McKittrick
Canyon is separate from the main park area, and is reached by a short side road
off US 62/180.
The
road ends at an unstaffed visitor center, parking area and picnic site where the trail begins.
Initially the trail follows a dry stream, crossing the stream bed several times as it works its way up the canyon. The creek bed runs past and continues westwards away from the mountains, eventually
joining the Pecos River, but is usually dry at this point.
This look like a flowering Claret
Cup Cacti. Not sure if it blooms just once and dies.
After
a distance of 2.4 miles the path reaches the Wallace Pratt Lodge that
was built by Wallace Everette Pratt (1885-1981), a petroleum geologist who once
owned most of McKittrick Canyon. It did not look as though it was occupied any longer.
As you continue your hike beyond Pratt Cabin to the Grotto,
the forest becomes denser as the trail runs parallel to the stream. Round-trip distance from the contact station
to the Grotto is 6.8 miles.
One of the surrounding mountains that contain the canyon.
During the Fall, McKittrick Canyon comes alive with color from the turning
foliage of maple and hardwood trees.
The
creek flows even in summer, rising above ground at several points between rock
layers, then returning below ground a few hundred meters further.
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