Jim and Barb Go on a Hike!

Palo Duro Canyon. In the flat lands of Texas it is the last thing you would expect to see is a 120 mile 800 foot deep canyon filled with deer, turkey and other wildlife. “Palo Duro” is Spanish for “hard wood” in reference to the Juniper trees throughout the park.  There are several campgrounds within the park. Last year we stayed in the Mesquite Campground, this year we opted for the Juniper Campground. Site 108 and 107 to be exact.

Site 108

Site 107

With our Texas Parks Pass we paid $26/night for 3 nights and $13/night for 2 nights. Forget internet or cell once you are in the canyon. You will have to drive up to the top to check voicemails and emails.

Cloudy day in the canyon

We were anxious to hit the trails and do some hiking so we hit the trails shortly after we got set up. We started out in the lowlands with a nice easy hike and since all the trails here are dog friendly we decided to bring them along. The Juniper Riverside Trail winds along the bottom in the middle of Park Road 5 loop.

Headed down Juniper Trail

They even did some rock climbing!

We followed that for about a mile then cut across the road to the Juniper Cliffside Trail back to our campsite.  The dogs were panting like crazy when we got back, guess we need to break them in a little slower!0058 0078

So glad to be home!

We saw lots of Roadrunners!

The next morning Barb and I started out on the Lighthouse Trail full of energy.

It was a brisk 26 degrees, the trail is rated as moderate and follows along a wash much of the way. 0084

As we were going down the trail we tried to remember the last time we were hiking. Not counting our walks on the beach, we counted back the weeks. Florida, no hikes. Pennsylvania, no hikes. North Dakota, no hikes. We found ourselves coming up with August 30^th when we hiked in Custer State Park with Dino and Lisa. A couple days short of 6 months ago!

As we walked along we started talking about past hikes. What was our favorite hike? What was our most challenging hike? What hike do we really want to do that we have not done yet?

We had a hard time picking out our favorite hike. We kept going back and forth between a handful of hikes that made the top of our list. Each one was memorable for its own reason; beauty, scariest, most challenging…… in the end we did not come up with our top hike but instead came up with our top 6. The links will take you to the blog posts of that hike with more details and pictures.

For beauty Kanarraville Falls/Spring Creek Trail in Utah is hard to beat. It is not a well-known hike but it is one we will never forget as much of it is in a narrow slot canyon that you have to hike through water. It’s okay, your feet go numb after a while and you don’t even feel the water!

Kannaraville has two ladder climbs

The second ladder climb

The first time we saw pictures of Antelope Canyon we knew we wanted to take this hike. We debated whether this was really a hike or a tour, you could argue both sides. One thing you cannot argue is its beauty.

You cannot beat the beauty in Antelope Canyon!

For daring, there are two hikes that come immediately to mind. Picacho Peak and Angels Landing in Zion. Both are considered difficult hikes with cliff edge sections where a wrong move and send you plummeting several hundred feet.

Picacho Peak from afar

What Picacho looks like up close

Angels Landing, that is the parking lot waaaay down there!

Barb headed down the Angels Landing Trail

We tend to gravitate towards these types of daring or unique hikes and are glad we did them but would probably never do them again. This is what led us to a particular hike in Lake Mead. We were turned onto this trail by our friends Steve and Joan as we had never heard of it, in fact I still don't know the name of it. Starting out we did know of what it entailed but it quickly became one of our top hikes. It had a combination of rope climb challenges and beauty that led it to make our list

Going down on of the ropes

And up another!

Our most challenging hike was surprising to us. We don’t know if it was truly this challenging or if we were just out of shape but either way Sheep’s Creek Trail in the Yukon kicked our @sses! This 5km trail ascended 1,400 feet with some very steep sections requiring us to stop for a breather every 50 to 100 yards. We wanted to turn back several times but finally made it to the end.

Views on the way up Sheep's Creek

Incredible views!

But back to the hike at hand; Lighthouse Trail in Palo Duro is the most popular hike in the park. This 6 mile round trip trail starts out near the top of the Park Road 5 loop at the bottom of the canyon. The trail guide tells you that it is 2.7 miles to the end of the trail.

We are headed to those two pinnacles

The trails in the park are well marked with both the trail name and mileage markers. 0090

What they don’t tell you is that 2.7 miles is the end of the established trail and that it actually goes on for about another ½ mile up some steep grades with some scrambling required before you actually get to the lighthouse formation.

The trail narrows and gets steeper

Almost there!

Just a few more feet!

Made it!

View from the top

Looking for handouts

The next day we chose the CCC Trail which starts out at the Visitors Center and winds 1 ½ miles down the canyon to the Amphitheater.

It was 37 degrees when we started our decent. Although the trail is rated as difficult we did not think it was that hard at all. The most difficult thing is navigating around the constant golf ball to baseball size rocks in the trail. Definite ankle rollers so you had to be careful.

You had to watch your footing most of  the way

Along the way there are several CCC built bridges and three geocaches, Barb found each of them and even left one of her precious travel bugs!

These bridges were built in the 1930's

Found it!

About a mile into the hike you have the option of carrying on to the Amphitheater or turning onto Goodnight Peak Loop. We chose the peak loop which took you to another overlook of the canyon.

Beautiful vistas throughout this park! After exploring the peak area a bit we hiked the mile and a half back up to the Visitors Center to our truck, the total trip took about 2 hours.

Barb contemplating her upcoming birthday

Saturday was moving day as someone had our site for the next few days so we move across the road to site 107. It was also winterizing day as Saturday night was forecasted for teens, Sunday was not going to get above freezing and Monday we head north to the frozen tundra.

Ready for the deep freeze!

So we are winterized for the foreseeable future. Looking at the long range forecast for Pringle, we are hoping to de-winterize about the 15^th of March, hopefully sooner.  

Although none of these hikes made our top 6 it was nice to get out on the trails. Two hikes that are at the top of our “someday” list are The Narrows in Zion and hiking the Grand Canyon from rim to floor. I am sure there are other equally as beautiful hikes but they are not on our radar at the moment. If you know of any “must hike” trails please send us a note so we can get them on our list!

Sunday was a big day is it was Barb’s birthday! I probably shouldn’t tell you exactly how old she is but I will say it was a milestone birthday! How did we celebrated? I took her to Amarillo for a day of fun!

Nothing but the best for my Barb on her birthday!

After that fun we went to The Texan Steakhouse. The weather was a bone chilling 10 degrees with a little snow. We better get used to it!

Tomorrow morning we pack up and hit the road pointing the rig towards Nebraska. It was a good decision staying the extra couple of days as the lows in Pringle are -12 and -14 last night and tonight. When we get there Tuesday we will be basking in highs in the 20’s and lows around 0. Time to break out the shorts!