Full disclosure: this was our first backpacking trip. And it was amazing. Yes, our packs were too heavy. Yes, we should have started sooner in the day. Yes, we underestimated the gain. But I will never forget watching the sun come up over the horizon from the top of Texas.

We watched the weather for a few months waiting for the spring winds to die down and for cool evening temperatures. We decided on a Monday in late July with a slight forecast of rain, and temps in the 50s-70s. I think we lucked out!

We had a little thundershower on the way up, which was intimidating for lighting purposes, but was actually quite refreshing and so we soldiered on. The 3.1 miles hike to the campground was very tough, primarily because we were packing nearly 50lbs each. Eventually we made it to the Guadalupe Peak campground about 4 hours after leaving the Pine Springs campground. We were not rushing. Like I said, this was our first time carrying weight like that up a mountain. Slow and steady.

We made it just in time for an early dinner and we had the entire campground to ourselves. The cloud cover parted and we were treated with clear evening skies with little wind and no rain.

Note: your phone might switch back and forth between mountain time. This was a bit of an issue for us because our plan was to wake 90mins before sunrise, make coffee and hike to the summit. We ended up wishing we just had a cheap alarm clock because our smartphones/watches were being a bit too smart.

All that being said everything worked out perfectly. We spent the night in the campground and woke up ready to catch the suMmit sunrise. Morning temps were cool and clear. We were a vigilant hiking in the dark, because we had seen several rattlesnakes the day before.

The section from the campground to the summit is certainly the most beautiful portion of the hike. We were the first ones to the summit and made it just in time to watch the sun crest over the horizon. We brewed some coffee enjoyed the sunrise and the summit for a couple hours before heading back down to the campsite.

This was an incredible experience that I will never forget.