Thousands of acres of pristine wilderness are protected within the boundaries of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. NPS Photo - Michael Haynie

"Wilderness helps preserve our capacity for wonder - the power to feel, if not see the miracles of life, of beauty, and of the harmony around us."
William O. Douglas

In November 1978, Congress designated 46,850 acres of wilderness in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The wilderness designation is the highest level of protection that can be granted to the land. According to the Wilderness Act of 1964, a wilderness is "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." The word "untrammeled" is key to understanding the heart of the wilderness idea. Untrammeled means unhindered and unrestrained. In wilderness areas, natural processes are allowed to prevail. It is the free play of these forces that characterize the land as wild. The wilderness found in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is home to black bears, mountain lions, and elk. These animals need large amounts of space to survive and the freedom to roam. The untrammeled nature of wilderness benefits people as well as animals. Whether hiking, backpacking, or horseback riding, meeting the land on its own terms provides us with opportunities for solitude, adventure, and spiritual renewal. Other values of wilderness benefit society at large. The Guadalupe Mountains Wilderness provides watershed protection to nearby communities that rely on groundwater that originates here. It also serves as an example of environmental health and thus, can function as a baseline for monitoring impacts outside of wilderness. The language of the Wilderness Act states that wilderness is needed to insure that "our increasing population accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions." President Lyndon B. Johnson cautioned, "Once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted." Protecting land as wilderness is a promise to future generations and ourselves that there will always be places to find beauty and spiritual renewal. This renewal results not only from our contact with unrestrained nature, but also from the awakening of a forgotten aspect of ourselves, the wilderness within.