By Henry Chappell
Texas Highways (May 2002)
Scores of cliff swallows billow out of the canyon, forming a swirling, 100-foot column above the rim. Just beyond the tips of my hiking boots, the blood-red canyon wall, bathed in late-afternoon light, drops 160 feet to the broken string of shallow pools that make up Holmes Creek.
Every spring, I’m drawn by these remote, labyrinthine canyons that change color and character as the sun moves across the sky – dark red in early morning, brightening to rose and ochre toward midday, then deepening again as the sun drops toward the western horizon.
The park’s trails wend through grassland and along wooded stream terraces, and switchback up canyon walls to the High Plains Caprock. Most days, circling birds of prey outnumber hikers. I come here in search of solitude, wildness, and a sense of Southern Plains history; I’ve never been disappointed.
I’m tempted to linger at Holmes Creek, but the yuccas cast long shadows. Caprock Canyons State Park’s 3.5-mile Canyon Rim Trail leads me through mesquite and midgrass prairie. Indian blanket, prickly pear, toadflax, ground cherry, yucca, and countless other wildflowers, emboldened by recent spring rain, color the little bluestem grass with shades of red, yellow, violet, and brilliant white. Westward, gentle prairie gives way to broken, juniper-studded badland. Beyond that a mile or so, the Caprock Escarpment abruptly rises some 700 feet, marking the transition from the Rolling Plains ecological region to the High Plains.
A few hours later, in the park’s Honey Flat Camping Area, I warm my tired feet by my campfire and gaze at a night sky unpolluted by artificial light.
Caprock Canyons State Park shows its wild side right up front. Driving into the park from Quitaque on FM 1065, visitors are often treated to the sight of the Texas State Bison Herd grazing the 300-acre pasture just east of the road. The massive fence says it all; these aren’t your standard domestic relics. Ranger C.L. Hawkins oversees the herd. “You don’t handle these bison like cattle,” he says. “You let them decide when and where they want to go. These are wild animals.”
And these beasts have regal roots – all are descendants of the famous Charlie Goodnight bison herd preserved by the cattleman in the late 19th Century. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department plans to use these animals (about 40 at present) as the foundation for a much larger, sustainable herd that will eventually be spread over numerous other parks.
Immediately beyond park headquarters, 120-acre Lake Theo (named for the lake’s former owner, Theodore Geisler) offers shaded picnic areas and campsites, as well as excellent fishing for bass, bream, crappie, and catfish.
Just across the Lake Theo dam, an interpretive building overlooks the rust-colored breaks. Inside, display cases house examples of Paleolithic and Neolithic flint work and other artifacts from the park’s rich history.
About 9,000 years ago, hunters of the Folsom culture, armed with spears tipped with large, fluted chert heads, pursued now-extinct giant bison and other large game. In time, the canyonlands became more arid, and the giant game disappeared. Adaptable hunter-gatherers of the Archaic period then dominated the region, from about 8,000 to 2,000 years ago. Beginning about A.D. 200, Neo-Indians inhabited the canyonlands, making pottery and cultivating beans, corn, and squash.
In 1541, the Spanish explorer Coronado traveled through the region. By the early 1600s, the Spanish had established colonies in New Mexico, and vigorous trade ensued between the New Mexicans and the Plains Indians. The Plains Apaches acquired Spanish horses and ruled the canyonlands until the 1700s, when the Comanches drove them southward. The fierce, buffalo-hunting Comanche and Kiowa reigned over the South Plains until the U.S. Army drove the last bands onto the reservation in the mid-1870s.
In 1880, legendary cattleman Charles Goodnight established the sprawling JA Ranch for Englishman John G. Adair on land now within the park. Texas purchased the parkland in 1975, and much to the delight of hikers, canyon rats, and other nature-lovers, Caprock Canyons State Park opened in 1982.
Beyond the interpretive building, the park road winds its way east, then northwest, across South Prong Creek and then on to the North and South prong trailheads. Mornings and late afternoons, the soft light gives depth and texture to the towering red scarps. Along the way, several displays explain the park’s wildlife and geology. On a spring afternoon, a billowing, anvil-shaped thunderhead, towering above the distant Caprock, together with the scent of rain and new grass on a cool, gusting wind, heightens the sense of remoteness.
“I never get tired of looking at these canyons,” says park manager Geoff Hulse. “I’ve worked other places, and I’d always get a hankering to move, but I never feel that way here.”
A drive through the park provides only a foretaste of the scenery and solitude that await hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. More than 30 miles of hiking trails, and nearly 20 miles of equestrian trails wind through the canyons and across the plains and badlands, leading to the park’s remotest reaches, country little changed since the days when the Comanche and Kiowa hunted here with bow and lance.
