25June2008 Palo Duro Canyon, Texas
25June2008 Palo Duro Canyon, Texas
The best-kept secret in Texas is the Palo Duro Canyon. It’s name is Spanish for “hard wood”, referring to the Juniper trees that thrive there. One could be driving forever on the seemingly endless semi-arid plains of the Panhandle without hitting upon it. Formed by a river cutting through cap rock less than a million years ago, the sedimentary layers exposed on the canyon walls were about two hundred million years old. Palo Duro Canyon is 120 miles long, six to eight hundred feet deep, and its width varied from six to twenty miles. Minerals deposited at different elevations through the eons gave the walls a striated look. With innumerable mesas and weathered buttes, made more intriguing by rock falls, the canyon's appearance was striking. The mood it lent varied with the time of the day.
The Elkins Ranch operated several different tours. We opted for the Cowboy Morning Chuck Wagon Breakfast Tour. A short drive took us to a site just below the rim of the canyon for the meal. This was followed by a light-hearted singing and comedy session performed by a couple of cowboys. But the brief glimpse of the canyon’s striking vistas only increased our urge to see more. We were determined to do a three-hour tour, later in the afternoon.
In the interim, we visited the excellent Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Amarillo. We didn’t have enough time to do the whole place because we had to rush off to do the canyon tour. So, we asked, and were allowed to use the same admission tickets for the following day!
The Palo Duro Canyon tour: At select points along the rim, exposed rocks were covered with wavy patterns from erosion by millions of years of flowing water. To this day, the flow resumes after each heavy downpour. Rocky ledges became waterfalls, only to dry up later. The Elkins ranch jeep, with a nylon canvas top, started its descent along a steep tortuous path to the canyon floor. We literally inched downwards in the uneven terrain. There had been heavy showers with thunder and spectacular lightning in the evening for the past few days. Had the shower yesterday lasted any longer, the path would have been an intractable mudslide and the tour would have been cancelled. Thankfully, everything turned out fine and the low humidity allowed the moisture to be evaporate quickly. Hanging on tightly to the rails of our vehicle, we could see that the soil was loose and crumbly everywhere - one can imagination what a heavy downpour will do.
On the canyon floor, the scenery was forlorn, desolate and beautiful at the same time. Hoodoos were all over the place. These were strange shapes formed by irregular columns of striated soft rock laid down by sedimentation and topped by a harder less easily eroded cap rock. Numerous collapsed hoodoos were silent testimony that erosion toils inexorably. Junipers, hemlocks, mesquites, cacti and other flora shared this habitat. The fauna – coyotes, rattlesnakes, lizards, aoudad goats – was not readily visible. These denizens of the night usually emerged at dusk. Appreciation of our surroundings was enhanced by our guide’s commentary pertaining to the geology, biology and history of this wild and fascinating place. His historical anecdotes reflected the zeitgeist of those times. For us, most frightening were his descriptions of previous floods. It was hard to imagine such a large area can be flooded in an instant but belongings of victims who lost their lives in the flash floods of the 1970’s can still be seen strewn in certain areas on the canyon floor. Some on our tour had read that there were still treasures and other booty left by the Spaniards and others, but we were told that only cartridge shells from the 1800’s have been found from time to time. If one wanted to see armor or weapons of the Spanish conquistadores, go to the museum.
How do we get back to our car, parked on the rim of the canyon, without our guide? He read my thoughts. The most important thing was to pick a salient landmark on the rim whilst there was still light. What landmark? There were no buildings or significant structures - only trees, bushes and the occasional rocky patch. Ah, OK, there was an escarpment that stood out because of its outstanding striations… oh, I remember that bare section with exposed soil from a mudslide … “now you’re beginning to get it”, the guide grinned…we stayed close to him regardless!!
That day we covered a lot of ground. After the Palo Duro canyon tour, we managed to get last minute tickets to see the musical drama TEXAS. A barbecue dinner was served before the show commenced. The outdoor Pioneer Amphitheatre was nestled in a natural basin of the Palo Duro Canyon. The canyon wall as the backdrop was the show stealer. A lone horseman carrying a flag appeared on the edge of a 600ft cliff above the audience. That was the dramatic the start of the show. The cast had three stages to strut their stuff - the middle one alone exceeded any stage found in a normal auditorium. With such a setting, there was room literally for a whole cavalry on the sides of the canyon and on the three stages. A serious show of pyrotechnics along the rim of the canyon wall complemented the grand finale on the stages below.
