Copper Breaks State Park

There was more than enough at Caprock Canyons State Park to keep me occupied and happy for another week, but though I managed to snag a Friday night site, come Saturday I was kicked out of the campground due to no room at the inn. (Whether you think it's a good thing or not or not, all Texas State Park campsites other than overflow are reservable with none held back for the plan-deficient wanderer.)

Fortunately, about 120 miles to the east-south-east is Copper Breaks State Park and, even though it's actually closer to the Dalas/Ft. Worth moshpit of overcrowded humanity than Caprock Canyons, it is far less utilized and there was plenty of weekend space there.

The drive between the two parks took me down a mix of county, state and US roads through several tiny south-plains towns and I happen to like these kinds of hard-working little towns. They're not especially pretty towns, focused more on function than showy architecture, on the business of farming and ranching rather than tourism, but the honesty of towns like this appeals to me.



Each one has a co-op of course, one gas station, sometimes complete with a convenience store, sometime just some unattended card-only pumps out in front of the local fuel distributor, a bank, several churches, a grocery store in a building about the size of a Dollar General, and either an ice-cream parlor or a pizza place. (Rarely both for some reason. . .)



Copper Breaks, at 1800 acres only a little over one tenth the size of Caprock Canyons but still large enough to support a decent trail system, is bordered on the south by the Pease River and comes by it's name honestly



because of the veins of soft greenish-grey rock which can be processed to produce copper. (You can see one of the veins running through the bank above the river in the first photo.)  Several half-assed attempts were made to surface-mine the low-grade ore



which left behind a couple of dams that were an unsuccessful attempt to supply the huge amount of water necessary for processing this kind of ore, and a few 'quarry' sites torn into the sides of the canyons.

When the speculators and miners gave up and left

one of those dams survived



and is still holding water



forming Copper Breaks Lake which became the centerpiece, first of a private property, then later the State Park.



There are three different camping areas in Copper Breaks. The Texas State Parks are a mixed breed, some, like Lost Maples with no water-only sites at all, others like Colorado Bend with nothing but water-only sites. In between the water-only sites are a mixed bag, with some being only walk-in sites unsuitable for even the small van, so when going into a park I don't know I tend to head for the water-electric sites, which are much more predicable, and then scout out the water-only sites.



Kiowa is a water-only campground at the bottom of the hill and right up against the entrance road where vehicles are whining downhill in low gear. It's also adjacent to the day-use area which I imagin can get a little hectic at times. It's a small loop with little privacy between campsites. Sites 27 and 31 are the only ones with halfway decent solar exposure but this campground was a little to fish-bowl'y for me. On the plus side, the bathrooms include showers.



Comanche is a water-electric campground up on a bluff above the lake. It's fairly typical for State Parks with decent sized sites and hint of privacy, or at least breathing room.



Unless you have kids and like being on top of the bath-house (Showers included) and playground it's probably best to stay away from sites 7 through 20. I found site 2, on one end and as far from either of those noisy, high-traffic zones as I could get, to be quite comfortable. This photo was taken near dawn on a Sunday morning and in the bottom right you can see one of the many empty sites still available in this campground.



Toward the north end of the park, overlooking the canyon that feeds into Copper Breaks Lake, is a camping they call the equestrian area. These are also water only and some of them are really nice sites! The down side is that the bathrooms do not include showers, if that's important to you that is.

Later I checked with park headquarters and turns out I don't actually need a horse to snag one of these sites. I double checked just to make sure I was hearing the ranger properly and confirmed that I don't even need a stuffed horse on the dashboard to stay in one of these sites, which is where I'll be the next time I come back.

Sites 38, 40 and 43 are good sites with nice views, levelish parking, decent privacy and great solar exposure. The parking area for 39 is right up against the road, though there was no traffic, or people when I was there so that might not be a big deal, but sites 37, 41 and 42 are better suited to tents rather than vans, trailers, or motorhomes.

For a park this size the visitor center has a surprisingly large museum/interpretive center that will keep you occupied for a good hour without kids to drag around. (10 minutes with kids. . .)

If you are going to try out the somewhat rugged nature trail, about a one mile out-and-back hike from the visitor center, be sure and pick up a guide first as the points of interest 

including these petrified Permian Sea tide ripples from millions of years ago, are marked only with numbered posts, not information plaques.

Coming up next: Hiking Copper Breaks and The Accidental Geocache'er. 

The Haynes Ridge Blow-off

Even with my side-trip up the Eagle Point trail this morning, by the time I made it to the rather large parking area that services both the Canyon Loop (Which is not a loop at all!) and Lower Canyon trails, I was still the only one there.



Of course that could be because, even though the clouds of yesterday had been blown back to Mexico, that northerly wind was still howling and the temperature was struggling to reach 30!



So as I started up the Canyon Loop Trail



it was still - shall we say - exceedingly refreshing!

Looking west down the spine of Haynes Ridge.

My original plan for today was to follow the Canyon Loop Trail north then turn west onto the Haynes Ridge Overlook Trail, climbing the switchbacks to the highest point in the park then following the ridge for a few miles back to Fern Cave in the far northwest corner of the park.



But you see that notch the Canyon Loop Trail goes through up there??

