Down on the canyon floor — the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, the cottonwoods and wildlife, and the crossings of the little stream that carved the whole canyon.
You're on the canyon floor now, and it's a different world down here — cooler, greener, sheltered from the endless Panhandle wind, with the red walls towering up all around you. Follow the road along the bottom and you'll cross a little muddy stream a few times, right through low-water crossings. Take those slow, and don't cross if the water's running high after a storm.
That modest little stream is the whole reason for everything around you. It's the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, and it doesn't look like much — but give it a million years and the patience of water, and that's what carved this eight-hundred-foot canyon out of the solid plain. It cuts down through the soft rock a little more with every flood. The canyon is still growing, still deepening, right now, grain by grain.
And this green ribbon along the water is the heart of the canyon's life. Those big trees are cottonwoods, their roots down in the river; there's mesquite and juniper on the slopes. Watch for wild turkeys, roadrunners, and mule deer down here, and the little Palo Duro mouse that lives nowhere else on Earth. This sheltered, watered floor has been an oasis in a harsh land for a very, very long time — which is exactly why, for thousands of years, people made their home right here. Keep following the road toward the Lighthouse trailhead; that's our stop for the big hike, and Boone's got a hard and important tale waiting there.
Photo: Leaflet · CC BY-SA 4.0
