Palo Duro Canyon
From Carlsbad we headed Northeast into Texas. Our destination was Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the United States. While it's something of a distant second - being 1/5th the depth of Grand Canyon - it's much more accessible and less crowded, and has a beauty all its own.
Part of that beauty is in the contrast. The canyon is in the NE corner of an enormous tableland called the Llano Estacado ("Staked Plains"). To get there from Carlsbad we drove NE across that Llano, experiencing the utterly flat, landmark-free space for a whole day of driving. We couldn’t quite make it to Palo Duro in one travel day from Carlsbad, so we stopped at a Harvest Host called Oswald Vineyards in Brownfield.
They were incredibly hospitable, and invited us in for an extended tasting and conversation. It was lovely to sit and converse with other adults at length… the road can be lonely sometimes. The proprietor was a commercial chemist in Alabama before he retired to make wine in Texas. Turns out you can make wine in Texas, too! But Texas doesn’t really export any of it, it’s all sold in-state. We stayed right out next to the fields here, but unlike the coastal or Northwest vineyards these were growing right out of the dry, sandy soil of the flat tableland. Obviously irrigation makes this possible, but the finicky spring weather of the region makes growing here a risky business. In any case, the wines were quite good, and the scenery endless.
The next morning we bumped slowly out the dirt road of the vineyard and headed North again, circling Lubbock and hitting I-27. At the town of Canyon we cut Southeast, towards Palo Duro. The canyon drops cleanly off the edge as you approach, the point of where it feels like it would be easy to fall off if you weren't paying attention.
Sadly we couldn't stay in the canyon proper, as there is no mobile phone coverage for me to work, and Solomon was really too big anyway. So we stayed at a park just outside the entrance, which was uninspiring but met our needs. While our site had not much of a view, you could walk around and enjoy a nice Eastern panorama down the canyon.
The state park caps the number of day-use visitors each day, and unfortunately they were sold out on the day we arrived, so we missed out on a day of canyon exploration. Thankfully I managed to squeeze in a day off midweek so we could actually experience the canyon together that we came so far to see.
We got entry tickets for 3 days. Tuesday Kristin and the kids went down to hike and explore, and enjoyed the geology and exploring the landmarks. In contrast to Grand Canyon, you can easily drive down into the bottom of Palo Duro. There are developed campgrounds, a park store, and even a fuel station. The CCC built some adorable stone cabins down there in the 1930s, along with several campgrounds, trails and visitor centers.
The hiking is very good in the canyon, but the mountain biking is even better. So on Wednesday we loaded the bikes in the truck and picked the easiest trail we could find to try some biking. This was excellent, except for poor Kristin, whose lovely new bike was absolutely not a mountain bike. Turns out they look that way for a reason, and when you take a fitness bike on an MTB trail it's quite miserable - bumpy, slippery, and hard to control.
So we cut our biking short and went for some hiking instead, which was nice but very hot. The air is still in the canyon, and the sun really can bake you. Later that evening I went out biking with the kids just the three of us, which was fun but pretty challenging!
Thursday evening we went up to Amarillo, as it was the closest Amazon locker and I had to pick up a delivery. We took the opportunity to get some good barbecue, which was absolutely worth the drive, oh my gosh it was delicious.
Friday we went back to the canyon, first for a hike through some incredible rock formations, and then we tried another bike ride. This went much better than the last, though it was still a lot of walking for Kristin. The scenery was unbelievable! It was a great way to end our time in the canyon. We felt like we only scratched the surface of this beautiful place.
After winter storm Uri, as we watched the situation across Texas, we felt like the balance of factors was now in favor of us changing our plans. We'd been vacillating about whether to continue across TX to Florida as we originally planned, but given our late start and the raging pandemic, it was never certain. While in Palo Duro, the TX governor announced that the following week, Texas would lift all its statewide mask mandates. We weren't comfortable with the health risk of traveling there for additional weeks, nor being the additional burden on the food, fuel, and power infrastructure already being challenged after the storm.
So this will be our only stop in Texas, and from here we will head West on I-40 back to NM. This leaves a lot of unfinished business across the Southeastern states, but that'll have wait for happier times.