Distance traveled 129.5 miles
Started out at the crack of dawn.
But we weren't the first to arrive at the gates of Elkins Ranch in Palo Duro Canyon - three German tourists were already waiting.
The daughter of the owner ran Elkins Ranch. They owned a few thousand acres of Palo Duro Canyon, so visitors were on private property and subject to house rules.
Those lovely animals. Don't forget to go to FULL SCREEN if a photo piqued your interest.
Hmmm, biscuits made on the spot.
Ah, cinnamon buns, cowboy style.
All ages worked together to give us a nice cowboy breakfast.
Cowboy kettle and mugs
As the brochure put it: 'Arrive at cow camp to the tantalizing aroma of fresh cowboy coffee brewing over the open fire and the crew servin' up a down-home delicious, all-you-can-eat chuck wagon breakfast with all the trimmin's. Sure to satisfy the heartiest outdoor appetites!'
Listen, don't laugh, what you are seeing were not the leftovers, that's my Cowboy Breakfast! It was Dutch Oven Buttermilk biscuits and Grampa's sausage gravy, scrambled eggs with herbs - Western style, Maple link sausages with Old Timers' potatoes, fresh baked cinnamon rolls and cranberry jelly, chilled frontier fruit, and cowboy coffee in a cowboy mug. Now look at the photo again, doesn't it look better? Seriously, it tasted good - particularly the biscuits and gravy. If I had heaped my tray to make it look bounteous, the photo would have looked a whole lot better. But we can't even finish what we had on the tray, let alone putting more on!
After breakfast we were entertained by Ed Montana accompanied by Mr Gallagher(his guitar) and Hody Porterfield. They were really very good - cowboy songs and a bit of comedy. We picked up a couple of CD's to see if we can discern the difference between cowboy music and country music. Later in the day, Hody drove us in a jeep down to the canyon floor. We learnt he was an accomplished outdoor woodsman.
Yes, we were really in cowboy country - see the hats on the crew cleaning up in the background?
On the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon.
Shot from another position along the rim.
These rocks on the rim, several hundred feet above the canyon floor, were smooth from centuries of water action.
The early Spaniards described the striations as 'ladies' skirts' - presumably they missed the multi-petticoats back home. The crown of this butte had collapsed from relentless erosion - the debris still visible lower down the left slope; to the right, can you see a cap rock with its balancing act still intact? Remember to go FULL SCREEN.
The dirt track looked OK at the start of the descent but it got narrower and more uneven as we progressed. A decent shot was simply impossible as we hung on to the rails of the jeep for dear life.
Was this the piece we saw still doing its balancing act? There were so many, it was hard to tell.
There was the possibility of everything coming loose if it rained hard. The prickly pear cactus was desperately hanging in there. Erosion was constantly wasting, weathering and altering the contours of the Palo Duro Canyon.
See the lizard in the middle of the photo!?
Hoodos like oversized mushrooms
It was really a delicate balancing act. Water was not the only agent of erosion; winds carrying very fine grains of sand can be very abrasive.
The whitish lines were layers of sediment rich in calcium. The reddish soil showed an abundance of iron.
These half-dry streams could swell in an instant when the heavens openned up - flash floods were common, people have been drowned. In placid times, slow moving muddy waters do carry off tons of soil each year.
The Cherokees in the Smoky Mountains didn't live in teepees or wigwams but the Commanches, who lived in the Palo Duro Canyon, did. The huge canyon floor was home to many Indians until they were forced out by the onslaught of the US Cavalry in the Red River War of 1874-75, others called it the Buffalo War.
Hody our guide demonstrated how to start a fire - the way it was done before the advent of lighters and matches. It took patience but it was easy with a bit of practise.
The rim of the canyon was 600ft up. The photo does not convey the visual impact of being on the spot. We weren't able to get a shot of the three stages in one go. This was the centre stage.
This was the stage on the left.
The performers were all enthusiastic
There's forty odd on stage here.
