Guadalupe County High Point Trip Report
Mesa Leon
Date: April 30, 2000
Author: Jobe Wymore
From the West end of town in Vaughn look for Vaughn RV Park on the North side of the road. They say
"RV Park" but, I'm not really quite sure what that thing was. Anyway, on the West side of the park take
W. Main Street 0.3 miles to where the road comes to a T intersection. Go left and soon will come to your
first set of railroad tracks. After 0.7 miles you will cross another set of tracks. At this point hit the
odometer. Curve to the left on the paved road, follow till it turns to dirt and wraps around the hill on your
right. At 1.2 miles you'll come to a triangle intersection and nearby a sign stating you're on road 4F.
Continue North (straight) on washboard road. I found it much easier to take at maniac style highpointing
speeds nearing 80 MPH. At 6.3 miles you'll come to a point in the road where you cross a cattle guard &
have 2 options. Either go straight for 0.5 miles and come to gate that'll be locked with not 1, but 2 locks
or hang a left and follow better road to option #2. I recommend option #2.
From cattle guard after turning left with the road (West) it will shortly bend to your right and take you
north once again. At 3.7 miles from the cattle guard you'll come to an intersection. Turn right toward E.
At Perez Ranch you'll run into a red gate. When I was here there were hoards and hoards of cows just
sitting by it. Go through the gate (shutting it so the beefs don't get out). From gate go 0.9 miles to a point
where road swings to your right and up a hill. At 1.2 miles from gate, take left up steeper road that can be
done in a car if you don't really like it that much. With 4WD it's no problem. At around 3.5 miles from
the gate, I parked. Got out and headed west(ish). Just kept looking at the tops of the trees to where it
looked like a bunch just seemed higher than the others. Highpoint had a cairn and some sort of
wood/scrap pile on top. What's that all about? Anyway, there are 2 benchmarks, 1948 and 1954. From
parked vehicle to highpoint it was around 0.3 miles or so. Just depends on what type of wandering you
end up doing. I returned the same way since I really didn't feel that adventurous.
All in all great weather, great trip, 1000+ miles on the rental (won't catch me driving my own on these
trips). Topo is a great help for this one.