The LEGEND of Thunderbird Mountain | El Paso Texas Hike

The LEGEND of Thunderbird Mountain | El Paso Texas Hike

Woe be unto him who frees the Thunderbird, for he will be responsible for death and destruction far beyond anything mankind has yet experienced. Now that we've got your attention, we're so excited to kind of invite you along on actually a hike to Thunderbird itself.

There's an epic story about Thunderbird, it's a Native American myth that's been around this part of the country for a really, really long time. And as you can see, you can actually, there is what looks to be a Thunderbird trapped in the Franklin Mountains, and not only are we going to tell you the story, but we're

going to show you how to do a hike from Thunderbird Trail here on the west side, across the street from Coronado Country Club, actually up to and into Thunderbird. So it's going to be super, super fun. If you do do this hike on your own, a couple of things real quick.

Number one, timing. Don't do this hike in the summer. Don't do it when it's 100 degrees out, you will die, okay? It's just too hot.

And we're doing this hike in December. The weather is 67 degrees out, it's sunny, it's beautiful. Number two, this sign says expert difficulty level. I would say kind of intermediate and beyond.

This probably isn't a great trail if you're a beginner hiker or if your mobility is limited, because some of it is kind of rocky, and that can be, you know, unsettling beneath your feet. You don't want to like step on a rock, fall, twist an ankle, any of that.

And then the other thing is, you don't really want to go off the trail because there are a lot of cacti out here, and I've made that mistake before trying to just forge my own trail and my feet paid the price. So stay on the trail, follow us.

I think it's going to be an epic hike, whether you do it in person or whether you do it just with us in this video. All right, let's go. Okay, so we just crossed the bridge.

Now you do want to be careful because you want to make sure that you actually go towards Thunderbird. So there's a trail off this way. This is going to actually take you more towards downtown.

You don't want to go this direction. Right behind me up is the trail that we're going to take, and then you can see there's a big water tower here. This is going to be kind of like a beacon, and it's going to be important so that you

remember how to get back. Legend has it that the Franklin Mountains have a distinctive shape resembling a Thunderbird on its west side. This Thunderbird has tails suggesting it can stir up violent weather, fly over the mountaintops,

and snap up people as its prey using its huge talons. If you look on the west side of the Franklin Mountains, you'll see a natural formation of red clay or rhyolite band that goes along the mountain in the shape of a Thunderbird. This rhyolite is an igneous volcanic rock of silica-rich composition made up of quartz

and feldspar crystals. The Thunderbird looks like its wings are outstretched and its head is turned towards the west. Native American legend spanning generations across the continent tells the tale of an enormous bird that is both highly feared and revered.

This Indian mythology considered the bird a supernatural being of power and strength, especially here in El Paso where the silhouette of a Thunderbird appears on the west side of the Franklin Mountains. According to the legend, the magical bird stirred up violent thunderstorms when it hunted

and flashed lightning from its beak or eyes. One flap of its gigantic wings would create giant rolling thunderclaps. According to a book by Ken Hudnall and Connie Wang, a Thunderbird survived attacks by Indians who nevertheless managed to imprison it and drive it into a cave, trapping it there and

issuing the following warning for future generations. Woe be unto him who frees the Thunderbird, for he will be responsible for death and destruction far beyond anything mankind has yet experienced. Okay now this is the only little tricky section for staying on the trail.

We are 0.15 miles in from Thunderbird Trailhead. Now you're going to come to this big kind of rocky bed, drainage bed sort of. Now if you go towards the mountains up this rocky drainage bed, that is not where you want to go.

Okay? Do not go that way. It's just a dead end to nowhere. Now you can start to see up off of my left shoulder here the Thunderbird right there

on the mountains. Okay? But the trick on this part of the trail is actually to walk through all of this rock. This is where I said it's kind of technical.

You can see there's a house being built there and behind that house there's a dirt road that's going to take us up to actually Thunderbird. So when you get to this point, 0.15 miles, you're going to go over these rocks, kind of headed towards that house, and there's going to be a dirt road that we're going to

catch. That's the only tricky part. Other than that you've got this. Okay, so hopefully you found that trail.

You crossed that little river drive rock bed and you made it to this dirt road. Off here, here are the homes, Coronado Country Club, and then up here is where we're going to go to Thunderbird. We're headed towards another water tower.

We're about 0.28 miles in right now, more or less. So you're doing great. Let's head up to Thunderbird. Okay, so we're about half of a mile in from where we started.

Now, we're going to stay on this dirt road and we're going to go up towards that water tower and then veer off to the right, exactly to Thunderbird right there. You can very, very clearly see we're looking right at Thunderbird. That's where we're going.

Now, I just want to make a real quick note that there is an awesome trail here off to the left. We're underneath these power lines. I run this trail all the time.

If you start going on this trail, you're headed north and you're going to go towards Cimarron Canyon, Lost Dog Trail. You could go to 375 underneath it and to Tom Mays. So there's a lot of epic, epic trails in here if you're looking to do that, but we're not

looking to do that. 0.5 miles. We're going to keep going this way right into the heart of Thunderbird. Hopefully we do not wake it up.

Okay, so we're about 0.8 miles, haven't even gone one mile. And basically if you stayed on the path, we're headed right up this rocky path. Sometimes you'll see smaller little paths for the most part. Just stay on the main path headed right up into the heart of Thunderbird.

I think maybe it's probably even just less than half a mile still, so we're getting close. All right, so we made it. We went about as far as you can into this canyon here. Yeah, so it's about 1.3 miles one way.

So I guess when you add it up, it's going to be about two and a half miles round trip more or less. Now, as you're coming up into the canyon here, it starts to get real rocky. We showed you some footage of that.

If you don't feel comfortable going through all of that, that's cool. Go as far as you want. Turn around, snap some pictures of Thunderbird, and call it a day. But it is really a beautiful place.

We wanted to talk about one thing because I know everyone will ask about it, and that is critters. So did we see any rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions? No we did not.

I'm in these mountains all the time, and I've seen a handful of those animals. It's winter, so we don't really have to worry about the snakes right now. And so not too much to really worry about. We didn't really see any critters, a couple of birds, and that's about all you're going

to see in here. Very safe from a wildlife perspective. One other thing, dogs, as long as your dog is light-footed and can get around the rocks pretty well, I'm sure it would do fine.

One thing I would say though, in general, in a desert though, if your dog's off the leash and your dog doesn't understand what a rattlesnake is, and he comes upon one and just goes nose in first, you know, it's probably not going to be a good idea. So you might want to keep that in mind.

We want everyone to be safe, including the doggos. And we hope that you enjoyed the story of Thunderbird. The next time that it's raining, lightning, thundering, you can think about how Thunderbird maybe is kind of upset and wrestling around in here.

And we hope that you enjoyed the idea of, you know, kind of getting outside, stretching the legs, enjoying a hike, whether you do it in person or just virtually here with us. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you in the next episode.