They were all young and good looking, with adequate acting and singing skills
The best-kept secret in Texas is the Palo Duro Canyon. It’s name is Spanish for “hard wood”, referring to the Juniper trees that thrive there. One could be driving forever on the seemingly endless semi-arid plains of the Panhandle without hitting upon it. Formed by a river cutting through cap rock less than a million years ago, the sedimentary layers exposed on the canyon walls were about two hundred million years old. Palo Duro Canyon is 120 miles long, six to eight hundred feet deep, and its width varied from six to twenty miles. Minerals deposited at different elevations through the eons gave the walls a striated look. With innumerable mesas and weathered buttes, made more intriguing by rock falls, the canyon's appearance was striking. The mood it lent varied with the time of the day.
The Elkins Ranch operated several different tours. We opted for the Cowboy Morning Chuck Wagon Breakfast Tour. A short drive took us to a site just below the rim of the canyon for the meal. This was followed by a light-hearted singing and comedy session performed by a couple of cowboys. But the brief glimpse of the canyon’s striking vistas only increased our urge to see more. We were determined to do a three-hour tour, later in the afternoon.
In the interim, we visited the excellent Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Amarillo. We didn’t have enough time to do the whole place because we had to rush off to do the canyon tour. So, we asked, and were allowed to use the same admission tickets for the following day!
The Palo Duro Canyon tour: At select points along the rim, exposed rocks were covered with wavy patterns from erosion by millions of years of flowing water. To this day, the flow resumes after each heavy downpour. Rocky ledges became waterfalls, only to dry up later. The Elkins ranch jeep, with a nylon canvas top, started its descent along a steep tortuous path to the canyon floor. We literally inched downwards in the uneven terrain. There had been heavy showers with thunder and spectacular lightning in the evening for the past few days. Had the shower yesterday lasted any longer, the path would have been an intractable mudslide and the tour would have been cancelled. Thankfully, everything turned out fine and the low humidity allowed the moisture to be evaporate quickly. Hanging on tightly to the rails of our vehicle, we could see that the soil was loose and crumbly everywhere - one can imagination what a heavy downpour will do.
On the canyon floor, the scenery was forlorn, desolate and beautiful at the same time. Hoodoos were all over the place. These were strange shapes formed by irregular columns of striated soft rock laid down by sedimentation and topped by a harder less easily eroded cap rock. Numerous collapsed hoodoos were silent testimony that erosion toils inexorably. Junipers, hemlocks, mesquites, cacti and other flora shared this habitat. The fauna – coyotes, rattlesnakes, lizards, aoudad goats – was not readily visible. These denizens of the night usually emerged at dusk. Appreciation of our surroundings was enhanced by our guide’s commentary pertaining to the geology, biology and history of this wild and fascinating place. His historical anecdotes reflected the zeitgeist of those times. For us, most frightening were his descriptions of previous floods. It was hard to imagine such a large area can be flooded in an instant but belongings of victims who lost their lives in the flash floods of the 1970’s can still be seen strewn in certain areas on the canyon floor. Some on our tour had read that there were still treasures and other booty left by the Spaniards and others, but we were told that only cartridge shells from the 1800’s have been found from time to time. If one wanted to see armor or weapons of the Spanish conquistadores, go to the museum.
How do we get back to our car, parked on the rim of the canyon, without our guide? He read my thoughts. The most important thing was to pick a salient landmark on the rim whilst there was still light. What landmark? There were no buildings or significant structures - only trees, bushes and the occasional rocky patch. Ah, OK, there was an escarpment that stood out because of its outstanding striations… oh, I remember that bare section with exposed soil from a mudslide … “now you’re beginning to get it”, the guide grinned…we stayed close to him regardless!!
That day we covered a lot of ground. After the Palo Duro canyon tour, we managed to get last minute tickets to see the musical drama TEXAS. A barbecue dinner was served before the show commenced. The outdoor Pioneer Amphitheatre was nestled in a natural basin of the Palo Duro Canyon. The canyon wall as the backdrop was the show stealer. A lone horseman carrying a flag appeared on the edge of a 600ft cliff above the audience. That was the dramatic the start of the show. The cast had three stages to strut their stuff - the middle one alone exceeded any stage found in a normal auditorium. With such a setting, there was room literally for a whole cavalry on the sides of the canyon and on the three stages. A serious show of pyrotechnics along the rim of the canyon wall complemented the grand finale on the stages below.
