Of course, my first instinct is to say “No”.
Years of being an old man in personality, and now physically, have conditioned me to bah-humbug any suggestion of enjoyment—especially when it involves leaving the house. But against my better judgment, when Gracie texted “Weather is going to be nice Monday, we should go to the canyon for a walk,” I relented, for fear that my text messages would be read some day after my death and my legend would be tarnished by the facts of my curmudgeonly ways.
Alas, Monday came. It always does. I wrapped up work by 3 o’clock and headed home. School was out for the holiday, and now that she could drive, she’d had been running errands and seeing friends on her own. We would meet up and head out.
I wondered on the drive home whether this would be a walk or a hike. Walking is for treadmills, anything else is work. At least that’s my ingrained attitude from working on a ranch for so long. If it’s at the ranch, it’s work. If it’s at a State Park, like Palo Duro Canyon, it’s a hike.
So, I wore my work clothes—jeans and a t-shirt.
Gracie, however, was wearing shorts. She mocked my jeans immediately, and I countered that the outdoors were no place for exposed legs. Then, it occurred to me that everyone out there would be in shorts but me. This was, after all, a park, not a set of corrals or a fence line. We weren’t following cattle trails, but well-maintained pathways. So, shorts were her choice, jeans mine. I prepared to be laughed at by the hikers.
President’s Day 2024 was possibly the most pleasant day, weather-wise, in the Texas Panhandle of the year so far. No (!) wind. Warm, not hot. Sun out, but still following its relaxed Wintry low trajectory, not the broiler-element position of the Summer. The low angle light made everything a little more colorful.
We pulled up to the check-in booth and I showed off to her by pulling my state park card out of my wallet. Of course I have a membership, the park is only a few miles from our house and I’m a seasoned outdoorsman—years of ranching, cycling, photography meant I knew all the secrets.
“This expired in September,” the ranger kindly informed me.
Fine, so I’m actually a card-carrying poser. My kids have known it for a while, you should too.
Membership renewed for another year—good intentions, right?—we proceeded down the canyon road—always steeper than you think—always narrower than most tourists are competent to handle.
I accepted the tourist map and day-pass sticker, but I was at least experienced enough to know where we were going to park. On my last visit, does math, 18 months ago, I took a walk off the parking area that serves as a trailhead for the famous Lighthouse trail. If you know anything about the Panhandle, it’s probably either the Lighthouse, Cadillac Ranch or the wind. Unfortunately, just a few weeks later it would become nationally known for catastrophic wildfires because the weather does not stay as calm as it was that day.
I knew the other trails off this parking area were varying levels of difficulty, and that Lighthouse trail was a tough one—I had never even tried it. I hate to admit that, I’ve actually designed logos using other people’s pictures of the landmark, I’m ashamed to admit that despite living just a few miles away for the previous 15 years, millions of tourists had seen it and I had not. After all, the map said it was harder.
I asked Gracie to read the map and tell me if one of the easy ones was near that same trailhead parking area. Sure enough, one was. Valle de Rio. It would be a good one for a fair weather walk—and that’s what we had signed up for.
The lot was busy, but not full, so it looked like a nice enough thing to be doing at 3:30 on a holiday afternoon.
I had packed water bottles in the pickup, but carrying one sounded annoying, especially on an “easy” trail. Lighthouse was labeled “moderate” so, sure, water on that one, not on Valle de Easy. Plus, these were plastic water bottles—I know. I imagined the scornful looks of the seasoned State Park visitors as we sipped from the non-biodegradable bane of the outdoor-conscious person’s existence.
We locked the pickup and headed to the bunny slope.
10 steps in its direction, I said “Oh! My camera!” and turned back to the pickup. The whole point of even going outdoors at this point in my life is to take pictures.
I geared up—the same camera and lens I had taken on our trip to Europe last Summer. I had gotten used to holding it on a record-setting trip, especially in the area of steps per day. Our personal bests were on the day we trucked throughout Paris: the Louvre; the rainy streets; from and back to a hotel in what our French tour guide called “the, how-you-say, sketch part of town.”
Palo Duro Canyon was not sketch this day. And something told me we’d regret not taking advantage of it.
“Hey, let’s just start the Lighthouse trail, go about halfway, so we’ll know what it’s like. We can come back and do the whole thing later, right?” I pitched.
Gracie was game. So we did.
If you leave a parking lot on foot, and everyone you pass walking the opposite direction is smiling, you might misinterpret those as friendly or enlightened smiles, especially when you know there’s something cool on the other end of the trail.
But what they’re actually smiling at is the fact that they can, finally and mercifully, see their cars in that parking lot.
I would figure this out about 3 hours later.
I play up the “old man out of shape” angle every chance I get. But honestly, at that point I had been walking quite a bit—New Year’s Resolution. Plus, I had given up some bad habits and spent more time outside than usual. It helped me to think and be present.
