Established in 1935, Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas. Its salt lakes — the saline playas typical of the Llano Estacado — and shortgrass prairie lie about 70 miles northwest of Lubbock, on the lonely road towards New Mexico.
Most of the year it is a quiet, windswept place for prairie birds. From late autumn to around February it becomes something special: sandhill cranes arrive to winter on the playas, and in a good year tens of thousands gather, filling the dawn sky with their rolling, bugling calls as they fly out to feed in the fields.
Top things to do: Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge
Watch the crane fly-out at dawn
Arrive before sunrise at a viewing point near the lakes (ask refuge staff for current roosting sites) and watch the cranes lift off in waves. Numbers vary greatly with water levels and weather.
Drive the refuge roads
Gravel roads and viewing platforms around Paul’s Lake and the Goose Lakes let you scan for ducks, geese, raptors and, in winter, cranes. Check road conditions after rain.
Prairie birding
Look for burrowing owls, raptors and prairie songbirds, and watch for prairie dog towns.
How to get there
- From Lubbock: about 70 miles northwest via US-84 through Littlefield (hometown of Waylon Jennings), then south of the town of Muleshoe on TX-214 — around 1.5 hours.
- Facilities: very limited; bring water, snacks and a full tank of fuel.
Insider tips
- Entry is free and the refuge is open during daylight hours.
- December to February is prime crane season — check recent sighting reports before you drive out.
- Bring binoculars, warm layers and a windproof jacket: winter dawns on the plains are bitterly cold.
- Stay on roads and designated areas, and respect closures that protect roosting birds.
Pair it with a tour
GetYourGuide has no bookable tours in Lubbock itself yet, so these are the best-rated experiences that fit naturally into a trip that includes Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge:
Guided tour from $48 Roswell: Guided UFO Incident Tour
Roswell is roughly three hours west of Lubbock across the Llano Estacado — an easy, classic road trip. This two-hour guided tour walks you through what happened in the summer of 1947, the places tied to the story and the theories that followed, so you get far more out of the town than a quick photo with an alien statue.
- The timeline of the famous 1947 “flying saucer” story
- Sites connected to the incident around Roswell
- What ufologists and sceptics have argued since
Walking tour from $40 Santa Fe: Guided Historic Downtown Walking Tour
US-84 runs almost straight from Lubbock to Santa Fe, which makes the New Mexico capital (around five and a half hours away) the classic extension of a South Plains trip. This two-hour walk with a museum-trained docent unpacks four centuries of Pueblo, Spanish, Mexican and American history in the adobe streets around the Plaza.
- 400 years of history around the Santa Fe Plaza
- Pueblo-style adobe architecture explained
- Led by a museum-trained docent