Distance traveled 129.5 miles
Started out at the crack of dawn.
But we weren't the first to arrive at the gates of Elkins Ranch in Palo Duro Canyon - three German tourists were already waiting.
The daughter of the owner ran Elkins Ranch. They owned a few thousand acres of Palo Duro Canyon, so visitors were on private property and subject to house rules.
Those lovely animals. Don't forget to go to FULL SCREEN if a photo piqued your interest.
Hmmm, biscuits made on the spot.
Ah, cinnamon buns, cowboy style.
All ages worked together to give us a nice cowboy breakfast.
Cowboy kettle and mugs
As the brochure put it: 'Arrive at cow camp to the tantalizing aroma of fresh cowboy coffee brewing over the open fire and the crew servin' up a down-home delicious, all-you-can-eat chuck wagon breakfast with all the trimmin's. Sure to satisfy the heartiest outdoor appetites!'
Listen, don't laugh, what you are seeing were not the leftovers, that's my Cowboy Breakfast! It was Dutch Oven Buttermilk biscuits and Grampa's sausage gravy, scrambled eggs with herbs - Western style, Maple link sausages with Old Timers' potatoes, fresh baked cinnamon rolls and cranberry jelly, chilled frontier fruit, and cowboy coffee in a cowboy mug. Now look at the photo again, doesn't it look better? Seriously, it tasted good - particularly the biscuits and gravy. If I had heaped my tray to make it look bounteous, the photo would have looked a whole lot better. But we can't even finish what we had on the tray, let alone putting more on!
After breakfast we were entertained by Ed Montana accompanied by Mr Gallagher(his guitar) and Hody Porterfield. They were really very good - cowboy songs and a bit of comedy. We picked up a couple of CD's to see if we can discern the difference between cowboy music and country music. Later in the day, Hody drove us in a jeep down to the canyon floor. We learnt he was an accomplished outdoor woodsman.
Yes, we were really in cowboy country - see the hats on the crew cleaning up in the background?
On the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon.
Shot from another position along the rim.
These rocks on the rim, several hundred feet above the canyon floor, were smooth from centuries of water action.
The early Spaniards described the striations as 'ladies' skirts' - presumably they missed the multi-petticoats back home. The crown of this butte had collapsed from relentless erosion - the debris still visible lower down the left slope; to the right, can you see a cap rock with its balancing act still intact? Remember to go FULL SCREEN.
The dirt track looked OK at the start of the descent but it got narrower and more uneven as we progressed. A decent shot was simply impossible as we hung on to the rails of the jeep for dear life.
Was this the piece we saw still doing its balancing act? There were so many, it was hard to tell.
There was the possibility of everything coming loose if it rained hard. The prickly pear cactus was desperately hanging in there. Erosion was constantly wasting, weathering and altering the contours of the Palo Duro Canyon.
See the lizard in the middle of the photo!?
Hoodos like oversized mushrooms
It was really a delicate balancing act. Water was not the only agent of erosion; winds carrying very fine grains of sand can be very abrasive.
The whitish lines were layers of sediment rich in calcium. The reddish soil showed an abundance of iron.
These half-dry streams could swell in an instant when the heavens openned up - flash floods were common, people have been drowned. In placid times, slow moving muddy waters do carry off tons of soil each year.
The Cherokees in the Smoky Mountains didn't live in teepees or wigwams but the Commanches, who lived in the Palo Duro Canyon, did. The huge canyon floor was home to many Indians until they were forced out by the onslaught of the US Cavalry in the Red River War of 1874-75, others called it the Buffalo War.
Hody our guide demonstrated how to start a fire - the way it was done before the advent of lighters and matches. It took patience but it was easy with a bit of practise.
The rim of the canyon was 600ft up. The photo does not convey the visual impact of being on the spot. We weren't able to get a shot of the three stages in one go. This was the centre stage.
This was the stage on the left.
The performers were all enthusiastic
There's forty odd on stage here.
They were all young and good looking, with adequate acting and singing skills
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