Permian Reef Trail

This is the trail that even most Guadalupe Mountains regulars have never touched. Starting from McKittrick Canyon — already one of the more remote trailheads in Texas — the Permian Reef Trail immediately begins climbing the sun-baked north wall of the canyon on exposed, rocky switchbacks. The terrain is relentlessly uphill, crossing ancient fossilized reef formations that were once an ocean floor 250 million years ago. You'll pass through sparse desert scrub with zero shade, gaining serious elevation over four miles to reach Wilderness Ridge, where the views crack open into South McKittrick Canyon and across the state line into New Mexico. The trail surface is rough and loose in places, more geology lesson than groomed path. This is a trail for hikers who measure success in silence and solitude, not summit selfies.