(Photos on Flickr)

I sped into the parking lot, stopped the engine, and packed a backpack with jittery speed. 1:30pm. The show would commence sometime around 5pm.

Sleeping bag? Yes. Tent? No. Water? Yes. Dinner? No. The primary consideration was time. If an item would make climbing the hill slower, it was abandoned. A tent could be replaced with a tarp. Tonight's dinner could be replaced by tomorrow's lunch.

There was no time to pay the entrance fee or to acquire the backcountry permit. Mañana. The rangers at Guadalupe Mountains National Park would have to wait. The sun is a punctual traveler. I am not. I woke that morning in Portales to find my breath turned to frost on the inside of the tent. Hmm. So I stayed in the relative warmth of my bag until the sun rose and inspired the image of warmth, if not the actual temperature, outside. Then I left—late.

The half-packed pack was light. I walked quickly up the switchbacks on the shaded side of the reef. In the crevices above, and soon enough on the trail itself, remains of last week's snowstorm clung to the slope. More than once I had to scramble off the trail to where the Guadalupean wind had thrown my hat.

This was my third visit to Guadalupe Peak, my first ascent in the daylight. I was on a mission to see the last sunset of 2011 and the first sunset of 2012 from the highest point in Texas, from the top of the old reef that stands dry and prominent and strange over the vanished Delaware Sea. Once the mission was conceived, it was indelible. It had to be done. If not now, when? Maybe never. After a 2011 of wonderful high peaks, terrible low valleys, and little land between the two, I needed some good magic, the kind of magic that one finds in desert mountain sunrises and sunsets.

The wind off the peak was brisk. The ice underfoot was vexatious, melted and boot-packed daily, frozen nightly. The Texas Madroños of the canyon floor gave way to the pines of the higher country, and the sotols and yuccas crossed elevations, binding bottom to top. I had no watch, only the shadow of Guadalupe Peak moving northward across Pine Canyon toward Hunter Peak. The trail wound upward. Returning hikers passed downward.

At the Guadalupe Peak campsite, about three trail miles above the trailhead and one mile below the summit, I set up camp. The tarp was folded over the sleeping bag, staked into the mud, and pinned by rocks to keep it from escaping while I was away. Grab the camera and a notebook, push three bottles of celebration into the snow for later, and go. Plenty of time and sun remaining.

Guadalupe Peak is as I left it. The sun glowed from a different angle and snow hid among the rocks, but it was the same mountain. Good ol' Guadalupe Peak. If you can't trust a good mountain, what can you trust?

Take a seat on the white limestone. The show begins. The sun sank tangerine orange somewhere in Mexico, pink and orange streamers radiating in its wake. The wind gathered itself in one final push before following the sun over the horizon. The ground faded. Indigo prevailed in all directions. 2011 faded to black.

* * * * *

Listen: an organism sitting on a rock watched a star disappear. This happens trillions of times a day—define "day" as you wish—in the universe.

So what?

* * * * *

I sat on Guadalupe Peak and watched the sun disappear. It is superstitious to apply meaning to this. Here is my advice: believe whatever superstition makes you strong.

I sat on the top of the bottom of the ancient sea. That sea is gone, gone, gone. Look to the southeast with the right eyes and a shoreline is visible, arcing away and away into the forever distance of the desert. (The perfect disguise above.) Thought becomes slower and slower, imitating the passing of geologic time that saw seas and salt flats and reefs and mountains rise and fall in the same place.

I gathered 2011 in my arms and heaved it over the cliff. Sic semper tyrannis. I suppose that it's still there somewhere, another pile of debris broken away from the main.

Thousands of steps below, red and white lights coursed north and south. Whither? Whence? Perhaps the sociable people of West Texas were off to celebrate the new year in the company of friends. I envied them, but I would not have traded my position for theirs.

I slept the sleep of the cold and alone. It wasn't refreshing, but it passed the time. I crunched through the snow in the campsite, trying not to wake the other couple camped there. Up. Past the mescal that had collapsed like a toll gate across the trail. The cost? Pay attention to what you see around you, you are far away from where you were and will be and you might not return and that notebook won't capture the smell of juniper and that camera won't capture anything your memory won't remember more vividly.

2012 rose from the dust, inviting hope in even the coldest itinerant on the mountain.

(Photos on Flickr: Guadalupe Mountains National Park, 28-29 January 2005)

Four years ago today, I woke up.

It happened in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, at the top of Guadalupe Peak, in the far western corner of Texas. I was passing from Illinois to California to participate in a flaky internship for the X PRIZE Foundation that turned out to be a good thing after all. I don't remember why I chose GMNP as a place to stop. I had never heard of it before. It's not as popular as Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which is only 30 miles north on US-180/US-62. It's not as striking at Big Bend National Park, five hours' drive to the south, where I stayed the previous two nights.

How is not important. The point is this: watching the sun rise from Guadalupe Peak was important.

Now, I'm not sure how to describe the experience without sounding flaky myself. And really, I don't care.

28 January 2005 was my first day experiencing the desert. I remember this. I remember the feeling hitting me on the stretch of TX-54 north of Van Horn, Texas. I had spent the previous two nights in Big Bend National Park, which is even more dessicated and isolated, but it was different; the first night I dealt with rain, the next day was rain and hail. A desert earns its reputation from being a dry, damned place. The experience is lost when you're soaked.

