Tag Archives: Hiking

Skywatch Friday – The North Woods at Oxley Nature Center

A week and a half ago, late on a Sunday afternoon, I went on a hike at Oxley Nature Center’s North Woods area. I love the North Woods area because it is beautiful, the trails are well maintained and hardly anybody besides me goes there even on a nice weekend afternoon.

It’s kind of a walking meditation.

Be careful while you are meditating and walking though. This thing will give you a headache.

The staff and volunteers are always tweaking and improving things on the trails.

It’s got water views and benches.

And what I call tree tunnels cutting through the woods. I love to come here when it is windy like it was on my hike. The woods are thick so there is no wind on the ground but you can hear the wind as it moves through the tops of the trees.

Later on in the spring, the reflections will be prettier.

I was hoping to see deer, not today!

And the end.

I try and go on all the trails during my visits to the North Woods. That entails taking some of the trails twice. That’s alright.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Lake Bixhoma

One of my favorite hiking spots close to Tulsa is Lake Bixhoma. The lake is a water supply lake for the city of Bixby and it has some very rugged land around it. I’ve never circumnavigated the lake because the trail is rugged and the upriver side of the is almost always under water.

The first bit of trail is actually paved. There is actually picnic grounds and restrooms and such but all that is abandoned now. I am thinking that part of the reason for the abandonment is rockfalls off the cliff. Here is recent fall.

Still the first part of the trail is walkable.

Here is some of the abandoned infrastructure.

After the picnic grounds the trail is no longer paved although still not too bad.

And then it got very technical. Too me technical means lots of rocks.

Got to the upper end of the lake. Can’t cross here!

So I followed the creek up and found a couple of possible crossing spots. If it hadn’t been so cold and if I hadn’t been alone and over a mile from the trailhead, then I could have done one of these, maybe. About here is where I saw my first snake for the year. Some sort of water snake that slipped into the water quickly as I approached. I don’t think it was anything I would worry about.

Here is the other crossing. Going further upstream was out of the question because it is private property. So I turned around and headed back.

I am always amazed at the stuff I see on trails. What in the world is the story behind this? I can only guess.

I hate out and back hikes so when I came to this fence corner and saw a trail going up the hill, off I went. I figured I knew where I would be going. Famous last words right.

I found this trail sign that I couldn’t read.

The trail got a little rough.

I found me some spectacular trees though. And I made it back to the car. My shortcut saved me about 0.2 miles I figured.

So kind of a short hike but I had a good time. When things dry out a little more, and get warmer, I’ll be back. I will probably try the other way around the lake.

The skies were mainly gray I know but I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Gray Days on Turkey Mountain

Went on another hike on Turkey Mountain. Right at the trailhead I saw this handsome bad boy. A Toyota Tacoma pickup heavy duty everything including a snorkel for the engine, beefed up bumper up front with extra lighting, tires that cost a mint. A very nice rig. And look the tires have a little dirt on them. Most overlanders I see are spotless.

The skies were gray on Sunday afternoon. That’s okay, I’ll take whatever kind of sky there is as long as the trails are not muddy.

Turkey Mountain has lots and lots of rocks!!

And lots of ponds. I learned something last year during a wildlife tour. The ponds are stocked every year with fish, which is great. Also, there is an active beaver population on the mountain but they are not spread out to all the ponds. They pretty much stay at one pond until they eat all the fish and then they travel overland to another pond to eat its fish. For some reason I think that is hilarious.

I used a combination of the new fancy trails and the some of the smaller, less known legacy trails. I was kind of hoping that I would see some deer but I did not.

Here is a smaller trail with some heavy duty rock armoring to prevent erosion. I think the people that run Turkey Mountain are shifting over to some smaller trails to accommodate those of us who like to travel on foot.

The trees are wild without their leaves. I love the trees in any of the season.

Here is a new windy trail that I encountered while heading back to the parking lot. I got a ways then oops, I found out it was not open yet. My bad. I try and follow all the rules.

Back at the parking lot at the trail head. Everybody had gone home and it started misting. I love weather like this.

Here is my route. The inner loop is where I hoped to find deer. I’ve learned that when there are not too many people, the deer will move north along the center of the circle. Not that day though!!

All told, despite the gray skies, I had a lovely time.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Y Not Hike From the Y

Earlier this week, I wanted to go hiking on Turkey Mountain but decided to do it a little differently. I started from the Herman and Kate Kaiser YMCA on the northwest side of the mountain. I’ve been in lots of races there and a few events but never just parked in their parking lot and went hiking from their trails (which intersects with all the other trails on the mountain.)

So I checked in at the lodge and headed off by Lake Logan and the dam that forms the lake.

I got a nice view of the lodge across the lake.

And headed down the faint trail to the northl.

It eventually merged into the bigger trails that the Riverparks Authority is installing.

I always love the wild trees on Turkey Mountain.

The new trails are designed for and popular with the mountain bikers. Lots of up and down and side to side.

Eventually I got off the new trail and onto a legacy trail. This part of the park was cleared out by the previous owners when they were trying to get Simon Outlet Malls to buy it. By the way, Simon Malls announced, for the the third or fourth time, that they are restarting construction on the site they bought when they encountered so much opposition to buying a piece of Turkey Mountain.

Got to my destination on 61st street. The last work day we had a group went and made a small length of trail to get to the street so that the bikers could go through there, onto the streets for a ways, and then to another park with brand new trails. The only thing better than trails is interconnected trails is my motto. And then it was time to head back.

I came across this scene which is wall about what an Urban Wilderness means. That is downtown Tulsa off in the distance.

