Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Canyon Oases

As the reef was being pushed up, cracks developed, and many of these, with the aid of erosion, became deeply incised canyons. These canyons are now the special wonder of the Guadalupes. In some, springs arise to feed streams that pause in limpid pools, forming cool and fragrant oases. Mosses cling to rocks, and flowering shrubs scent the air. Birds become intoxicated on the shrubs' overripe fruits and splash among watercress, valerian, and groundsel at the water's edge. Elsewhere, water seeps through cracks in sheer canyon walls to nourish hanging gardens, where mats of Venushair fern, wild orchids, and other delicate plants cling to moist limestone ledges, in glorious contrast to dry and rocky slopes that may be only 100 feet away.

In McKittrick Canyon, nearly five miles long and several thousand feet deep, there exists a blend of life unlike that found anywhere else on earth. Along its floor, in which you can see the bed of the 250-million-year-old sea, an underground stream surfaces from time to time, and where it flowers, its banks are shaded by a mixture of deciduous trees, velvety ash, bigtooth maple, oak, and walnut, that turn the canyon into a tunnel of red and gold in autumn. Bittersweet, chokecherry, striped coralroot, and wild roses compete for the patchy sun.

Along the limestone walls, pockmarked with caves, are hanging gardens that include species of mint, honeysuckle, and columbine unique to this place. Mingling with this lushness are yucca and cactus from the desert, as well as pines and firs that usually grow at higher elevations. Here, too, grows the odd and beautiful Texas madrone tree, its reddish bark looking like well-worked leather as it curls loose from the gnarled trunk, exposing young, pink bark beneath.

McKittrick Canyon was named for a Civil War veteran, Capt. Felix McKittrick, who moved to this area after the war and worked for a time in raching. (He later moved on to Arizona, where another canyon was named after him.)

Much of the credit for protecting the canyon's pristine beauty goes to Wallace Pratt, a petroleum geologist who was smitten by its charms. Pratt first visited the canyon in 1921, escorted by a friend who had assured him that it was "the most beautiful spot in Texas." When he saw the place, Pratt enthusiastically agreed, and he agreed, and he eventually bought a sizable tract of land in the canyon.

Pratt built a rustic stone lodge in the canyon, where he and his family and friends found refuge from Houston's summer heat and humidity. Though he always referred to the building as the Stone Cabin, it is now known as Historic Pratt Lodge. It can be reached by a moderately strenuous hike along the creek that flows through McKittrick Canyon.

The Pratts later built a permanent home, Ship on the Desert, on a mountain slope outside the canyon. When they finally retired to Arizona, they turned their holdings over to the National Park Service, thus ensuring permanent protection for this uniquely beautiful treasure in the desert.