GUMO Offtrail Loop

[Will P]

I’m doing a mostly offtrail loop of Guadalupe Mountains National Park next week hitting Frijole Ridge, the Ridge above Dog Canyon, and the 4 Highest. This will be my first offtrail experience so I chose a loop that I can adjust between 40-56 miles to mitigate risk. I will be carrying 8 days of food to give myself the ability to do the loop twice or just extend my time in the backcountry before I exit back to Pine Springs. I plan on carrying between 1.5-2 gallons of water from each water source and averaging about 1mph offtrail.

I am primarily interested in opinions from those with experience in the area, especially off trail and in the winter. I am using this trip as a building block to give me the experience and confidence to do more trips like this and potentially an even longer offtrail trip with packrafting in Big Bend next Winter.

https://lighterpack.com/r/2k6lkg

[John S.]

Make sure your water sources are open or accessible by calling the ranger station. Dog Canyon trailhead was closed at one point. I don’t know if they shut off water in the winter or not.

[Will P]

Will do, I will call pine springs again to confirm, as far as I can tell I can depend on pine springs, mckitrick contact station, black river springs and dog canyon.

[Alex H]

Check in on at Big Bend Chat, there have been some recent GUMO reports and also on reddit/ULTexas

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