Outdoor Adventures 
Grand Canyons
Rugged and serene—and largely overlooked—the Panhandle canyons are an ideal destination for hiking, biking, and gazing at ancient stones. A guide to the coolest summer getaway in Texas.
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Amarillo, about thirty minutes from the Palo Duro gates, has several indoor refuges good for amusing the kids for an hour or so. One is the Don Harrington Discovery Center, a hands-on science center and planetarium on the west side of the city (take the Coulter exit on Interstate 40). Another is the American Quarter Horse Heritage Center and Museum (I-40 at Quarter Horse Drive), currently hosting an exhibit on the American Cowboy. The city park complex (N.E. Twenty-fourth and U.S. 87), north of downtown, includes a swimming pool, a public golf course, a zoo, and the Wonderland amusement park. The Cadillac Ranch, west of the city (exit on Hope Road, then backtrack to the south frontage road), demands at least one souvenir snapshot, especially since vandalism and rust are taking their toll on the unique artistry of ten Cadillacs planted nose down in a wheat field. The Big Texan Steak Ranch (take the Lakeside exit on I-40) fulfills all the requirements of a great roadside attraction, including a billboard buildup from hundreds of miles away: “Free 72 oz Steak, If Eaten in One Hour”; “Texas’ Largest Rattlesnake!”), a faux western town storefront facade, and really good steaks.
Caprock Canyons
I CAN’T THINK OF A BETTER AMBASSADOR for the Caprock Canyons than James Cathey, a folksy, tobacco-chewing gentleman with a Santa Claus beard whom I met over lunch at the Sportsman’s Cafe in Quitaque (pronounced “Kitty-kway”). Cathey runs the Big C Trading Post on Lake Theo at Caprock Canyons State Park, where he rents canoes and bicycles on weekends. As he taxied me and a bike up the Caprock in his pickup, we talked of tornadoes (as a storm spotter for the volunteer fire department, Cathey has observed that tornadoes tend not to touch the ground for the first five or ten minutes after they come off the Cap), geology, human kindness and the abuse thereof (all it takes is a few bad eggs to mess up a good thing, we agreed), the landmark Quitaque twin peaks, and the economic potential of the 15,160-acre state park, dedicated in 1981. “If it wasn’t for Texas,” he said, “it’d be no contest. We’d have Palo Duro beat ten to one.” He had a point. The Caprock Canyons lack both a musical amphitheater and the dramatic rim-level approach of Palo Duro, but the area has more off-the-beaten-path appeal.
That’s the Breaks
The Caprock Canyons are not your classic enclosed-basin type of canyons like Palo Duro or the Grand Canyon. They’re deep, rugged breaks, the tumbling transition zone between the High Plains, also known as the Llano Estacado, and the farmland of the rolling plains below. The terrain has enough variation to make a mountain biker forget about Moab. It’s also horseback-riding heaven—equestrians have their own designated campground with individual corrals and extra-large parking areas at each campsite to accommodate horse trailers. Nearly fifty miles of trails crisscross the red-dirt badlands, including several that offer some extreme floor-to-rim vertical rises and drops up to six hundred feet, particularly along the Upper Canyon Trail in the western part of the park and the isolated Old Ranch Road in the far east. If you get tired of trails and dirt, the hundred-acre Lake Theo has a decent roped-off swimming area with shaded picnic shelters on its banks. Rather than the symbolic herd of Longhorns maintained at Palo Duro and other state parks, Caprock Canyons State Park keeps a herd of buffalo in tribute to the animal’s prehistoric and historic presence on the site, which has been traced back more than 10,000 years. A reconstruction of a giant buffalo skull “altar” found at Lake Theo is displayed in an interpretive exhibit near the park entrance.
I had the most fun simply exploring the North Prong and South Prong canyons at the end of the park road, where high ridges, towering bluffs, stair steps, pyramids, reefs, and all sorts of other weirdly shaped geological phenomena hover above the narrow creekbeds and play tricks on the eyes, making you think they’re thousands—instead of hundreds—of feet tall. The constantly changing play of light on the walls, accompanied only by a quail’s lonely call of “Bobwhite, bobwhite,” provided hours of amusement at the beginning and end of the day. As I stared at the cross-bedded strata of Haynes Ridge in the waning light of early evening, I imagined sculptured faces like those at the entrance of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, visualized the profile of Fred Flintstone, and could have sworn there was a herd of elephants etched into the vertical face of a cliff. Canyons will do that to a person, especially when they’re framed by all that big sky, wide-open country, and endless horizons, the kind found nowhere else but the Texas Panhandle.
Ride the Low Country
“Watch for the bigger stones on the first part of the trail,” James Cathey advised me as he dropped me off near the western end of the Caprock Canyons State Trailway, a sixty-mile former railroad bed that skirts past the Caprock Canyons State Park. “The surface gets a lot finer after you go through the tunnel.” For $30 he had outfitted me with a ten-speed bike and shuttled me in his pickup from flat, low Quitaque up a dirt road called Dirt Cap Road and onto the Caprock.
