Driving across the Texas Panhandle can seem like an endless vista of telephone poles, fence posts and barbed wire, sometimes with a green backdrop, more often shades of brown.  It is, literally, flat as a tabletop. The land around Canyon, a city of a few thousand people and home to a small state college and a wonderful regional museum, is no exception except for a small valley to the north.  
    So, there is a lot of high plains – 4,000 feet above sea level compared to Wisconsin’s highest point of Timm’s hill at a mere 1,952 feet.  But when you drive east a few miles out of Canyon, Palo Duro Canyon drops away suddenly and dramatically, a red rock anomaly amid the surrounding flatness.

    The Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River meanders across the floor of the canyon and doesn’t look like much on a given day, but you can look in any direction and see the work the river has done for tens of thousands of years as it eroded soil and rock to create one of the more magnificent canyons in North America.  In terms of length, at 120 miles long (much of that outside the state park) it is supposedly the second largest after the Grand Canyon. In depth, at most about 800 feet below the plateau around it, it doesn’t seem like all that much compared to many of the canyons further west in the United States.  But you can’t measure everything in just inches or feet, and in terms of beauty Palo Duro is definitely in the pageant.

    You can drive through the state park in a little over half an hour if traffic is light, but you’ll miss a lot if you take that approach.  And on summer weekends the park is so heavily visited that the drive could take considerably longer.

    The canyon is about 30 minutes south of Amarillo, a city of 185,000 and a good stopping point on Interstate 40, a major east to west route.  If your travel takes you through the region, it's worth making time for a visit. 

     While the canyon is famous for its vastness and red rock beauty, the iconic lighthouse formation is what is most used in photos and logos throughout the Panhandle.  It can't be seen from the park road – it’s almost a three-mile hike.  I lived in Amarillo and Canyon a number of years and have visited Palo Duro many times, but I had never hiked to the lighthouse.  We always had too little time, or no one in my group wanted to make the effort – there was always some reasons I didn’t get to see it.  On a visit to the Panhandle earlier this year for a reunion in Canyon, I was determined to change that.

     The lighthouse trail map recommends that you carry a half gallon of water per hiker if you take the trail, and a sign at the trailhead recommends a gallon.  I hiked on a moderate Sunday in late April when the temperature was around 80 with just two pint bottles and I made it, but I wished I had more water with me by the time I was slogging the last mile back to the car.  On a hotter day (which would be most any day in the summer) I would go with the one-gallon recommendation – and be sure you have and use sunscreen. 

     The trail is clearly marked, and in many places eroded from heavy use, not just by hikers but by horseback riders and mountain bikers.  In mid-day you don’t have much chance of seeing wildlife, although the park has barbary sheep, mule and whitetail deer, bobcats, roadrunners and wild turkey, among other species.  I got to the canyon later than I had planned, so I decided to have a light lunch at the canyon’s “trading post,” then got myself going. 

    The hiking was not particularly strenuous, but I hadn’t hiked six miles for awhile.  There were few other hikers on the trail, and I could often go for 15 or 20 minutes without seeing another person.  One family I encountered early, though, said they had seen some rattlesnakes about a half mile from the lighthouse – something to look out for, although I knew from experience that if you made some noise and kept your eyes open you were not likely to have any problems.  It did make me wish I had a hiking stick with me.

     I enjoyed the changing scenery along the way – colorful canyon walls, strange rock formations, dried up stream beds.  It’s hard to believe the canyon was formed by water, but geologists say that at some times over the last million years, the volume was much higher – high enough to move boulders all the way from New Mexico.

     I could see the lighthouse from about a mile away, a clear target to aim for the rest of the way.  The last stretch was more up and downhill, but soon I was standing at the base of the red sandstone monument.  You could climb up onto a shelf behind it and even go to the top of the nearby Castle Peak formation to view it if you’re daredevil enough to try it.  I didn’t, but another hiker did. Since I was there, I spent some time enjoying the scene before heading back.  One water bottle was empty, and I nursed the other one along as I hiked the three miles back to the car.  I was thankful it wasn’t a hotter day.

    The canyon has a total of nearly 30 miles of trails – including an 11-mile running trail – but the Lighthouse Trail remains the most popular one in the park.

    During the summer months, Palo Duro Canyon is also home to a lavish musical production, "Texas," but that ends Aug. 15. The panoramic beauty of the canyon provides an unparalleled backdrop. More information on ticket prices ($29.95 is the top price) is available at www.texas-show.com, or by calling 806-655-2181.
    Taking in the show was another thing I never quite got around to when I lived in the area -- reason enough for another trip next year!