On the 28th, I drove north from Big Bend to GMNP, up TX-118 to Alpine, US-90 to Van Horn, TX-54 north to US-62/US-180, which takes you right around the base of El Capitan. I remember the feeling of finally seeing the desert. I had been surrounded by it, but didn't see it until then.

How do you miss something so big, so vast? I missed it because I was someplace else. On TX-54 my thoughts snapped back into place.

When I arrived at the park, I stopped at the visitors center to pick up a GMNP patch. Here I did something I don't normally do: I asked the guy behind the desk, an older volunteer, what he would suggest that I see in only one day. I don't like to ask for directions or suggestions. I like to wander in slowly opening concentric rings before blasting outwards. Call it luck that I opened up to the park volunteer when I did. He told me to wake up early, around midnight, hike to the summit of Guadalupe Peak in the dark, and watch the sun rise.

Where is he now? I don't know. Thank you, wherever you are, whoever you are.

Early the next morning, 29 January 2005, I woke up late, sometime around 3:30am. It was difficult to sleep the night before. The wind coming down from the mountain into the campsite was incredible. Never before -- and never since -- have I ever had to load the inside of my tent with rocks to keep it on the ground. That's how it was. The nylon sides fwap-fwap-fwapped constantly, loudly, pushing in and down to slap my face.

I was up and out, dressed and laced, a bit after 4am. The moon was high in the sky. With eyes adjusted for the night, the moon provided enough light to walk the strange trail without a flashlight. (I still packed a flashlight, a Mini Maglite, which I used once when I lost my nerve while walking through a stand of trees.) Some of the details I remember from this hike: I had two foils of cherry Pop-Tarts, one of which I opened after signing in at the base registry; I had two granola bars, Oreos, water; I had a wool blanket; I had my Moleskine and camera.

There isn't much to say about the trail in the dark except to acknowledge the wind; rather, THE WIND. Hiking in the dark is strange. You are aware of the rocks underfoot, the general layout of the terrain, and the looming feel of the rest of the mountains across the canyon. You can't see any of it, though. The outline of the landscape is there, but it's more of a presence than an image. Without a clear view of what's ahead, the remaining distance is a mystery as well. It is an alternate universe in which you can feel yourself straining but you can't know where the effort is taking you.

At some point the world starts to change -- so slowly that at first you don't notice it, and then when you do notice it you're not sure if it's an effect of the exertion or if it's real. In order to beat the sun to the top, I had to finish a 4.2 mile long, 3000-foot-plus elevation gain in about two hours. In the dark. In strange country. Et cetera. The approaching sun is something you feel long before you see it.

From here, it was almost a run to the top. I had no idea how much distance remained, but I wasn't going to lose to the sun. I was moving fast, rounding a turn on the smooth white limestone, and there was a sign, one-way, Guadalupe Peak to the left, no distance indicated. I followed the sign and just a few steps later there was the peak and its summit marker, a monument oblivious to how astonishingly weird it is in its surroundings.

I won the race with the sun, albeit barely. There was enough time to set down my backpack and wander around the top, looking down over... well, Texas, because Guadalupe Peak is the top of Texas. This was different than Emory Peak two days before. For some reason, I wasn't there at Emory Peak as much as I was there on Guadalupe Peak. Something was missing from the experience at Big Bend. I wasn't awake yet. On Guadalupe Peak I had time alone to sit and think and wait, underneath a wool blanket and a fleece jacket and a sweatshirt and that tan button-up shirt which is symbolic of all of my wandering in the desert.

Quietly, the sun rose over Texas.

Quietly -- so quietly I wouldn't recognize it for years -- I woke up.

How did I wake up? What does it even mean? It sounds fanatical, so let me explain.

Simply, it was an increased self-awareness that grew out of that moment. It was a break point. On one side, I could see what was -- what already existed, what was in front of me. On the other side of the break, I began to see what could be instead of just what was. The world gained an extra dimension. On 28 January, there was a mountain and there was a sun. That day I would have been more likely to have seen the top of the mountain in the daylight because, well, because that's how you see things, in the sunlight. On 29 January, I learned to consider different permutations for the same sun and mountain. The mountain peak you see in the dark will be the mountain peak you see in the light, but it requires a perspective shift to take advantage of other things, such as where you go to see it.

Four years later, I'm just starting to understand how to wield this. So I return to Guadalupe Peak in my memory from time to time to see if the lesson has changed, if things are different. These days, the lesson is different because I am trying to understand what I want to accomplish -- the short term, the medium term, the long term. Now, thinking about that morning on Guadalupe Peak, I can think about the future without having to be so linear about it; that is, instead of thinking, "this is where I am, next stop is here, next stop is there," the idea of progressing opens up. Where I am is an extension of where I've been and where I'm going.

I don't understand it all yet. But I'm starting to see. And that's my advantage.

As Kurt Vonnegut mentioned in Player Piano:

Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

(Also, I returned to Guadalupe Peak in June 2008: Exploring the West Texas Desert: Maps and Photos)