So, walking a “moderate” trail was not too concerning. Besides, we figured the park called it “moderate” to discourage all the tourists from crowding the trail. It was probably just a long walk. After all, all those people were smiling!
The low Winter light cast lovely shadows on the first canyon walls we approached.
I had been trying to work more black-and-white photography into my practice. The shadows and stratified rock were perfect subjects.
Our Apple watches notified us we had walked a mile, though it had taken a while—24 minutes. Mostly because I stopped a lot for pictures, but this was a walk, not a hike, so it was okay by me.
And I was feeling pretty good, Gracie too, so we continued. Wait—we’re halfway to the Lighthouse—seemed silly to stop now!
The frequency of pictures slowed as the walk got more focused. The weather was still lovely, but the ups and downs, rocky trail and sandy crags were adding up, little by little.
There are markers on the trail, tall, thin, blue plastic lines with “L” and the distance from the trailhead stickered to their tops. At “L 1.5” we spotted the Lighthouse.
How cool! This was going to be the day I finally saw it up close!
At “L 1.75” I commented “that thing sure looks farther than a quarter-mile.” To which Gracie replied “It’s not 2 miles, the map said 2 hours.”
Oh
Wait.
Well.
I am the kind of old now that swears I hear—or don’t hear—things that others—especially the women with whom I live—tell me they did or did not say.
Every day, it seems, I hear or don’t hear something. I could dismiss the not hearing—ears being decaying instruments and all—but hearing new things gives me hope that my mind is still creative. After all, it seems to be creating new conversations all the time!
This was one of those. A 2-hour moderate hike is not the same as a 2-mile walk. A 2 mile walk gets you somewhere is 40 minutes or less. That was what I heard, and why I was feeling so confident. A 2-hour hike is nothing I would have ever agreed to. Much less 2 hours out, then 2 more hours back in.
So, the thought crept back in, how far is far enough for today?
I didn’t say anything, just kept plugging along, but it was turning into a hike now, as we passed “L 2” with the goal still in the distance.
Honestly, what kept me going at this point was that each time I hung my head I could still see, between the tears, the imprints of a pair of New Balance shoes. And I thought, “If some old grandpa could keep going, then so can I!”
Trail etiquette is always interesting to me, as an admitted outsider. From the get-go, I had to restrain myself from saying “Hello!” to every one we passed. After being unable to hold it back a few times, the teenage girl in front of me mocked me endlessly, so I tamed it back down. Now, my friendliness was slowed by my rapid heart rate and inability to focus my pupils. That and the constant thought “why didn’t I bring water again?”
We were hiking.
The closer you get to the Lighthouse, the harder it is to follow the trail. It narrows significantly, and the rise to the landmark is substantial, at least compared to the rest of the trail. We were close enough now to hear voices from on top of the plateau. Kids laughing. We couldn’t see them, only the thick brush that moats the upward approach. That, and a few hikers coming the other way—not smiling. On we went.
The blue markers had ended. Now, there were pink ribbons tied to tree branches at each turn in the increasingly steep and canopied trail. Markers for directions or memorials of middle-aged men lost over the years? No way to know.
Gracie in the lead, the trail eventually went past the thing, then wrapped around the side—and it was getting steep. We kept moving, but both made the mistake of glancing down to check our heart rates on our watches—it was going to be a personal record kind of day.
Midway up the steepest climb of the day, we paused. We could still hear the kids above, but then the sound stopped. We were on a narrow part of a steep trail and anticipated those brats coming down soon. Still, we rested, trying to calm our breath and decide whether or not we were facing a decision.
Gracie took a peek while I spoke kindly to my heart and asked it not to explode. She thought maybe it was lot farther than originally understood. Besides, the kids were not coming by us—it occurred to us both that we might not be on the right trail. No view of the Lighthouse, no sign of those laughing punks. Had we gotten lost?
I offered to take a look, climbed a few more feet and behold—through the fog of exhaustion and despair shone the Lighthouse.
We helped each other up the final few feet and there it was.
The fair-weather walk had turned into a bucket-list day.
The hike back was long—but in a different way. Everything looked better, clearer. The air felt more real. We noticed the temperature rise and fall with the elevations. We moved quickly, more lightly, though tired.
As the sun descended, its rays turned golden and illuminated the canyon walls in a light that asks to be felt as much as seen.
We smiled a lot.
Especially when we got to the parking lot.
Back in the pickup, halfway out of the park, I commented that 2 hours 35 minutes, my watch’s measurement of the walk, was pretty impressive for a trip that was supposed to be 2 hours each way!
“I think it was supposed to be 2 hours total,” she said, like a nurse consoling a patient.
Kind of wish I had not heard that.