Part of an old road. Turkey Mountain used to have an oil field on it along with farms, ranches, and moonshiner stills.

A sign that we are back on the Y property.

Uh, don’t ask me!

And I had a good hike, about two and a half miles. But one more thing.

We had a full moon and clear skies!! The Full Snow Moon.

And that’s a wrap. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Oxley Nature Center – Land Between Water and Sky

The other day I ventured out to Oxley Nature Center. It’s not as popular as Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness but Oxley has its charms. No mountain bikes for one thing, flat trails for another. And lots of water, even during a drought like we are having now.

To me Oxley is defined by the water in its lakes, streams, rivers, marshland and ponds.

So if you like the sky and reflections, you are in the right place. Even if the skies are gray and overcast like they were the day of my visit.

I actually came looking for otters. The staff tells me that the otters have taken over an old beaver lodge and the best time to see them is around 6 am. Well, that isn’t happening. So I take my chances during the day every once in a while.

I love Oxley’s woods and water and proximity to town and its many trails.

And opportunities to take photos.

I even found a geocache on my visit. Finding it was easy but you have to sign the paper log for it to count. This one had a “field puzzle” to solve. They had nine bottles of scents and the combination to the log involved identifying three of the scents and putting them in the correct order. That took a lot of time, for me. But I eventually figured it out even though my sniffer got worn out. Good thing it wasn’t summer when I would be wearing scented bug spray. I loved it, such an original concept for a geocache.

So I had a good time in what seems sometimes like my own private forest preserve. Do you have a secluded place you can go to to get away?

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

An Afternoon at Oxley Nature Center

Wednesday here in Oklahoma started cold, about 29F but it was clear and it warmed up nicely and the skies were clear in the afternoon into the 40’s so I bundled up and drove to north Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center to get some trail time and sunlight.

I took the trail called the North Woods Loop. I have been on this trail dozens of times over the years and hardly ever see anybody. Today there was nobody at all.

The air was crisp and the skies were blue. It was late afternoon and the lowering sun illuminated everything perfectly.

There were lots of dead leaves on the trail which made it hard to walk stealthily.

The sun was brilliant shining through the remaining leaves leaving an impression almost like stained glass.

It was a great day to be out in the woods.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Family Hike on the Mountain

Last week my sister, Ellen, and her husband, Irv, came down from Colorado to visit us.

While here we joined our brother Bob at his residence. Management was throwing an Oktoberfest, food, drink, desert, entertainment! We were all up for that.

Music was provided by a local accordion band. I didn’t even know that accordion bands were a thing. These folks were great. They all played together, you know, like they were a band! It was jam packed with residents and guests and I think everyone had a good time.

The next day I showed off Turkey Mountain. They were very polite. They live on some acreage where they have a front row seat to Pikes Peak at 14,114 feet. Turkey Mountain is 804 feet. They did not snicker, not even once!! Hey you know, we in Tulsa are proud of 804 foot tall hill. We can call it a mountain if we want.

Irv is a fellow geocacher and he found one on the moutain.

Ellen made friends with Sasquatch.

We went by Pepsi Lake. They didn’t ask why the ponds on the Turkey Mountain hill are called lakes. I don’t know!!

We ended up going about 4.5 miles or so. I was worn out.

We had a really good visit.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!!

Skywatch Friday – Hot Summer Hike

I was up on Turkey Mountain Tuesday afternoon, watering the Monarch Way Station. A nursery had donated some plants to us on Saturday and we planted and watered them that day. It’s been scorching since so I watered them again. Still hot. Fortunately I have pretty good place to watch the watering, and the goings on in the main parking lot. Took me about an hour to do and I decided to go on a short hike.

I drove up to the upper parking lot and took off to what some call the “back country” to the northwest. Not near as many people that way. I saw two mountain bikers and another hiker during my trek. I used a combination of new trails including the above, and…

the older trails which still hold most of the mystery of Turkey Mountain to me. I can feel the history on Turkey Mountain. It’s had farmers, cattlemen, oilfield roughnecks and drillers, moonshining, and up until the cartels put them out of business, meth labs. I still think that there is a lot of monkey business goes on.

I was checking out the trees, many of them are wild and twisted. The competitive forces of nature at work.

Nature is just awesome. Below is the route I took.

And now a bonus section courtesy of NASA. It is the clearest view of Neptune us earthlings have seen since the Voyager 2 satellite moseyed by in 1989. This was shot with the James Webb Space Telescope.

New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades — Photo courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA, STSc under a Creative Commons License. Click on photo to get the details.

It is shot in near infrared light so it is not as blue as previous images. You can see the rings (Neptune has rings? Now I know). And 14 moons!!!

Shady Woods on a Hot Day

An Armadillo escaping the heat in the woods.

A fawn in the deep woods staying close to its mother.

When its hot, the woods are the place to be. This is son going ahead of me.

Linking with Shadow Shot Sunday 2. Check it out.

Hiking at Oxley Nature Center

Friday morning I talked son Logan into going on a hike with me to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center.

In the parking lot we spotted a swallowtail butterfly. Swallowtails move around a lot so I just kept taking photos hoping one would be okay.

Later on in our hike we found a doe and her fawn in the woods. They were kind of skittish and the woods were thick so it was hard to get a good photo.

And later came upon this armadillo rooting around for something to eat. It pretty ignored us. I don’t think they see or hear very well. Years ago when I lived in south Texas they got hit a lot on the roads.

And as we were leaving we saw this doe and her two offspring. I think one might be a yearling and the other a pretty new fawn. They ignored as well.

Here’s my hiking companion, son Logan who has started a couple classes in the local community college’s Paralegal Program.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Come check out it!!

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