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.
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PERFECT mornings you pine for in the summer, when the air is crisp and cool enough to justify a sweater or light jacket and the sky so sharp it seems like you can see every single molecule.
I was driving across ranchland on the southern edge of the Great Plains when a crack in the earth suddenly appeared in the distance. As I drew closer, the crack became a gaping maw a thousand feet deep and ten miles wide. Another world lay down there, a subsurface mountain range of peaks, pinnacles, buttes, monoliths, temples, castles, and spires of rock swathed in bands of red, brown, purple, pink, maroon, and orange. As the morning light shifted, so did the colors.
The setting was all the more remarkable because it wasn’t the Grand Canyon, or even New Mexico or Colorado. I was in the Texas Panhandle, typically maligned for its harsh weather, odiferous feedlots, and dull, wind-whipped landscape—flat as a tortilla and practically treeless.
What I was looking at was nothing like that.
The canyons of the Texas Panhandle are perhaps the most underappreciated natural phenomena in our state. One reason is that most of the canyon lands are privately owned, and access is restricted to a couple of state parks, a trailway, a family ranch, and some state highway picnic areas. Another reason is that the canyons pop up, or down, so suddenly in the middle of nowhere—the grasslands of the Great Plains that sprawl all the way to Canada. But good things come to those who go out of their way to find them. As I pondered the magnificent landscape and slurped from a hot cup of strong cowboy coffee, I thought of all the thousands of Texans making their annual family pilgrimages to New Mexico and Colorado to escape the Texas heat. This year they should blow it off and do the Panhandle instead. I wasn’t kidding.
You won’t get a headier whiff of the Old West or a better sense for this part of the country than the Panhandle canyons, particularly Palo Duro Canyon and, farther east, the area called the Caprock Canyons. Now is an especially good time to contemplate these hidden natural treasures, in light of the oppressive heat and humidity that envelop most of the state in the middle of summer. Though the temperature warms into the nineties on most August days (hey, at least it’s a dry heat), the nights cool down into the sixties and fifties, a comfort zone made even more pleasurable by the abundant spring rains that have greened up the fields and canyon walls and filled playa lakes as far as the eye can see. Even better, the natives are glad to see you and bear no ill feelings toward Texans, mainly because they’re Texans too. Think of it as going west at half the distance and half the cost.
Palo Duro Canyon
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS of erosion went into the sculpting of Palo Duro Canyon, but two events from the past century define its sense of place. The canyon was the final refuge for one of the last bands of free-roaming Comanche, led by Quanah Parker, and the site of their last stand against U.S. troops before being forced onto a reservation in Oklahoma in 1874. Two years later Colonel Charles Goodnight became the first Panhandle rancher, building the famous J. A. Ranch in the canyon. Goodnight defined cowboying and cattle ranching during its romantic heyday; Larry McMurtry used him as the model for Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove.
Goodnight’s name is invoked at every turn in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the 16,400-acre spread that is one of the oldest and biggest in the state parks system; it is also the only public access to the second biggest canyon in the United States. Along the sixteen-mile paved park road that drops from the rim to the canyon floor, you’ll find the Goodnight Riding Stables, where you can rent horses or book a trail ride; the Goodnight Trading Post, the all-purpose convenience store, gift shop, and snack bar where you can rent mountain bikes; and a replica of the humble dugout that the colonel lived in while he built the ranch.
Hiking, Biking, and Horseback Riding
Recreational activities range from the usual camping and hiking options to more-adventurous stuff, like riding horses and mountain bikes. Trails are spread throughout the park: the 4.6-mile Lighthouse Trail for hikers and horseback riders; the Gleaves, Hester, and Paul Equestrian Trail at the southeastern end of the park, as remote as it gets hereabouts; and the nine-mile Givens, Spicer, and Lowry Running Trail to the Lighthouse rock monument and back, dedicated to runners and hikers. There are also ten miles worth of mountain-biking trails. No horses are allowed on the Capitol Peak Mountain Bike Trail. Etiquette on the other trails requires bikers to yield to horses; hikers must yield to both horses and bikers.
