Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Junior Ranger 

Program
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is one of over 390 unique places preserved as part of our 

national park system. As a Junior Ranger, you will have an opportunity to discover some of the 

fantastic places that make this one of America’s treasures preserved by the National Park 

Service. You are an important partner in protecting this national park and keeping it beautiful 

for future generations.

Parents are allowed to help.

When you are finished, bring your booklet to the Visitor Center for a park ranger to check 

and sign it.

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To earn the Junior Ranger badge:

• Complete any 3 activities in this book.

To earn the Junior Ranger badge and patch:

• Complete any 6 activities in this book

To Become a Junior Ranger: 

Other Ways to Explore Guadalupe Mountains National 

Park and Become a Junior Ranger: 

(If you are short on time, these activities may be substituted for activities in this book.)

Watch the 12 minute slide show in the Pine Springs Visitor Center.

Watch the McKittrick Canyon slide show at the McKittrick Canyon Contact Station.

Attend a ranger led program.

Go on a hike.

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Safety Always Comes First:

As a Junior Ranger it is always important to make sure that you 

explore the park in a safe and responsible manner.

Drink plenty of water when exploring the desert. This is a 

very dry place and you must replenish your water reserves 

often, even if you don’t feel thirsty.

Wear sunscreen. The desert sun can burn you very quickly.

Stay on trails. Rattlesnakes and scorpions may be 

encountered off the trail.

Remember not to wander away from adults. Mountain lions have 

been encountered in the park. It is safest to stay in a group.

Watch where you put your hands and feet. Dark places under 

rocks, crevices, and holes are often homes for spiders, snakes, or 

scorpions.

Be careful around cacti and thorny bushes. Spines and thorns can 

be very painful and difficult to remove.

Don’t feed the wildlife. This can be 

very dangerous for animals as well 

as people. Animals are wild and may 

bite.

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Welcome to Guadalupe Mountains 
The Guadalupe Mountains are home to many animals. In order to escape the desert heat, many 

of these animals only come out at night. Often, the tracks they leave behind are the only clues 

that we can use to see that they are here. Try to match the animals below with their tracks. 

Can you name each animal?

Leave Only Footprints:

Animals roam around the desert leaving only tracks behind to tell of their presence. We can 

learn an important lesson from them. In order to preserve the fragile desert environment, we 

should try to leave no trace of our presence here except for our footprints. 

Everything is protected at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Leave all animals, plants, rocks, 

and artifacts where you find them so that others may enjoy them later.

Write the letter for each animal under the track (They are not to scale):

Write the name of each animal:

1. Animal Tracks National Park

A. B.

G. 

C. 

D. F.

E. 

H. 
Give your animal a name.

Where does your animal live? 

What does it eat?

Does it have any enemies? 

What are this animal’s adaptations?

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located in the 

northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert. Deserts are 

places of hot temperatures and little rain. What little 

rain does fall quickly evaporates. Animals that live here 

need to adapt to life in this rather harsh environment. 

They need to find ways to stay cool and to conserve water. 

Many animals avoid the hottest temperatures by only 

coming out at night. These animals are called nocturnal. 

Other animals burrow underground to avoid the hottest 

part of the day. 

Jackrabbits use their large ears to radiate heat away from their bodies. 

Many rodents like kangaroo rats never need to drink water. They get all 

of the water they need through the 

moist plants that they eat. Many 

desert animals are light colored so 

that they can reflect heat away from 

their bodies. These are all special 

adaptations that allow these animals to 

survive in the desert environment.

Create your own unique animal that would be well adapted to 

survive in the desert, and draw a picture of it below. 

jackrabbit 

javelina

kit Fox

2. Animal Adaptations National Park
Archeologists believe that the first humans in the 

Guadalupe Mountains were hunter-gatherers that arrived 

here between ten and twelve thousand years ago. Although 

very little is known about these people, we still find 

evidence that they were here; projectile points, baskets, 

pottery, petroglyphs, and pictographs. (Petroglyphs are 

images carved into the rocks; pictographs are images 

painted on rocks.)

