Palo Duro Beauty - a photo on Flickriver

Palo Duro Beauty

Palo Duro Canyon Texas State Park

The Texas Panhandle (northern-most part of the state) is as flat as Kansas...and that's really flat; yet somehow in the middle of this vast expanse of flatness is the second largest canyon system in the United States, the colorful and surprisingly beautiful Palo Duro Canyon.

"The Grand Canyon of Texas" is 120 miles long, up to 20 miles wide, and up to 800 feet deep. While not as impressive as the actual Grand Canyon in Arizona, it is well worth the visit, especially if you are anywhere near Amarillo. Spanish explorers gave it the name Palo Duro which means "hard wood", a reference to the Rocky Mountain juniper trees that still grow in the canyon (though what you see here are Red Berry Junipers and a lone and very dead Mesquite tree in the center right).

People have inhabited Palo Duro Canyon for about 12,000 years. The Clovis and Folsom peoples first lived in the canyon and hunted large herds of mammoth and giant bison here. Later, other cultures flourished such as the Apache, Comanche and Kiowa. It's now a State Park, with very good facilities, campgrounds, horseback riding and lots of hiking and biking trails.

Here at Capital Mesa on the Lighthouse Trail, you can see the incredible colors of the four geologic layers that formed in the canyon over a period of about one million years. The formations vary and include hoodoos and a few caves. Weather is a factor for erosion; average rainfall is a surprising 20 inches, while average temperatures range from 20˚F in January to 95˚F in July.

I only had time for one day here as I was driving through Texas on my way to Colorado, but I wish I could have stayed to do some astrophotography that night; the park is Bortle scale 1 when facing anywhere but Northwest (toward Amarillo). Unfortunately instead, I got a flat tire later that night and at the same time a dead battery, and when I finally got back on the highway again, took a rock to my windshield as well. But on the way out of the park at sunset, I did happen to see about an 8 inch tarantula crossing the road, so there's that memory...

Selected for FLICKR Explore February 25, 2022, # 41.

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Taken in: United States / Texas / Village of Lake Tanglewood (show map)

Taken on: October 3, 2021

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Camera: Nikon Z 7, f/11.0, 1/125 sec, 35mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 7
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length:	35mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Capture One 22 Macintosh
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