A Sunday in the land of the buffalo

One of the advantages of living in Lubbock is that leaving town will take you to places more exciting, exhilarating, and exotic than the Hub City. One such spot is Caprock Canyons State Park, a mere 103 miles from my garage. And after being unceremoniously disinvited from officiating the TORS#3 race in Warda just days earlier ("financial reasons"), I proposed to Sandy a Sunday excursion to relieve the stress caused by staying at home for almost a week. Actually, she hadn't been out of the city since our trip to the DR, so it really was time.

And so we fired up the Beemer, the retractable roof solidly latched into place since the first serious cold front of the season had brought chilly temps to the South Plains. However, by the time we had left Idalou and Ralls behind and were about to enter the Pumpkin Capital of the USA, Floydada, it was warm enough to go full cabrio. Another 45 minutes of driving, and we passed through the only highway intersection in Quitaque, gateway to CCSP. Don't even try to pronounce it.

I had paid our $5-a-person entry fee to the state park online. Once we went across the cattle guard that keeps the buffalo inside the more than 15,000-acre areal (that's just shy of 24 square miles) we got our first glimpse of what is one of only four genetically pure bison herds in the world. Depending on the time of year (you know, they do have babies, some are shipped off to other herds to increase their genetic diversity, and some just die), the herd counts about 250 to 300 heads. They roam the entire park, including the campgrounds. Imagine opening your tent in the morning and looking at a bearded face that puts mine to shame!

I had to do a bit of Googling to find out the history of this herd, and it's interesting enough to synopsize here. As everyone knows, bison were almost entirely eradicated in the late 19th century, and very, very few animals survived—essentially none. Yet, one of Texas' early mega cattle ranchers, the legendary Charles Goodnight and his betrothed, Mary Ann, spotted several bison near their JA Ranch and decided to capture, nurture, and breed them. And so, from two calves and a cow, the Goodnight Bison Herd evolved, and the rest is history, as they say.

The buffalo are just icing on the cake. Caprock Canyons is very similar to the oh-so-much-better-known Palo Duro Canyon, located just off the High Plains of Texas where the Rolling Plains start—right below this amazing geological formation known as the Caprock. While Palo Duro (close to Amarillo) attracts lots of visitors (remember those Marlborough cigarette ads of yore? Those pics of the cowboy—astride his stallion, gazing into the sunset, and finding God in his cig—were not taken in the Grand Canyon, as everybody thought, but in Palo Duro), Caprock Canyons is much more of a "local" attraction, a place people will visit after having spent a night in the two historic hotels of Matador and Turkey. I tell you, this region is worth a visit just for the names.

And so we hiked for about four miles into one of the box canyons that dead-end where the canyon walls become steep and impassable. (Well, there is a loop trail that requires a bit more climbing than we wanted to embark on that takes hikers up on top of the Caprock's caliche and then back down, but that was more of a hike than I had planned for a first-time excursion. Maybe next time, as the view from up there is quite spectacular.) We were awed by the rock formations (oxidized iron-infused red sandstone with crisscrossing veins of quartz) and stopped for rocks and colorful leaves and coyote scat that bore witness to the seeds of the ubiquitous opuntias. (Man, I really wanted to use these two words as a pair!)

After our hike we found us a quiet spot for a relaxed and civilized picnic. It's amazing what a few olives, some salami, just the right cheeses, and a bottle of wine will do after a hike. I had stocked the soft cooler, and the good old roll-a-table back from the rafting days came in very handy (and it had even fit into the Z4's trunk, together with two camping chairs, without interfering with the roof's folding operation). There was no wind, the sky was as blue as it comes, and the temperature couldn't have been any more perfect. What a wonderful day to enjoy the best of fall!

Jürgen