On the road to Oklahoma.
Texas sunset.
Sunrise over the lake was amazing but I was without my camera. Blast.
Breakfast day 1. There’s Stewart!
Look who wanted to join us.
We got lost several times on our journey to the climbing site. Lots of climbing before the actual climbing began.
Hot diggity where are we?
The leaves were just beginning to turn.
What kind of creature do you suppose lives in that hole?
These spiders were everywhere! Sometimes in handholds and cracks.
5.8 Chimney climb. This one was a lot of fun.
Wildflowers and cacti growing out of a vertical wall.
Mark had a flower in his shoe. My kind of people.
Spiders everywhere!
These purple flowers were everywhere. Lovely.
There were 5 routes set up on one side of the mountain and 2 more set up through this hole on the other side. Such a sweet set up.
Um, what the heck, we’re in Oklahoma?!
So much gear.
The 2 extra routes. A 5.8 crack climb and 5.10 flat face climb.
Base camp.
Hammock camping.
Longhorn family traveling along the road on our way to climb on day 2.
A veritable herd of longhorns.
Hiking to climb site 2. As soon as the gates opened the race was on between us and another group of climbers. With full day packs on the leaders on our trip booked it down the cliff for dibs on our sweet climbing spot below. Crazy fools.
You can see 3 of 7 routes set up here. And leaves starting to turn.
Slick moss.
More of those purple flowers.
Moss. Had never seen this kind before.
First climb. View from the top.
My favorite route of the day. 5.10 half crack half flat face. Tiny painful holds at the top, was doing the elvis leg shake.
While the rest of us had peanut butter and honey tortilla roll ups, Mark made something else magically delicious.
Nutella, dried fruit, lucky charms, and sunflower seeds drizzled with honey.
The hike back up the main road after climbing. This is the madness they raced down in the morning. I love the beautiful display of colors. Reddish gray granite, orange leaves, green shruburry, blue lake.
Walking back to the car.
Dotting the road were these rocks and weeds.
Neon green lichen growing on the rocks—a mix of two plants—fungus and algae, living in harmony.
On top of Mt. Scott, the highest point in the refuge that is open to the public.
After 5 hours of climbing we went to the “Holy City”. It is an amphitheatre created in response to the longest running Easter passion play in America. It was awesome and wreaked of family vacation. There’s a soft spot in my heart for those and I loved this. All of us just wanted to climb the buildings.
Rule #1 for the students: No bouldering on the buildings.
After a stop at the visitor’s center where I learned all about federal wild life reserves and this one in particular, we went back to camp and rested. I picked flowers for my tent.
Jess taught us an awesome trick for getting into a hammock that’s too high: hook in your arms and legs then FLIP. Hours of fun.
Everyone had a try.
Evening fun—frisbee and conversation.
Dinner, smores and story telling around the campfire to keep warm. Can I just say we had the most amazing food. Spaghetti with ground turkey, five cheese garlic bread and salad one night; chicken bean and cheese burritos with tortilla chips another night. Toasted bagels for breakfast one morning, steaming hot pancakes the next. All the warm food tasted like heaven in the frigid temperatures after long days hiking and climbing. I’m pretty sure I gained weight despite all the things we did because Kenda was such an amazing meal planner.
Hardcore mountaineers have north face duffel bags, I guess. I liked how they looked.
We did some rappelling here. Not sport rappelling though because that’s illegal and Baylor kids don’t do illegal things.
Before rappelling. View from the top.
After rappelling, view from the river below.
Stewart checking out the route.
View from the rappel.
End of the trip, last hike back to the car. Such a beautiful day.
Matt put it well, “Oklahoma….not as ugly as you might’ve thought.”
In fact, quite beautiful.
I think you can tell by the pictures this was a spectacular trip and well worth the late nights I will need to put in this week.