Later came the Mescalero Apaches. They survived here 

by learning to utilize the native animals and plants. The 

Mescaleros hunted mule deer, elk, and bighorn sheep, and 

harvested plants like agave, sotol, and bear grass. The 

Mescalero Apaches were named for their reliance on the mescal, or agave, which formed the 

major staple in both their diet and culture. In addition to supplying fiber for ropes, blankets, 

and sandals, agave hearts were roasted in large cooking pits and eaten or made into cakes that 

could be eaten later. 

Take a walk on one of the trails in the park (the Pinery 

Trail, Manzanita Springs, Smith Springs, McKittrick Canyon, 

Campground Trail, McKittrick Nature Trail, etc). Imagine that 

you had to survive here without any modern conveniences. Think 

about where you would live. What would you eat? What could you 

use for shelter? What could you use for clothing or for tools? 

Look at the different plants and animals that you see here. Try 

to come up with some ways that you might be able to use these 

plants or animals if you had to survive here. Draw a picture of 

the plants or animals and write down their possible uses below.

3. Could You Survive Here?National Park
The Guadalupe Mountains formed as a reef made up of sponges and algae, along with other 

marine life, at the edge of a sea that covered this land approximately 250 million years ago. 

Fossils of ancient sea creatures can still be found throughout the Guadalupes. Remember to 

always leave fossils where you find them, so that others may enjoy them in the future.

Identify and color the animals of the reef below. You can use the fossil exhibit in the visitor 

center or the McKittrick Canyon Geology brochure to help find the answers.

What is the name of this primary 

reef builder?

What did it feed on?

What’s another name for these 

“sea lilies”?

Where were they common?

What are these shelled creatures 

called?

What function did their shells 

serve?

What is the name of this animal?

What types of animals did it eat?

4. Life During Permian TimesNational 
What does the word “wilderness” mean to you? What do you think it meant to settlers moving 

into the West? Do you think American Indians thought about wilderness differently? 

The Wilderness Act of 1964 provides a legal definition of wilderness as a place where nature 

is allowed to exist without human interference and people may visit but they do not remain. 

Wilderness is part of who we are as Americans. American Indians depended on the bounty 

of wilderness for survival and held Earth and its wild places as sacred. The great western 

explorers Merriweather Lewis and William Clark were inspired by the untamed beauty of 

wilderness. But by 1890, the essential wildness of America seemed vulnerable to the endless 

march of industrialization and civilization. By the mid-1900s, even national parks and national 

forests seemed vulnerable to increased automobile traffic and development. In 1964, in a 

nearly unanimous vote, Congress enacted landmark legislation that permanently protected some 

of the most natural and undisturbed places in America. 

Over half of Guadalupe Mountains National Park is congressionally designated Wilderness. 

When Congress and the President designate an area “Wilderness”, they are giving public land 

the highest level of protection possible. This added level of protection is permanent and backed 

by law. By protecting the core of Guadalupe Mountains National Park as Wilderness, the park 

becomes an area of clean air and water for nearby communities and a safe place for rare animals 

like Mexican spotted owls, elk, black bear and mountain lions. People who visit the Guadalupe 

Mountains Wilderness get to experience solitude, adventure, challenge and renewal. Wilderness 

offers us a chance to see the land in the same condition when Spanish explorers, Mescalero 

Apaches and settlers came through here. It is also a promise to the children of today and 

tomorrow that we are saving some of the best places for them to enjoy too.

Look at a map of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. What does the green-shaded 

 area represent? 

 

If you were to visit the Guadalupe Mountains Wilderness, how could you get there?

 Could you drive?

Something to think about...

The Guadalupe Mountains Wilderness is home to mountain lions. Scientists estimate that 

there is enough habitat to support 3-8 adult lions. How does that make you feel?

Would you be more or less likely to visit a Wilderness knowing it had large predators roaming 

free? 

If you chose not to visit, would Wilderness be important to you or not? 

 

Of the thousands of people who hike and backpack in the Wilderness, only a few will ever 

encounter a mountain lion. Why do you think lions are not seen more often? 

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5. WildernessNational Park
Walk the Pinery Trail from the visitor center 

to the Pinery Station. Read the interpretive 

signs about the Butterfield Stage. Imagine 

what it would have been like to pass through 

the Guadalupe Mountains on the Butterfield 

Stage in 1858. Try to answer the following 

questions:

Think about how you arrived here today. 

