Palo Duro Canyon
On a trip home from the lake in September I was scrolling through instagram and stopped at a beautiful picture of a tall rock structure that looked like it belonged in the deserts of Arizona. I glanced up at the account and saw that it was a Texas based account highlighting all there is to do outside in this great state. I quickly looked up the hashtag and realized that this was the famous lighthouse in Palo Duro Canyon.
By the time we got home, we had already chosen dates and secured a spot via VRBO for the following month.
Palo Duro Canyon State Park is located in the town of Canyon, Texas which is right outside of Amarillo. From Houston, that’s a 10 - 10.5 hour drive without stops. Much like we did with Big Bend in the Spring, we decided to spend the night at the lake and leave from there to cut off 3 hours of our trip. We also planned a stop for lunch and exploring in Lubbock, making the first leg of our journey a doable 6 hours.
Lubbock
First up was a stop for lunch at Evie Maes BBQ. We have our friend Loane to thank for this recommendation. Her son attends Texas Tech in Lubbock and she had a lot of good spots to eat at, but this one was top of the list, and after lunch we could tell why. It was delicious! The meat was juicy and fabulous, but the real star of the show was the cheesy green chile grits. I seriously could have eaten at least five servings of just the grits.
Once we were full it was time to head out to our next stop, Texas Tech.
Not knowing much about Texas Tech, I was pleasantly surprised by their campus. Isla was as well, and has now added the university to her short list ;). After a quick walk around campus we headed to the famous Prairie Dog Town.
This adorable spot inside of a park was the first protected area for the Prairie Dog. Established in the 1930’s, it remains a popular tourist destination, welcoming a steady stream of visitors to feed and watch this cute little animal do it’s thing.
After we got our fix, we headed out to our last stop before Canyon, The Buddy Holly Center. Born in Lubbock, Buddy rose to fame in the early 1950’s. Tragically, he was killed in a plane crash at the young age of 22. The song American Pie by Don McClean is said to be written about the crash. I knew nothing about this until our trip, but it’s truly fascinating stuff. You can read more about Buddy Holly and the crash here.
Isla is a sucker for a good museum, so even though Holden is NOT, we decided to fork over the cash and have a go at it anyways.
After a quick walk-through of some memorabilia it was time to hit the road for our final destination.
Palo Duro is much different than Big Bend in so much as it’s remarkably smaller. This meant we were able to book a place directly on the rim of the canyon. We snagged this spot at a reduced price during the pandemic. The pictures are beautiful, but in person it was just so huge and breathtaking. Totally different from anywhere I’ve ever stayed before.
After settling in we headed into town for some groceries and dinner. The other thing about the size of Canyon was the convenience to do things like this. Where we stayed in Big Bend we would have had to drive an hour or more each way to get to food, so this was a welcome change.
As most of us know, Holden’s never one to miss a sunrise. While I’m more of a sunset kinda gal, even I was happy to wake up early and see this beautiful vista.
For our first day we had two hikes planned and then were going to finish the day with a private jeep tour into the canyon.
As I mentioned before, the park was minutes from our rental so we were there bright and early as one of the first visitors of the day. Once inside the park the views opened up and changed at every turn.
Our first hike of the day was a short walk into a cave. The kids loved this one with all the rock scrambling at the end.
Its honestly less of a trail and more of a little walk since you can see the cave from the road, but it was a good way to get the juices flowing.
can you see my tiny speck of a car in the distance?!?! After a few more stops to take pictures we arrived at our next hike, the CCC Trail.
The CCC Trail is a moderate 2.7 mile out and back trail with 541 feet of elevation. I was particularly interested to see how the kids did on this one as we had our longest hike planned for the following day. On our way to the trail, the weather changed dramatically becoming overcast and much windier. We also weren’t able to find the trailhead, but somehow made it to the hike nonetheless.
Would you look at that? We somehow all managed to get into a picture together!
The kids did great on the hike and after lunch in town, we headed back to the house and the hottub to warm up before our Jeep tour that evening.
This was a cool way to see spots that we might not otherwise have seen and learn more about the Canyon from the very knowledgable guides. We did the hour tour which was plenty long enough. I highly recommend booking something like this if you’re in Palo Duro.
Our last full day we had planned our biggest hike with the Lighthouse, followed by a trip to Amarillo for some exploring.
The Lighthouse Trail is Palo Duro’s most famous trail and landmark. All Trails lists it at 5.7 miles out and back with about 500 feet in elevation, but according to the trail signs and my Fitbit, we were closer to 6.5 - 7 miles. And although 500 feet doesn't sound like much, it all comes at the end and is a rather steep summit. We were extremely proud of both the kids for this. There was minimal complaining and they both did it.
Most of the trail is totally wide open, and begins with numerous warnings about taking enough water and to pay attention to high temperatures in the Summer. Luckily, this morning in October was perfect hiking weather and at 9am, we were the ONLY car in the parking lot of the trailhead.
These striped rock formations are referred to as the “Spanish Skirts” for obvious reasons.
After about an hour of hiking we caught our first glimpse of the lighthouse landmark above.
We only saw one other couple at the top, who arrived shortly after us. This was actually good news as we were able to get photos of each other.
We may have accidentally taken a more treacherous path down from the lighthouse… oops!
It was truly amazing having this whole place to ourselves on the way up. it really felt like we were totally alone. The way down was another story… As the trail started filling up it felt like we were seeing groups every 30 seconds or so. Very glad to have gotten up relatively early to start this one.
Again, I know I’ve said it - but I really can’t stress how proud of the kids we were for accomplishing this hike. Bad news for them is - now we know they can be pushed a lot harder than we thought!
We spent the rest of the day in Amarillo having lunch and dinner, visiting the famous Cadillac Ranch and Big Texan Steakhouse and doing some shopping before heading home and packing up.
Palo Duro really is an amazing spot that every Texan should visit at least once. We’re certainly glad that we got the chance to.
Our last night mother nature treated us to a pretty amazing sunset. I like to think she was making sure we didn’t forget about this special place and the time we shared here. Something personal happened while we were all here and while it hurt not being able to be where we needed to, this place had a healing sort of consolation until we could get there.