Lost Cache - the Palo Duro Expanse / Getting Lost in a Canyon

Palo Duro Canyon has a visitor center on the way in, and this is the view from a lookout available for those stopping in.  Don't know why this one was set aside when the series was originally posted in April of 2013, but here it is now.  This does not do justice to the vast expanse carved out over millennia by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River; later I learned that it is in fact the second-largest canyon system in the United States next to the fabled Grand Canyon.

It is precisely that vastness that got me into trouble one summer day in 1978.  I was in Old Blue, my 1968 Rambler American, late one afternoon just tooling around, exploring as-yet-unseen places in the Panhandle.  I was south of Amarillo when I began to notice signs about a state park and a canyon nearby.  They have a canyon around here?  Gotta see it.

Following the signs, I ended up entering the park, and was flabbergasted that Wow, this really is a canyon!  After maybe a half-mile beyond the entrance to the park there was a little place to the side where one could park...not a lookout, but just enough unpaved space where a car could pull off to the side of the narrow road.  So I parked Old Blue and walked to the edge to survey what lay ahead.  I could see how deep it was and got an inkling that this place was indeed very, very big.

Trouble was, I had no idea how big.  I could see that tributaries had cut their way from both sides of the river, creating formations such as the one posted here.  Lots of them, stretching for miles to the south.  Spying one that had lots of color and striations, I decided just to go down there and check it out.  So, leaving Old Blue parked in that little space next to the road, I began to climb down.  My goal was to reach the bottom and simply walk downriver (which was dry) to my chosen formation.  Shouldn't take long, right?

It took a while but I finally reached the river bottom.  I remember having to rest about halfway down, and sought shade in the late afternoon heat.  While there I got a rock and scratched my name and the year in the side of a washout, naively thinking that it would be there for future generations to discover.

So now I'm at the bottom where it's nice and flat and easy to walk to my destination...or so I thought.  Perspective in such a vast expanse is distorted, and after passing two or three rocky outcrops I noticed that my chosen destination still looked a ways away.  This business of reaching the outcrop got a grip on me, so I just kept walking in spite of the heat and the thirst.  It took almost an hour of this to conclude that Hey, I'm not there yet and there's still some distance to cover, so it might not be a good idea to keep going.  Reluctantly, I turned back.

Upon turning around to walk back to Old Blue it became obvious that I'd made a huge mistake.  I had not marked the rivulet where I'd climbed down, and they all looked the same!  Plodding along, I passed one after another and had no idea which one led up to the clearing by the road where Old Blue was parked.  Not only that, I didn't know how much ground I'd covered, so could not estimate even its approximate location.  Evening was creeping in and it was getting dark.  Stories of mountain lions and rattlesnakes - both indigenous to the area - surfaced in my mind...will I be spending the night with them at the bottom of this canyon?  I swallowed hard to stifle panic.

Looking back, I'm convinced the angels of mercy were looking down on me, because somehow I was led to the correct outcropping and saw a familiar landmark.  Whoa - could this be it?  I climbed up and saw the washout with my name...whew!!  Another fifteen minutes and I reached the top, with barely enough daylight to see the silhouette of Old Blue against an indigo evening sky.  Never was I so relieved to a junky old car, my friend!

Not once during this whole adventure did I see another living soul...