Well I'm walking due north, right into the wind, and when I popped up into that notch it felt like someone had a leaf-blower pointed right at my face! I had to clamp my lips tight to keep them from flapping in the wind and if I hadn't had a skull-cap pulled tight over my ears I'm sure they would have been snapping like flags!

Looking west down the Haynes Ridge Trail. The switchbacks up to the ridge are behind the trees to the left.

So by the time I got to the turn-off for the Haynes Ridge Trail I was rethinking my plan.

With the winds so bad down here in the canyon I wasn't at all sure it was a good idea to be hiking up there on top of the ridge for a good solid couple of  hours. After all, from up there the nearest land feature to interrupt that relentless wind is - well - there really isn't anything to interrupt the north wind all the way up to the Canadian border and beyond!

Upper Canyon trail following the North Prong Little Red River

Which is why I decided the more intelligent thing to do in these circumstances would be to continue north on Canyon Loop until I ran into Upper Canyon Trail and take that west to Fern Cave. This would keep me down in the canyon where the winds might be a little easier to take. At the very least I wouldn't risk being blown off the ridge top!

More gypsum layers there in that eroded river-bank.

This reclassified my hike from very challenging to just challenging, but there's no one around to witness my refusal to climb the Haynes Ridge so I don't mind. It might just be what makes me a visitor and not a statistic. Besides, things are plenty interesting down here in the canyon too,



Shortly after reaching the end of the loop trail and turning west onto the Upper Canyon Trail,



I found not only standing water in the North Prong Little Red River,



but also heavy erosion which gives a graphic picture of the gypsum/sediment cycle that this area experienced some 200 to 240 million years ago



and is only now being returned bit by crumbly bit to its elemental form.

As I worked my way westward up into the canyon I came across this castle-like formation on the south rim.

but as I continued farther up the canyon the perspective changed

and eventually revealed that the tip of the formation above me is a pair of hoodoos

 called The Last Dance.

Along the north rim of the canyon I found some pretty good examples of the caprock,

the hard calcium carbonate or caliche layer, that resists erosion better than the softer rock below it and gives this area it's name.

For a good part of the morning the clear skies gave me a grand view of the waning gibbous remnants of the full Beaver Moon I watched rise back at Lake Arrowhead a little less than a week ago.



When I first made the turn into the canyon it was wide. Some 2500 feet wide



and there was plenty of room for the river, the trail



and some bottom-land.



But the further up I went the narrower the canyon got

until there wasn't always  room at the bottom for both the river and a trail. At that point I started coming across these white-with-red-top fiberglass poles that were being used to blaze the trail which was now pretty much following the riverbed, which itself wasn't always easy to find down there in the jumble of ongoing erosion.

For the last mile things got pretty steep and rocky in some places as the canyon floor curled up like a reversed ski-jump.

At the top of that climb, tucked in the brush safely above the waterline, I found a stash of the blaze-poles, which makes sense because it's clear that any significant rainfall up here is going to change the river-bed and wash poles away. (Though it seems strange to be calling the narrow creek that it is at this point a river.) 

With one final push, or rather scramble



I found the short spur-trail that went towards Fern Cave. Down towards Fern Cave, which meant that I was giving up some of that hard-won altitude and on the way out would have to climb it all over again!



A little more scrambling



brought me up against the end of a box-canyon where natural springs seep through the rock and ferns thrive in the near constant 'rainfall' underneath the overhangs.

After negotiating one last chute, this time with pack off, dragging it down after me a few inches at a time, I made it down to the bottom where I brushed away a few stones, set up my pack to form a comfortable chair and settled in for lunch and a rest down here sheltered from the worst of the wind and accompanied by the constant, gentle patter of dripping spring-water.



According to the map this narrow slot, or pour-off, over my head

marks the end, or rather the beginning of the canyon as well as the very northwest corner of the park.

I'm not sure how long I hung around at Fern Cave, but when I did climb back up out of there and returned to the make-shift sign pointing the way to the cave, I had the choice of climbing up another chute

then on up the backside of Haynes Ridge, there on the left, and hiking it west to east, coming back down the switchbacks on the far end that I decided not to climb on my way in, or backtracking my inbound route at the canyon floor.

It was slightly warmer now, but the winds were still blowing strong so I opted for backtracking the canyon trail. I hadn't seen a single person since I left the campground around sunrise and this place was feeling pretty dang remote at the moment, so I chose the sheltered, sensible way out.

I don't mind backtracking all that much anyway. Since I'm facing the other direction the view is different even though the trail is the same and the lighting has changed too, offering new sights and photographic opportunities. 

The further down the canyon I went the more room there was at the bottom

to separate the river and the trail,

The river crosses the trail right in front of me, or is it the trail crossing the river?

and eventually the river was crisscrossing the trail

And here I'm standing in that crossing looking up the river in one direction

sweeping wildly, exuberantly, from side to side

and down the river in the other.

often bouncing off sheer canyon walls before heading back the other way.

It made me think of kids with an overabundance of energy laughing and squealing as they circle and zig-zag down a hallway making a game of slapping alternating walls while the parents attempt some sort of dignity amid the chaos by walking steadily down the middle.

Eventually the lower canyon opened up in front of me and just around that shoulder in the center right is the intersection with the Loop Trail. From there I will have just a little more than a mile to go before getting back to the trailhead and The Van, and this time wind is going to be pushing me downhill the whole way.