How would things be different in 1858? 

What dangers would you encounter while passing through the Guadalupe Mountains on the 

Butterfield Stage? What difficulties or discomforts would you experience?

Why did the stage stop here at the Pinery?

How many miles a day did the Butterfield Stage average?

Visit Frijole Ranch and imagine what it must 

have been like to live here. Think about how 

life would have been for you if you grew up 

here at Frijole Ranch. What chores would you 

have? What would you do for entertainment? 

Where would you go to school? How could you 

help your parents to run the ranch?

Answer the following questions. The answers 

can be found on the signs at Frijole Ranch.

What was the red building at the ranch used for?

Why was the ranch built in this location?

Which rooms in the ranch were built first?

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6. The Butterfield Stageational Park

7. Frijole Ranchational Park
Look at the display in the visitor center and try to find the following items. Write the name of 

each item in the space provided.

1. A fox that can climb trees.

2. A tree with dark red bark. 

3. A white-crested bird that is common in arid grasslands and washes.

4. A nocturnal raccoon-like animal that can be found in rocky canyons and brushy arroyos.

5. A desert plant that was used extensively by the Mescalero Apaches. It produces a single, 

rapidly-flowering stalk just before it dies.

6. A common desert plant that has feathery plumes resembling an Apache headdress.

7. A common rock that is originated from living organisms or is precipitated out of marine water 

and makes up much of the Guadalupe Mountains.

8. A bird that impales its prey on thorns, spines, or barbed wire.

9. A burrowing animal that feeds on small mammals by invading their burrows.

10. A common rattlesnake that can easily be identified by its distinctive black tail. 

11. A fairly common omnivorous animal that consumes a variety of fruit, insects, small mammals, 

and bird eggs.

12. An insect that preys on tarantulas. 

8. Visitor Center Scavenger Huntational 
Park rangers at Guadalupe Mountains National Park have many 

different duties. Protection rangers enforce park regulations 

and assist in protecting visitors. Interpretive rangers educate 

visitors through talks, walks, and other interpretive programs. 

Resource management rangers study and research park 

resources in order to better protect them. Other rangers 

perform maintenance or administrative duties. They all work 

together to help protect and preserve the park’s resources for 

both present and future generations.

What can you do to help protect and preserve Guadalupe Mountains National Park? 

What can you do to help protect the environment in your own neighborhood? 

Junior Ranger Pledge:

I ________________________ promise to help in the best way that I can to preserve 

America’s National Parks. I will help others to enjoy learning about nature, history, and safety 

in our national parks. I will do my part to see that our national parks and everything in them are 

kept as they are for everyone to enjoy both now and in the future.

9. What Do Park Rangers Do? tional 
Certificate of Achievement

is a Junior Ranger at Guadalupe 

Mountains National Park, Texas

Superintendent

Park Ranger

Date
Did You Know...?

Deer have antlers (not horns) that are shed each year. The antlers 

take about six months to grow to their full size. 

When diving for prey, peregrine falcons can reach 

speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. This makes the 

peregrine falcon one of the fastest animals on earth.

A jackrabbit uses its large ears to radiate heat away 

from its body and help keep cool.

Mountain lions are North America’s second largest cat. Only the jaguar of 

Mexico and Central America is larger.

Although roadrunners cannot fly for more than a few feet at a time, 

they can run at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour.

A mesquite tree’s roots can go 80 to 100 feet underground 

in order to reach water.

An agave’s flowering stalk can grow nearly a foot in just a 

single day.

Scorpions are covered with several layers of wax so they 

lose water much more slowly than other desert animals.

During dry conditions an ocotillo will drop all of its leaves in 

order to survive. It will grow new leaves after an adequate rainfall.

If threatened, a horned lizard can shoot blood out of the corner of 

its eyes.

Other Junior Ranger Programs:

If you enjoyed participating in Guadalupe Mountains National Park’s Junior Ranger Program, you 

may want to try the Junior Ranger Programs in these other Chihuahuan Desert parks: Carlsbad 

Caverns National Park, Big Bend National Park, White Sands National Monument, Fort Davis 

National Historic Site, Amistad National Recreation Area, and Chamizal National Memorial.

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Chihuahuan Desert Fun Facts:tional