How To Get To The Lighthouse At Palo Duro Canyon State Park
Palo Duro Canyon State Park is in the second largest Canyon in the United States at 120 miles long and between 600 and 800 deep. The park is beautiful from the moment you enter to the time that you leave.
My first stop was the El Coronado Lodge and Visitors Center which has a wonderful view of the canyon below. Plus they have a nice little shop and museum before you descend into the deeps of the valley.
Before going to the Lighthouse, we stopped by the picnic area. The only way to get to the Lighthouse is by hiking to it. Me and Olive Oil need a bit of fuel before we left! It was such a wonderful spot that we almost did not want to leave.
The hike starts at a parking lot and is about 2.6 miles one way but as you get on the trail your view is this wonderful edge of the canyon in front of you. The sign says to take a gallon of water with you.
I was there in November and three bottles were a little to little for me and Olive Oil. The heat of the hike is more then if you are in other areas of the country. Remember that this is the desert!
But the views as you come closer to the canyons edge is just incredible as you wind your way through to the lighthouse at the end.
Don’t forget to look back towards the canyon walls on the other side. As the sun hits them at different angles of light, the red become deeper and the grays more colorful.
The layers of earth that have been eroded way by the river that created the valley can be seen as you get closer and closer to them. Each layer is a different time period of the Earth’s history all on display for you as you journey to the Lighthouse.
It is on hikes like this that I wish I had majored in geology at school. Any professors out there that want to teach a class, I would be willing to learn!
The trail itself is well marked and easy to follow to the bases of the valley just below the lighthouse. The canyon walls are a rainbow of ever changing colors.
About a mile out, you can see your goal in the distance. Standing so tall and mighty looking out over the Canyon.
But don’t let it fool you, the hardest part of the trail which has been mostly flat with a few little hills has a bit of a kick at the end.
This is the almost the last part of the trail. There are a few ways up but the other is on the side of a cliff. I choose this one. It is not pretty, very slick and I would have thought twice about going up, if it had been raining or wet…Coming down was worst but think about going backwards in some areas. It worked for me.
But the view from the top is so worth it!
Olive Oil might not have agreed so much but she was only about 11 weeks old when we went! She made me carry her most of the hike and slept plus up and down the hills. Thankfully, she was still just about 5 pounds.
The views of the valley are just wonderful. I enjoyed myself completely.
Brief History
The canyon was once inhabited by Clovis and Folsom people who hunted mammoth and bison. Later, Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa used the canyon leaving behind rock art. But it was the early Spanish explorers who named it. Palo Duro means hard wood.
In American history, the Canyon was best know for the Red River War between the U.S. Army and the Southern Plains Native Americans. The war only lasted a few months but in September, the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon would send the Natives to the reservations.
The Black Seminole Scouts, also called the Buffalo Soldier, would play a decisive blow to Native Americans in the Texas-Indian Wars. The Seminoles of Florida allowed runaway slaves to join their tribes in Florida. By 1870, many Black Seminoles joined the United States Armies as Indian Scouts.
In September 1874, the Black Seminole Scouts found the camp of the Native American in Palo Duro Canyon. On September 24, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie attached the camps of Kiowa, Comanche, and Cheyenne at dawn. The Natives Warriors, including Lone Wolf, fought as the women and children fled. They followed to protect them.
Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie choose not to follow Lone Wolf and his people as they fled. But rather he returned to their camp burning them to the ground including all the winter food that the Native Americans had stored up. Colonel Mackenzie also took all about 1,400 horses which he killed over 1,100 the next day. Those that were not killed were used by his men and rewards for scouts.
Lone Wolf and other Native leaders faced a winter without food. The leaders choose to take their tribes back to the reservations rather than watch their people starve over the winter. This battle was the end of the Natives traditional way of life. This Canyon was one of the last places that Native American lived free in this area.
Books
The Buffalo Soldiers were some of the most important members of the clearing of Native Americans. They are a part of the West that have been overlooked by history books.
The Buffalo War includes the history of the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon.