Bush Mountain

Bush Mountain is an 8,631-foot summit in Guadalupe Mountains Wilderness and Texas’s second-highest peak, about three miles northwest of Guadalupe Peak. The Bush Mountain Trail crosses the top, with access from Pine Springs or Dog Canyon on foot or horseback. Keep this for a backcountry outing, not a quick stop beside the road.

There isn’t a separately published route mileage to the summit. The 6.2 miles one way from Pine Springs is the approach to the nearby Bush Mountain Wilderness Campground, not a summit round trip. If your route uses the northern section beyond Blue Ridge junction, grass can obscure the infrequently used trail. Cairns mark it, but carry a compass and paper topo map and be ready to route-find. Pets aren’t allowed on park trails or in the backcountry.

The top is a rounded rise with open grass and stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir, rather than a sharp point. Look east toward Pine Spring Canyon and north across rugged formations toward New Mexico. For a summit photo, keep some of the grassy crown or pines in the foreground; it shows the high-country setting above the open distance.

Bush Mountain is part of the exposed Capitan Reef. About 275 to 277 million years ago, this area lay beneath the Delaware Sea; later uplift and erosion exposed the reef rock as mountains. The surrounding Guadalupe range rises more than 5,000 feet above the Chihuahuan Desert, and its high country shifts into cool conifer forest.

Bush Mountain Wilderness Campground is a separate destination just below the summit’s southeast side. It has five tent pads, no potable water or toilets, and requires a wilderness permit. Overnight visitors must carry landfill-safe toilet bags; don’t count the campground’s facilities as summit services.