Category Archives: Turkey Mountain

Our World – Faces of Geocaching

Sunday afternoon was a very pretty and very nice day so SuperPizzaBoy and I took off to Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa to do some maintenance on our geocache “Rock City” that I posted about originally in September 2011.

The trails were glorious. The sun was shining and the trees are just beginning to leaf out. There is nothing like the new green of Spring.

When we got the Rock City area of Turkey Mountain where the cache was we find a group of guys maneuvering their radio controlled vehicles around on the boulders. They were very nice and showed us what they were doing. Turns out they are here a lot and had found the cache months ago. They signed the log and otherwise left it alone. It always amazes me the variety of recreation that people find to do on Turkey Mountain. Geocaching, trail running, hiking, biking, riding horses and now radio controlled vehicles.

The cache was in good shape. Somebody reported that the recyclable camera I had planted there was full so I replaced it and had it processed. That was actually the second camera. Somebody took the first camera. So here are the photos of the people who have found the cache and took photos of themselves or others.

As you can see geocachers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, ages, and gender.

Dogs and even a ferret.

They come in warm weather and cold weather.

They just love finding things way deep in the woods.

The Radio Control Guys told me that they used the last exposure to take a pic of their machines.

Have you ever hid a camera out in the woods?

Our World Tuesday

Our World – Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area Cleanup Day

Saturday morning almost a hundred people showed up at Turkey Mountain for a cleanup day.

It was organized by the Tulsa River Parks Authority and sponsored by Hammerhead Bicycles and Tatur Racing. Anytime you can get the mountain bikers and the trail runners working together it has to be important.

Lots of trash was picked up along with old worn out grills, a camo recliner and couch, and several mattresses. Four meth labs were found.

An extremely rare photo of Yogi actually doing anything. I stole this photo from Trail Zombie’s facebook page. If he sues me, I’m going to depend on you to contribute to my legal defense fund. Sweetie is going to think this was photoshopped. Trail Zombie reported on the cleanup on his blog.

Several of us went to an active campsite to dismantle it and haul it off. In addition to the tent, tarp, sleeping bags, and other stuff, we filled up two or three contractor size garbage bags with the garbage strewn in all directions around the site. By the time we left there was no trace that anybody had ever been there. Before you start crying tears over the lost home of whoever I’ll just say the contents of the tent might have indicated that he was up to nothing good.

We loaded it all up on a wagon we had and hauled it off.

There is still a lot of work left for the next clean up day. This is a non active homeless camp with garbage spread in all directions.

Our World Tuesday

I Gotta Go Find Something on Turkey Mountain

Saturday, I had several free hours. Anytime I have a few free hours I’m going to running and geocaching and photographing. Most likely I”m going to do that on Turkey Mountain. Tulsa’s urban wilderness area. Its close in and convenient.

So I hit the trail with a bunch of equipment. My running GPS enabled watch, my Geocaching GPSr, a camera, and my smartphone. And a pen. Can’t go geocaching without a pen, and a knife. Right?

An old cistern. I don’t know but I get the impression that Turkey Mountain was a rough and ready oilfield and farming area. There is some oilfield debris still left but very little left of farmsteads and such.

Parts of Turkey Mountain seem very remote. I’ve been all over the mountain and some areas, you just never see anybody.

Lots of mysteries, like what is this? An old outhouse? Who knows.

There are a few old pipelines left. I don’t know if they are live or not. I can tell you, and maybe you should listen. You can’t proceed just on assumptions. Unless you want to bet your life on it.

At the far end of Turkey Mountain from the parking lot you run into the Westside YMCA. Nice place for urban kids to get some nature in them. The Y has a “Ropes Course.” I helped build part of it as part of a United Way Day of Caring event about 20 years ago. Ropes Courses were all the rage back then but you don’t hear that much about them anymore. The theory is that you take a group of coworkers out in the woods and have them work on things together and that leads to better teamwork.

