Campground Visitors: On our first morning at Palo Duro State Park, we were greeted by a dozen or so wild turkeys, content with their activities as I viewed them through the camera lens from our van. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Layers of Time: Layers of different sediments created the canyon walls at Palo Duro over millions of years. This colorful landscape and state park are hidden in the middle of the Texas panhandle. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos
With Thanksgiving gatherings and platefuls of turkey with all the trimmings and sides, my thoughts returned to one of our early RV trips a few years ago. We were traveling from Denver to Houston to spend the Christmas holidays with family and were excited to take a winter trip in our van.
Our scheduled departure from Colorado was delayed by a snowstorm. Since we did not have a tight schedule, we let the storm pass and the major roads clear before leaving Denver. One of our early stops was near Amarillo at Palo Duro State Park. We had never been there although we had heard many good things about this surprising landscape in the middle of the Texas panhandle.
Mention the Texas panhandle and the picture in most people’s mind is miles and miles of ranch land for grazing thousands of head of cattle broken up by huge spreads of cotton fields and a ranch town or small city sprinkled around the flat plains.
Upon arriving at Palo Duro State Park about a half hour south of Amarillo, we were greeted by a beautiful canyon with brilliant colors glowing from the late afternoon sun. We checked in and had no problem getting a campsite as temperatures that night were predicted to be in the teens or lower. The park’s visitor center sits on the rim of Palo Duro canyon overlooking the beautiful landscape of reds and oranges with several varieties of juniper and other trees scattered throughout the canyon.
The campgrounds and many of the trails and points of interest are on the floor of the canyon about 600 feet lower than the rim. A single road leads from the rim into the canyon and travels a few miles through the canyon before making a wide loop and bringing visitors back to the rim via the same route.
Waking up to temperatures that were closer to single digit rather than the teens on the canyon floor, we were greeted by a flock of wild turkeys that make the state park their home and safe refuge around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The sun was bright, our heater in the van worked beyond our expectations, and the site of the birds around the campsite made for a beautiful first morning in Palo Duro State Park.
Palo Duro is known as the “Grand Canyon of Texas”, and it does not disappoint. It is the second largest canyon in the country next to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Palo Duro averages about only 600-800 feet in depth, not that deep compared to many other canyons in the U.S., but it does ramble for over a hundred miles. The state park occupies a small portion of the overall canyon on the northern end of the canyon.
Like most canyons, Palo Duro Canyon was carved over millions of years by wind and water. Even the small river in Palo Duro has a colorful name. The canyon was formed by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River! This is a fork of the much larger Red River that serves as much of the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
This colorful landscape that dips below the flat horizon of the Texas panhandle offers a variety of activities at the state park. There are miles of hiking and biking trails as well as trails for horseback riding. Deer, coyote, and many other wildlife call this canyon home as well a variety of smaller animals. With the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River providing water through the canyon, there are also many varieties birds in the canyon, including a large flock of wild turkeys!
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country, and he shares his photographs, which appear in the “Posts from the Road” series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Red, White and Blue: Beautiful blue skies, red canyon walls and white branches of a cottonwood tree provide a patriotic view from our campsite on a cold December morning at Palo Duro State Park. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Beautiful Light: Beautiful afternoon winter light shines across the canyon walls bringing life to this ancient landscape. This landscape has inspired many artists over the years including Georgia O’Keeffe who lived and painted in the area during the early 1900s. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Palo Duro: Palo Duro is ‘hard wood’ in Spanish. Palo Duro Canyon was named for the varieties of juniper, which are found throughout the canyon and provided material for tools, housing, and many other uses by Native Americans and other early pioneers in the area. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Grand Canyon of Texas: While Palo Duro may not be as majestic as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, it is considered the second largest canyon in the country. While only a few hundred feet deep, it does stretch for more than 100 miles and varies from 6 to 20 miles in width of colorful landscape. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Wild Turkey: Another view of the flock of wild turkey that made our first morning in Palo Duro State Park a memorable one. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com