Our destination is a new-to-us Texas state park. We arrived at Caprock Canyon in time to enjoy the red rocks on this beautiful 70-degree afternoon.
Mark took advantage of the nice weather to de-winterize the plumbing system of the motor home. We flushed all that pink anti-freeze out of the lines so we could get back to living in our home. We don't see any low temperatures below 32 degrees in our forecast as we head south.
Caprock Canyon State Park is home to the state of Texas's bison herd. We soon got to meet part of the herd, as they wandered close to our campground.
Denisa was taking the trash to the dumpster when she got a close-up view of the largest land mammals in North America.
They were walking through the territory of some of the smaller land mammals. If you look closely, you can see a few prairie dog heads popping out of their mounds as part of the herd walked by.
We have a prairie dog town right beside our campground. If we didn't know how these animals can ruin acres of prime ranch land, we might think these guys were cute.
The long line of bison continued to move through our area all evening. Some stopped by empty camping spots to help with the mowing--and the fertilizing. The camp sites are great here, with electric and water hook-ups, covered picnic tables, and large spaces between RVs.
Denisa was talking to the campground host when a bison started scratching on the wooden post that supports one camp site's water pedestal. He managed to turn on the water, and helped himself to a drink. The host said that this happens all the time, as she walked over to turn off the water.
We were in no hurry to get up the next day, as the temperatures were in the 40s most of the morning. We were on the trail by 11:00, ready to tackle the loop hike that started at the North Prong Spur trail head.
Very soon we were in the red rock canyon that gives the park its name. After two-and-a-half months of being off the trail, it was great to be hiking again!
Our loop took us up out of the canyon, and onto the Haynes Ridge trail. We are really out of shape, as this incline took our breath away.
But it took us up on the ridge, for breath-taking views of the red canyon that now was far below us.
Three miles into the hike, we arrived at the Fern Cave, where we found a few green ferns in this protected environment even in December.
The picture above looks like Mark has made an easy hike to sit on that rock. But when Denisa zooms out, we see that getting into the Fern Cave takes some big boulder scrambling.
Four miles in, we spotted the most famous rock formation in the park. High on the ridge to the left is the set of hoodoos in a dance-like pose named "The Last Dance."
We would have liked to pose in front of these massive stone columns, mimicking the stance of these two dancers. But that would have taken the help of a fellow hiker to take the picture. While we were on the trail for four hours today, we never saw another person. So we had to settle for a close-up of the two hoodoo dancers instead. We also liked the rock formation that looked like a puppy on the far left side of the picture. Do you see it?
The red cliffs are lovely, and if you look closely you can see that many of them have stripes of white gypsum throughout.
After spending the first half of this hike on the ridge looking down into the canyon, the second half of the loop had us walking on the canyon floor and looking up at these tall red walls. It's good to be back wandering in some of God's colorful wonders.
We were just a mile away from our car on this loop hike when we got to the intersection for the lower north prong trail head. We could see that a large bull bison was standing right where we needed to hike.
He was taking his guard duties very seriously, so we scrambled up the red hill to make our own detour around him. We received a brochure about the bison when we entered the park. It emphasized that these are wild animals, and visitors should never get closer than 50 yards or crowd them in any way. An agitated bison can charge at 30 mph, closing that gap in a hurry. A bison that is agitated and may charge will hold its tail up in a question-mark-shaped arch. This guy was arching his tail when we approached, but then he tried to ignore us as we skirted the area around him.
Our detour off the trail took us to a plastic box padlocked to a small tree. We recognized this as a geocache, and opened the box to see the treasures hidden inside. Geocaching uses GPS locators to lead people through some interesting or beautiful places to find the cache. This was certainly an interesting AND beautiful place today.
We made it back to the car, a little tired after our 7-mile hike today. After two months of sedentary living, we were feeling those inclines on the trail today. We drove the rest of the park roads, and found that the signage is very true. When we found a "Watch for bison crossing roadway" sign, we also found a group of bison crossing the roadway.
While this herd has access to all the grassland on this good-sized park, we found that the park rangers also feed them. They had just unloaded cake for the bison right on the road. No, not the kind of cake that has icing and is served at birthday parties. Since we were both raised on ranches, we recognized the protein-rich brown pellets that you can see on the edge of the highway in the picture below. Cattle--and bison--eat this cake like it is candy.
We found that this herd are direct descendants of the bison that Charles Goodnight's wife encouraged him save when it looked like the American bison would be hunted to extinction. They were donated to the state of Texas in 1996, and have been prospering here at Caprock Canyon State Park ever since. We are also prospering here, glad to be on the road again!
What a hike. And glad to learn those Bison obey the Bison crossing sign!
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