Sorry to water on the parade but let me tell you how guys work. (Women, you have to speak for yourselves.) The way guys work is that you can take a group of guys who hate each other and put them on a team to do something and it’ll be great. They will work together to complete the task. When they are done, they still hate each other. I did ropes years ago, climbed the rope ladder, did the zip line, walked the cable, jumped off the poles, did the trust fall, the whole shebang, helped my team mates over the wall. I’m done. No more. How about some golf instead? Does just as much good!

I finally reached my objective, Pepsi Lake. Don’t snicker at it, we have had a drought and the water levels are way low. I came out here to look for a geocache. named “What are these doing here...” A cache that I’ve looked before and couldn’t find.

The “these” are Pepsi delivery truck bodies arrayed on the dam. Why they are there. I don’t know. There is a Pepsi warehouse closeby. Maybe this is where they send their trucks to die.

Oh, by the way, I did find a cardinal playing hard to get in the shrubs near the trucks.

I also found the cache. Not very many people have found the cache. I’d love to show it to you but the owner of the cache has threatened to delete the logs of anybody who gives a clue. DELETE the LOG, to a geocacher that is worse than any fiscal cliff, or the Affordable Health Care Act, or even the Designated Hitter Rule. So sorry no clues from me.

I will tell you that I climbed in, under, and on top of these before I found it.

I wore my GPS enabled running watch. It ran out of juice while I was searching for the cache. You can see me route to the cache from the parking lot, just hit the white triangle on the green circle. It’ll take you to the web site. Hit the button that looks like your DVD play button and you will see just how slow a runner I am.

Skywatch Friday – Turkey Mountain

Son and I went hiking on Turkey Mountain last week. I took along my Diana Mini film camera.

The day was warm, the sun low, and the sky blue. Talk about a perfect day.

We had the trails to ourselves.

The fall color was brilliant. What a great day.

Skywatch Friday

Our World – Turkey Mountain Autumn

Saturday, son SuperPizzaBoy and I made a trek on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa to replace a geocache of ours that had gone missing.

The weather was ridiculously warm, up in the 70’s, and it was very dry.

Turkey Mountain had a lot of fall color. With the clear sky and sunny day it was almost sparkly.

It was very windy in Tulsa and the tops of trees on the mountain were being blown hard by the wind but it was still on the ground.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Some sort of mountain biking event was winding down by the time we got there. Once we got a quarter mile from the parking lot we only saw a handful of people in the hours we were there.

Good thing we went yesterday because it rained pretty hard up there Sunday and it got cold and overcast. We could use the rain, the ponds and lakes are getting low.

We were both tired by the time we finished but I think we both had a good time.

Have you taken a good walk this Fall?

Our World Tuesday

Turkey Mountain Geocaching – Oklahoma Rock and What are these doing here…

Wednesday Night I cashed in my weekly kitchen pass for a trail running and geocaching expedition on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain.

I headed down the Blue Trail and then another fainter trail to the Oklahoma Rock.

The cache is also named Oklahoma Rock but it is not at the rock. It is 207 feet from the rock in the direction that the rock is pointed. The Oklahoma Rock cache was placed by M5, otorious for ingenious fun hides. This cache has a twist because he placed a smaller version of the Oklahoma Rock near the cache, pointing back to the big Oklahoma Rock. Sounds easy right?

So off I went. I’m not going to spoil the fun for you by showing you what the cache looks like, what the smaller rock looks like, or talk about the problems I had in finding the cache. You need to figure that out for yourself.

I found it though. Finally, this was my third attempt. It hadn’t been found since June.

I was so pumped I went to look for another cache further into the mountain named “What are these doing here…:: A cache hidden in or near a bunch of old Pepsi Delivery Truck’s parked at what is called Pepsi Lake near the Westside Y. Don’t ask me what they are doing there. Don’t ask me where the cache is either because I couldn’t find it.

First I got stopped by a baby possum.

Standing in the middle of the trail. He must be an NRA member because he was standing his ground.

Mean looking, brave little cuss about three inches tall.

Not very cute and cuddly though. I don’t think he was packing but I went around him. Don’t mess with critters hogging the trail is my motto. Usually refers to snakes but I’m adding possums to the list also.

