Palo Duro is the second biggest canyon in the US, after the Grand Canyon. Located in North Texas, Palo Duro Canyon State Park has its sacred geology. Layers of colorful rock bleed down like a wet layer cake in the rain. Purple, yellow, orange, turquoise and red layers are divided among white caprock. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, the canyon is about 120 miles long, 20 miles wide and up to 800 feet deep.
The Palo Duro Trail Run course is a 25k loop that climbs up one side of the canyon on Comanche Trail and into the Rock Garden area, then across to the iconic Lighthouse Rock and the Capitol Peaks, meanders along a river that sometimes blooms with butterflies, and heads back to the pavilion where the start line becomes the finish. It utilizes most of the park’s trails and is a great way to see the canyon. While the 25k distance requires only one loop, both the 50k and 50-mile options include multiple loops.
The weather in October ranges from freezing to scorching and has had everything from pouring rain to bone dry dirt since the race’s inception in 1975. This year, it was 63 degrees and overcast which is about as good as you’re gonna get for Texas. A light morning drizzle made the colors more vibrant without making the course slick.
We finished in the same parking lot where we started, and runners sat in lawn chairs or on curbs waiting for friends. Cowbells rang as each person wobbled towards the finish line. Everyone seemed to have brought their cowbell, but this is North Texas—no explanation was needed.
A wedding party arrived and brought along their own set of cowbells for the ceremony. When a huge chorus of bells clanged out, a runner near me squinted into the distance. “Are there a lot of people finishing?” he asked. But the red dirt trail was empty and on the other side of the parking lot, the groom was kissing his bride.
“I’m gonna go down the road to Sad Monkey and get a beer,” a man with a deep Texas twang and knee brace told a herd of men after he finished. “I think that’s the best thing I can do for myself right now.” His friends—in blue jeans and boots—gathered around him and nodded. “We’ll come with you,” one of them said, and they all walked toward their pickup trucks.
After a shower in the canyon’s campground, I also drove down the road to Sad Monkey Mercantile for a pint and some Texas food. Inside a metal barn, customers chatted across tables, smiling at one another. Over a brisket sandwich at the table next to me, Elyse Habenicht discussed the race with her husband. She’s normally a marathoner and Boston qualifier—this had been her first trail run. Impressively, she was the second woman to finish the 50k.
“It was the Rock Garden,” her husband said. “She saw you at the top of the hill and just took off.” He’d been following along on his bike, meeting his wife at the aid stations and riding on the road between them. He saw the lead woman take off like a shot near the end. Elyse nodded in agreement. “I was like, ‘Fine,'” she said, and gave a sly smile to those of us around her, as if she enjoyed stalking her prey.
“Did you see the guy in the hammock?” we asked each other, as if checking for mutual hallucinations. “He was wearing a kilt, right?”
And then there was the guy who kept yelling “Best day ever!” He must have said it hundreds of times, I thought. He kept passing people, racing off into the distance, “Best day ever!” The spectrum of replies depended on where you saw him. On Comanche Climb or in the Rock Garden, most runners simply looked up in confounded silence, wondering if he was joking. But when he won the 50k, we figured he was serious: Best day ever.
Back at the finish line, a crowd continued cheering on runners until sunset. Then, the race director packed up her race supplies into a trailer and waved as she drove off. “See y’all next year!”
Results to come