I ran in the Palo Duro trail run last weekend, and had a great time. After running in the College Station swamp air for the last three months, the cooler and dryer temps felt amazing. Here are a few of the pics I took:

Area around the finish line:



The entrance to the trail and one of the other trails. That was about as easy as it got. :-)




Some of the volunteers:


A few random canyon pics:





The sign is actually keeping me from falling over:


I will definitely be back next year.

Friday afternoon, the wife & I looked at the weather (75 degrees and NO WIND!!) and decided to head for PD Canyon. We couldn't figure out why it was so crowded until we pulled into that camping/picnic area and saw the trail run finish line.

You had mentioned the trail run earlier , but as it was not publicized in the Amarillo or Canyon media, we did not realize it was this past weekend. No matter, as we found an unused picnic table (the one directly behind the woman in blue in your photo) and had a picnic as the sun went down. Our view to the southwest as the sun went down was the same cliff you are looking at as your picture was taken:



We were pretty amazed at the land yacht on the far left of your picture. They had a satellite dish out and were watching some inanity on television inside instead of soaking in the fantastic scenery and weather that evening.

Later, a group from Crowell, the Three Rivers Foundation, had a selection of telescopes set up for a "star party". I think they had 6, 12 and 15 inch reflectors, a 6 inch refractor, and a pair of 6 inch binoculars set up. We got to look at the moon, Jupiter and her moons, M-13, Andromena galaxy...

All in all a wonderful Panhandle evening.



[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 10/22/2007 9:51a).]

When I flew in Friday evening, the flight was as smooth as it could be considering the destination was West Texas. Now yesterday was pretty bumpy with the high winds.

Regarding the star watching event, when I was driving to the run on Saturday morning, I saw a large, streaking shooting star right in front of me. I took it as a sign of good luck.

I decided to skip the 20k this year due to lack of running over the past 6 months (wife had a girl in April). I plan on participating next year.

How was the run?

Outstanding! This was my first trail run, and I'm hooked. From talking to other veteran participants this trail was fairly technical in that there were a lot of steep hills and rough spots in the trail where the rain had created mini-ravines. My time was 2:04:18 for 12.5 miles and was pleased with my performance.

The entire race was very well organized. I drove up in the pitch dark, and there were plenty of volunteers to help out with parking and directions to the starting line. The trails were clearly marked, and there were plenty of rest stops with drinks and snacks. All in all, I'll definitely be back and would recommend it to anyone. The scenery alone makes it worth the trip.