I got to the Lake and actually climbed into the trucks, and looked high and low. “What are these doing here…” was hidden by adairmd. Another cacher who knows how to frustrate people. We cachers like the tough hides. The fun is in the looking. This cache was found by blogging and trailrunning friend Trail Zombie. I can’t let him get one up on me.

It was getting dark and I didn’t bring gloves or anything protective to search through the vehicles. I’ve already been to the doctor several times to get treated for various insect bites and I get tired of the staff laughing at me and giving me that look that they give to addled old fat guys. I’ll be back though.

Thank you again my fellow Americans. You have spent billions of dollars putting satellites into orbit so that I can climb through rusty truck bodies looking for a box. That is quite a sacrifice on your part. Especially seeing how I didn’t find it.

Weekend Reflections – Turkey Mountain

One of the ponds on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Park.

Weekend Reflections

Finding Something that is xSTINKt

Last Wednesday evening after work I headed over to Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa to go running and find a geocache.

It is hot here in Tulsa and when it is hot I like to go running in the woods rather than the concrete and asphalt. It also just so happens that there are lots of geocaches on Turkey Mountain, good ones, hard to find ones.

The map to the left shows the caches on Turkey Mountin. The happy faces are the caches that I’ve found. The stars out caches that I have hidden. The little green boxes and the question mark are the ones left to find.

Wednesday night I went looking for the xSTINKt Cache. I had looked for it before without any luck. It is hidden by a very clever geocacher who goes by the tag adairmd.

I took along my geocaching GPS receiver and my running GPSr and my Ipod touch. It has a camera and I am using it a lot these days. Lots smaller and easier to carry than a regular camera.

A good omen about six minutes into the run. A deer! I’ve seen lots of deer on Turkey Mountain but they don’t generally stick around long enough for me to fumble around with my camera. It is right in the middle of the photograph above just to the right of the slender tree in the middle. Makes me think I need to carry a better camera! One with a zoom.

Turkey Mountain has lots of ponds from one end to the other.

I popped out onto the powerline right of way for a little bit just as another runner went running by.

That evil adairmd, owner of the cache, has promised to delete all logs of the cache that show spoilers. Sorry adairmd, it is my journalistic duty as a blogger to leave nothing out. Above is a look of the sky from the cache location. Below is a pic of my GPSr.

The dead giveaway is the leaf below. Study it carefully, when you see a leaf exactly like that then you are within three feet of the cache. In all serious, I’m not giving any hints, except for the leaf. This is a unique cache and he wants you to find out what is unique about it for yourself. The cache was placed in April and I was only the fourth one to find it. It’s almost a two mile walk from the parking lot to the cache site. Most people are not going to go that far especially if they are not familiar with the trails on the mountain.

It started to get dark on the way back. I’ve never run in the dark on Turkey Mountain but I have run in the twilight. I love it.

It’s still hot on the mountain but you are out of the direct sun and off the reradiating hard surfaces of the city. Also, there are not very many people up on the mountain. It’s pretty quiet except for the mountain bikers getting a little rambunctious.

The sun gets really low and really colorful.

It’s a great place to gett your head on straight.

I uploaded my run to Garmin’s website. You can see my route and a whole bunch of metrics on the run by hitting the green button below. You’ll go to the website. And then hit the little triangular “play” button like you playing a cd player. You’ll be amazed by how slow I run and how long it took me to find the cache.

Hey, you can do better? Get after it!

And by the way, adairmd is a nice guy

Geocaching 101

Skywatch Friday – Powerline on Turkey Mountain

After a recent run on Turkey Mountain in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I know, I know, all good skywatchers try and present skies unsullied by anything human but I thought the tower added a little drama to the pic.

Skywatch Friday

Turkey Mountain Reflections – Westside Y Camp

I’ve been spending a lot of time running the trails on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa. The mountain has a lot of lakes and ponds, more than what you might think. One of my favorites is Lake Logan at the Westside YMCA Camp on the north end of the mountain. I think the campers spend a lot of time on the lake.