PALO DURA CANYON, Amarillo, Texas

What a great day to go to a canyon! The sun is up, humidity low, blue sky and white fluffy clouds.  The Palo Dura Canyon is the second biggest canyon in America—second of course to the Grand Canyon.   But who has ever heard of it?

Our first stop is the visitor center to learn something about it and from that vantage point we had a splendid view up the canyon. 

  This canyon is approachable.  It is not so deep or precipitous as the Grand. There is a road that meanders 16 miles along the bottom of the canyon. Trails on either side of the road take off either to go up the cliffs or travel beside the stream.  Campgrounds and picnic areas are set up within the canyon.

There are 6 places the canyon road crosses the stream. It looks like originally all of the crossings were fords, but the first 2 or three now are new bridges. There are water depth posts beside the bridges showing up to 5 feet on the gauge.  The other crossings are still fords, so at this time you cannot travel the whole route.  Apparently they have had a lot of rain recently, and the flash floods have washed out a couple of the crossings.  You can see where the power of the water has laid flat the surrounding vegetation all along the creek.

Because of the tremendous rains, all but 2 of the trails (which we took) are closed due to MUD.  We tried a third trail but I slipped right at the entrance and nearly fell.   It is like our NC red clay only slipperier. (is that a word?). 

Even at that we soaked up the beauty and enjoyed the hiking.  We took our sandwiches and a beer into a brand new picnic area and enjoyed our lunch.

We then headed back.  Laundry, getting the TV to work, and showers finished off the day.