Next morning, I lace my hiking boots in the South Prong parking lot and head up the Upper Canyon Trail, a seven-mile loop through canyons cut by the north and south prongs of the Little Red River. The trail begins in a gently rolling, mesquite-and-juniper woodland near the canyon’s mouth. The rising sun lights the canyon walls; scrub jays, rufous-crowned sparrows, mockingbirds, and flocks of garrulous lark buntings flit about in the vegetation. Bobwhite cocks whistle their mating call from the bluestem grass and prickly pear. Red sandstone spires rise 80 feet above the dark green juniper on the canyon floor. Mourning doves coo from the ledges, and ever-present turkey vultures drift on the thermals.
On my right, the towering, stratified canyon wall looms close. I lay my hands on the cool, shaded, brick-red mudstone of the Quartermaster formation, the base rock of the Southern Plains, deposited between 286 million and 246 million years ago, primarily during the Permian Period. White, horizontal veins of gypsum – a form of salt deposited by the advance and retreat of a shallow sea – stripe the Permian stratum.
Around the two-mile point, the trail turns sharply upward, and I gain about 100 feet of elevation. Here, the colors change from Permian rust to the tan and greenish-gray of sandstone and the shale laid down from 245 to 208 million years ago by streams washing eastward from the ancestral Rocky Mountains. At the upper reaches, I’ve stepped into the Triassic Period. The talus-littered slopes, hoodoos, and tenaciously clinging junipers bear testament to constant wind and water erosion.
The trail climbs another 300 feet, and the canyon rim comes into view. I clamber up a layer of hard, white rimrock. This is the High Plains “Caprock,” a caliche layer formed during the past 5 million years, when subsurface moisture containing calcium bicarbonate evaporated, leaving a mineralized crust.
On top, the trail splits. One fork wends through cedar and shortgrass to Haynes Ridge Overlook and an eastward view of the park’s buttes and badlands; the other fork descends the North Prong. I take a short side-trail to Fern Cave, where I soak my feet in a clear pool, munch an apple and down a quart of water beneath the giant overhang. Bushel-basket-size ferns cling to the ledges of the mineral-stained walls. I doze for a while in the cool breeze, then go down the North Prong, hiking through the geologic periods and epochs, back to the Permian clay at the parking lot.
Wildlife abounds in the park. Mule deer, white-tailed deer, and aoudad sheep – the latter imported from North Africa in the 1950s – are common along all of the trails. Native pronghorn antelope often graze the open prairie just inside the park entrance.
Birders take note: The park harbors more than 200 species of resident and migratory birds. Golden Eagles have nested in the park; mountain bluebirds delight wintertime visitors; canyon wrens and rock wrens await hikers.
The park offers something to campers of every stripe – from manicured campsites complete with water, electricity, picnic tables, and shelters, to primitive backpacker sites along the Canyon Loop and South Prong trails. The Wild Horse Camping Area offers campsites, corrals, and water troughs.
Planning is underway for a 5,000 square-foot visitor center along the rim of Holmes Creek Canyon that will have classrooms, interpretive displays, and a splendid view of the canyon. A small portion of the bison herd will roam an adjacent pasture.
Park interpreter Deanna Oberheu sums up the canyonlands’ appeal: “I love being here because you can get away from everything. You feel like you’re a thousand miles from civilization.”
Look in any direction, and you’ll also feel like you’ve stepped a thousand years into the past.
ESSENTIALS: Caprock Canyon State Park
CAPROCK CANYONS STATE PARK lies in the Texas Panhandle 3.5 miles north of Texas 86 in Quitaque via FM 1065. The park opens 365 days a year. Hours: Sun-Thu 8-5, Fri-Sat 8-8. Entrance fee: $2 per day age 13 and older, free age 12 and younger. Write to Park Manager, Caprock Canyons State Park, Box 204, Quitaque 79255; 806/455-1492; www.tpwd.state.tx.us.
CAMPING Campsites range from $7/night for primitive backpacker sites to $12/night for sites with water and electricity. Wheelchair-accessible restrooms, picnic areas, and campsites are available.
RENTALS Quitaque Riding Stables offers guided and unsupervised horse tours and tack rental. Call 806/455-1208
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS Spring and fall are the best seasons for hiking in the park; summertime temperatures can be dangerously high. All hikers should carry at least 1 gallon of water in the summer season. Pets must be kept on a leash at all times.
NEARBY ATTRACTIONS Caprock Canyons Trailway, 806/455/1492; Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, 806/651-2244; Palo Duro State Park, 806/488-2227.
For more information about area attractions, lodging, and restaurants, call the Quitaque Chamber of Commerce, 806/455-1225.