softened by “high-floating wispy clouds,” I trekked across McKittrick Canyon, the most beautiful spot in all of Texas, and past El Capitan, “one of the most striking geological formations anywhere.” As I reached Guadalupe Peak, the surrounding mountains looked like “giant shards” of glass while others resembled “arthritic, mottled knuckles.” In a time in which “authenticity” is a marketed

commodity, I had found the “raw goods.”

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Contact: Nps.gov/gumo

Idaho’s wild Sawtooth Mountains

The Sawtooth Mountains are the “gateway to an Idaho wilderness,” said Hannah Stauts in National Geographic Traveler. Cut like the blade of a saw, these wild, jagged peaks in the central part of the state are a true “nature-lover’s utopia.” Just past Galena Summit, a valley “opens wide,” unveiling an expanse of serrated cliffs. The resort town of Sun Valley may be only 60 miles away, but the “sharp and dangerous” terrain of Sawtooth isn’t made for snow bunnies. The residents of Stanley—a town of 100 at Sawtooth’s base—are as rugged as the range that presides over them. Living in one of the coldest places in the lower 48 states requires a love of nature, even at its most fierce. Yet roughing it seems worthwhile when you can witness “memorable views of glowing granite, blankets of wildflowers, and clear, aqua-blue lake water perfectly reflecting the snow-covered mountains.”

Contact: Sawtoothguides.com