Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park in western Texas, only a few miles south of New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park, was authorized in 1966 and established in 1972 to protect a 86,416-acre area surrounding Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in the state. The park's mountains are a 40-mile uplifted remnant of Capitan Reef, an ancient barrier reef 350 miles in circumference, other sections of which are exposed in the Apache and Glass mountains. The reef originated in a warm, shallow sea that covered this part of the continent more than 240 million years ago, during the Permian Period of geologic time.