I pedaled down the old rail bed, a gradual one-degree decline following Quitaque Creek, down the rugged canyon breaks rife with woodlands, over bridges and trestles, through the one-thousand-foot Clarity Railroad Tunnel (one of the longest in the state and redolent of bat guano), and up a slight rise through the countryside leading into Quitaque. (There’s not a lot of shade along the trail, so pack plenty of water and stay off the trail during the heat of the day.)
Dozens of quail flew out of the grasslands as I sped past, but the only person I saw along the way was a park ranger. He said most weekdays were pretty much like this one, but on weekends it got crowded, meaning 25 or so folks on the trail. I smiled to myself, thinking of all the horror stories I’d been hearing about overcrowding at Yellowstone and Yosemite. I could have continued on the trail to Caprock Canyons State Park, four miles distant, or gone to Turkey or trekked all the way to the end of the trail at Estelline, forty miles away. Instead, I biked into Quitaque, where I cooled off with a snow cone from Geedunk’s ice-cream stand and inspected the old town hotel, built in 1928, which owners Lee and Pearl Tapp have rechristened the Rails to Trails Lodge.
Beyond the Canyons
If you feel like swimming, head to Mackenzie Reservoir, a clear, cool nine-hundred-acre lake in a dammed-up portion of scenic Tule Canyon, thirty miles west of the park off Texas Highway 207. A $2 per person entry fee is charged.
Other Canyons, Other Views
NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE IN THE PANHANDLE, there’s a ridgetop view nearby that will take your breath away. I made this pleasant discovery several years ago on U.S. 70, south of Perryton, from the north ridge of the Canadian River Breaks. I also recommend the Fritch Fortress, a dizzying overlook above Lake Meredith in the Canadian Breaks just north of the town of Fritch, some forty miles north of Amarillo; the stretch of Highway 207 eight miles south of Claude where the Palo Duro Canyon appears like a mirage (there’s a designated picnic area and scenic overlook on the south rim of the canyon as well as an unmarked dirt road on the east side of the highway on the north rim); and the picnic area on Texas Highway 256, about twelve miles east of Silverton, which reveals some stun ning views of the eastern part of Palo Duro Canyon.
Trip Tips
Palo Duro Canyon State Park
Getting There: The park is about thirty miles southeast of Amarillo on Highway 217.
Being There: Admission is $3 per person. There are designated campsites for backpackers, equestrians, tents, and RVs. For camping and cabin reservations call 512-389-8900. Mountain bike rentals, guided tours, catered meals, and overnight camp-outs are available through the Goodnight Trading Post in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, 806-488-2760. For trail ride information call the Goodnight Riding Stables in the park, 806-488-2231. For other park information call 800-792-1112 or 806-488-2227.
Staying There: Two primitive cabins on the canyon rim sleep four for $65 a night. Canyon and Amarillo have plenty of motels. Canyon also has two notable bed and breakfasts: the Historic Hudspeth House, 806-655-9800, and Country Home, 806-655-7636 or 800-664-7636.
Texas: Nightly through August 23, except Sundays. To reserve tickets ($7—$16), call 806-655-2181. No credit cards.
Figure 3 Ranch: To book reservations for the Cowboy Morning breakfasts and the Cowboy Evening steak dinners call 800-658-2613.
Caprock Canyons State Park
Getting There: The park is about eighty miles southeast of Amarillo, near Highway 86 and the town of Quitaque. Coming from downstate, turn off U.S. 287 at Estelline, and head west on Highway 86 through Turkey to Quitaque.
Being There: Admission is $2 per person. There are designated campsites for backpackers, equestrians, tents, and RVs. For more park information call 806-455-1492. For guided motorized tours of the Clarity Railroad Tunnel and its immediate environs call Queen of the Valley tours at the Circle Dot Ranch, 806-983-3639. James Cathey (806-455-1221) rents mountain bikes, as well as canoes and paddleboats, and runs a shuttle to both ends of the Caprock Canyons State Trailway. The $2 fee to use the trailway is waived if you pay the entry fee at Caprock Canyons State Park.
Staying There: The Rails to Trails Lodge (806-455-1344), the Quitaque Quail Lodge (806-455-1261), and the Hotel Turkey in Turkey (806-423-1151).
What to Bring: Water, sunscreen, a hat or cap, and comfortable shoes for the days; a light jacket for the cool nights.
How to Cope With Critters and Varmints: Though mosquitoes are a minimal irritant, horseflies can be a bother. The best protection is long-sleeved shirts and long pants, although one old-timer recommended rubbing alcohol on exposed skin or drinking beer. If flies persist around your campsite, do what the Christians do on the Figure 3: place plastic bags filled with water (a Mexican folk remedy) in strategic locations. Rattlesnakes are common to the area. The best advice is to avoid them at all costs.
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