Tourism sustained at Palo Duro Canyon State Park despite rollercoaster summer

CANYON, Texas (KVII) — The summer season at Palo Duro Canyon State Park was definitely one for the record books.

"Late May, early June we had a lot of flooding, some historical flood which shut down a lot of the park,” said acting park superintendent Thomas Milone. “Trails were shut down for a couple of months, a couple of campsites were closed for a while."

Then almost immediately after, record-setting heat scorched the Texas panhandle leading to trails being closed again for a different safety reason.

"We've had extremely hot days, the National Weather Service will often issue heat advisories for Palo Duro Canyon specifically,” said Milone. “In response to that, when the NWS issues a heat advisory or warning we do shut down four trails in the park, we shut down the Lighthouse Trail, the GSL Givens Spicer Lowery Trail, we shut down the Rock Garden Trail and the Comanche Trail."

Milone said despite the flooding and excessive heat, tourism wasn't impacted that much, and they were able to find some workarounds.

"We did not have to cancel many camping reservations at all. We were able to move around quite a few people, there was a couple of weeks where we had to displace a couple of campers but not a lot of cancellations which we're very happy about," said Milone.

While the normal summer tourism season is coming to a close, Milone is still telling parkgoers to keep an eye out for dangerous temperatures.

"It is still incredibly hot, we are not closing them down, but we still recommend to not go out on Lighthouse from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the summer, even on days that we haven't closed it," said Milone.