Caprock Canyon State Trailway 12/13/2009

I drove 180 miles to visit Caprock Canyon State Park to hike some steep trails and find some geocaches. Did you ever see Nation Lampoon's Summer vacation? It is where Chevy Chase and the Family Griswald drive across the country, with a bunch of antics, to visit a huge theme park. When they get there, the park is closed.

Yeah.

Closed.

Just like Caprock Canyon was closed for a public hunt today.

Thankfully the 64 mile Caprock Canyon Trailway was open. The Trailway is a Rails to Trails program, where old railroad track was removed to make bike/hike/horse trails. They usually make for better riding than walking, as that it is fairly level, very smooth.

I decided to park at the Monk's Crossing Depot and hike in the 4.7 miles to see Clarity Tunnel. The surrounding hills play funny tricks, with just a tiny bit of imagination one can almost hear a train coming when walking through the tunnel or walking across one of the many bridges.

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Of course the Mouse bottle went for the walk As of this trip it had 19 trail miles on it. This is just outside the 580 ft long Clarity Tunnel on the trail.

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While later that afternoon the sun cast a little light into the tunnel, it was pretty damn dark that morning.

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Because I'm a nerd, I sang the theme song to "Have Gun, Will Travel" and a bunch of oldies. I did not however:

Take my dad's .45 pistol
Take my three closest friends,
Almost get my balls bit off by a guard dog in a rural dump
Get a leech on my peter
Find a dead body.

Besides, if I were to be cast in a version of The Body/ Stand By Me, I think the director would have a hard time choosing between the roles of Vern or Teddy for me.



The ceiling of the 580 ft long Clarity Tunnel. The Clarity Tunnel was built in 1927, and was 790 feet long. A derailment inside the tunnel forced the railroad to dig out a large portion of the tunnel.

In the summer the tunnel is filled with Mexican Free Tail bats, but all I got to see was a bunch of guano. The floor of the tunnel is very powdery, and one does not linger inside due to the bat poo dust.

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This photos shows what is left of the 400 ft Gowdy Tunnel. In 1968 a derailment inside this tunnel forced the railroad to "daylight" the entire tunnel. This tunnel turned valley is littered with boulders that have fallen over time.
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Remember all those freezes we had last week? Apparently they didn't bother this guy too much.
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I heard him before I saw him. I was walking along the clear trail, trying to get the camera to ride better on my shoulder, and this guy started buzzing at me. He was about six to ten feet off to the side.

While this would have made a better bike ride than a hike, it was pretty damn fun. Hiked just over 11 miles.

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