Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Palo Duro Canyon: The Grand Canyon of Texas

16 stops· 33 min· 10.5 mi

They call it the Grand Canyon of Texas, and standing on the rim, you'll see why: the flat, endless Panhandle plains simply crack open at your feet into a thousand-foot gorge of banded red and orange rock, the second-largest canyon in the United States. Ranger Quinn drives you down the winding road the Civilian Conservation Corps carved into the canyon in the 1930s, along the little river that cut the whole thing, out to the trailhead for the Lighthouse — the great stone spire that is the symbol of the Texas Panhandle. Ranger Boone Merrick rides along with the tales this canyon has kept, and they are some of the biggest in the West: the young men who built this park by hand in the depths of the Depression; the terrible autumn day in 1874 when the free life of the Comanche and Kiowa ended here; the ancient stronghold this sheltered canyon has always been; and Charles Goodnight, the old cattleman who built an empire on its floor. Bring water and a hat — the Lighthouse hike is long and shadeless — and come in the cool half of the year, because this canyon is a furnace in high summer.