If you get too hot roaming the trails, cool off anywhere in the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, the remarkably insignificant little stream that carved out the canyon and still runs through the park. Water Crossing Number One seems to hold the most water.
The most recognized landmark in the canyon, and the entire Panhandle, is the Lighthouse, a freestanding eroded sentinel, or hoodoo, which can’t be seen from the road. The only way to gaze upon it is to hike or bike the 2.2-mile red caliche trail (close to a two-hour round trip by mountain bike, three hours on foot) or take the daylong guided tour on horseback from the Goodnight Riding Stables. Either way is worth the effort. At least it was for me when I spied a horned toad scurrying across the trail, a sight I hadn’t witnessed in 35 years.
Visitors with physical limitations can still get a good sense of the canyon by driving the main park road, admiring the obligatory herd of Longhorns, or dropping in at the interpretive visitors center on the canyon rim near the entrance.
So You Want to Be a Cowboy?
One of Charlie Goodnight’s most enduring inventions was the chuck wagon, an on-location feeding concept developed for cowboys working the far corners of his wide-ranging spread. Anne Christian pointed this out to guests being pulled in a wagon by a team of mules across the grasslands of her family’s Figure 3 Ranch, a working cattle ranch on the canyon’s northern rim, about thirty miles east of the park. Her talk was accompanied by the aroma of eggs, sausage, sourdough biscuits, and coffee coming from two chuck wagons stationed nearby. Anne’s husband, Tom, and his father, Terrill, were born on the ranch. Tom’s grandfather, Jim, worked for Colonel Goodnight way back when. From April to October the Christians host Cowboy Morning breakfasts and Cowboy Evening dinners on their spread, giving everyday folks (willing to pay $19 and $22.50, respectively) stunning two-hour up-close-and-personal views of Palo Duro Canyon. The price is well worth the experience and includes other historical tidbits. For example, the Figure 3 was used for the final scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where the good guys ride off into the setting sun.
So You Want to See an Epic Musical?
The state park’s main attraction is indisputably the musical drama Texas, presented outdoors every summer against the canyon wall in the Pioneer Amphitheatre. The self-described “Musical Romance of Panhandle History,” now in its thirty-second season, was the creation of the late playwright Paul Green. The storyline is a somewhat corny shorthand telling of how the region was settled, focusing on the cowman versus the farmer drama, with lip service given to the natives who preceded the Anglo pioneers. But you’d have to be a hard-core curmudgeon not to get swept away by the dancing and singing, smartly designed stage sets (including covered wagons and a steam locomotive), flag waving and carrying on, and dazzling sound and light special effects. By all means, don’t leave before the grand finale fireworks extravaganza. And be sure to arrive an hour or two before the eight-thirty opening curtain for the preshow barbecue, music, and other festivities.
Beyond the Canyon
Okay, maybe I stretched it a bit when I extolled the salubrious Panhandle summer. If the forecast calls for highs in the nineties, plan outdoor activities for mornings and evenings and save midday for either soaking your feet in the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River or driving fifteen minutes to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in the town of Canyon. One of the biggest and best museums in the state, the Panhandle-Plains has more than 3.5 million objects in its vast collection, including Quanah Parker’s ceremonial war bonnet, a wooden cable tool drilling rig, a roomful of windmills, and enough dinosaur bones to enthrall the kid in all of us. August 8 marks the opening of the “XIT: The Ranch That Built the Texas Capitol” exhibit. The $3 donation is a bargain.
As you drive along Texas Highway 217 between Canyon and the canyon, keep an eye peeled for the exhibit immortalizing the Sad Monkey miniature train that ran through the park until last year. Other sights include the strangely imaginative Timber Canyon western town, the Palo Duro RV park, and the adjacent Rustic Outpost cowboy town, where the Amarillo Gunfighters stage shoot-’em-ups for the public on summer weekends.
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