This shot is from a few weeks ago during a family hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. I thought this pair of ragged but tough trees looked a like fighting sisters really going after it. Or maybe they are dancing? But they look too angry to be dancing. What do you think? And yep, there is a sky behind them.
Last week I was running the trails in an on again/off again rain on Turkey Mountain with a few people including one who like me just has to stop to take a photo every now and then. She noticed this rainbow off to the east and I used my cell phone to take a pic but the colors were not as bright in the image as what I could see right in front of me. So I’ve used Topaz Glow to pull out the color some to make it more like what that evening.
The closest I’ll get to a trophy!
The TATUR Snake Run was run today. The race is a little different in that who ever runs the longest in a given time wins. There is a three hour race and a six hour race on the same course. The course has two routes, a big loop of 3.75 miles and a small loop of 0.5 miles. You run as many big loops as you can within the allotted time and if you don’t think you can run another big loop before the time ends, you run the little loop as many times as you can. Partial loops don’t count.
The Godfather of Tulsa Trail and Ultra Running, and Race Director, Ken (Trail Zombie) giving pre-race instructions on a chilly Saturday morning. I had three layers on and running pants and gloves. Others just had shorts and a tee shirt. That is because they are tougher than I am. In addition to being a lot faster.
There is no crowding at the start line on a run like this. They have six hours to get dispersed. I always start at the very back.
This is the six hour guys and gals taking off. Ironically enough, they run faster than the three hour crowd, in general. Mainly because they are in great shape. Imagine ripping along at seven to eight minute miles for six hours? I can imagine it for one mile.
We ran this section but I actually took the photo on the Thursday before the race. True Confessions.
The race starts and stays on the upper level of Turkey Mountain and is relatively flat. There were a few boggy spots but overall the course wasn’t bad. The thing about trail races is how polite everybody is. People kind of move out of each others way, the slow runners yield to the faster runners overtaking them. I’ve never heard a cross word exchanged between runners.
I got into a pretty comfortable pace of running a half mile and walking a minute throughout the race. I stopped at every aid station and had a cup of water and a cup of gatorade. I had two nutter butter cookies on every lap. I don’t know why, it was working for me and I just went with it. I also had a few pickles for the sodium and a couple of banana segments for the potassium. I never did feel depleted out on the course.
I didn’t drink beer on the course this time. I wanted to get three big loops in and didn’t want any distractions.
I ran the three hour event and did three of the big loops and one of the little loops. I milled around a bit, had a beer and a half, a hot dog and a chocolate chip cookie. It was very breezy and cold at the end of the race so I didn’t linger for long.
I watched some of the six hour races come in and head back out. I was done at three hours. I couldn’t have done one more lap.
So I put on my finisher’s medal and went home. Thank you to the race organizers, the many volunteers and my fellow contestants for making this race so much fun. By my Garmin, I did about 11.5 miles. This has given me confidence to start looking around for a half marathon, which is 13.1 miles to do. My goal is to run the Route 66 Half Marathon in Tulsa next November. I would like to do maybe two others between now and then. Got any ideas?
I’ll be back next year!!
This week instead of doing my weekly run on Wednesday, I did it on Thursday and I did it earlier on Thursday than what I normally run. The wind was howling and the air was full of smoke from all the wild fires due to the dry conditions. You can see how hazy the air is. I decided to run on Turkey Mountain. The trees stop the wind cold up there. I ran into Ken (aka Trail Zombie) and Clint, a facebook friend who I have never met before, Ken asked if I wanted to go do some hill repeats, so I said sure and so we three along with a lady named Lea went off to do hill repeats.
TZ, Lea, and Clint headed toward the lower yellow trail.
After a warmup loop on the red trail we went up what TZ calls Leadville. It is about 300 feet in a quarter mile and it is brutal. I’d like to say I ran up all the way. I didn’t run any of the way but my heart was pounding by the time we got up on top.
TZ and Lea headed down “I Want My Mommy” Clint is already out of sight and I was carefully picking my way down.
I Want My Mommy is pretty darn steep. You can see TZ and Lea way ahead of me. Then we went a few feet and came back up to the top of the mountain on another trail. Clint and TZ are both on a Strava climbing challenge and they hitting the hills hard and they are good at it.
Finally we headed back to the parking lot. Running hills is hard work but fun with you are doing it with people. I had an excellent workout.
Tulsa voters will get their chance to secure Turkey Mountain Wilderness Area‘s future on April 5 this year by voting for a huge bond issue that includes $6 million for purchasing land from private owners. Land that almost got turned into an outlet mall last year. The public rejected that proposal but the land is still privately held and zoned for smaller development and it is only fair for the owners to be compensated and they are willing to sell at their acreage.
Turkey Mountain is a hodgepodge of land owned by the River Parks Authority, the George Kaiser Family Foundation and private landowners. Park users have the run of the place and we need to start moving toward consolidating the ownership and management. We don’t need to wake up one day to see a gas station going in.
So I’ll be at the polls on April 5 voting for the bond issue.
Previous Posts on Turkey Mountain
An Update on Turkey Mountain and Helmerich Park
Simon Properties Withdraws Proposal to put an Outlet Mall on Turkey Mountain
Heather and I wanted to go hiking on a warm sunny Winter afternoon and we decided to on the north side of Tulsa to Oxley Nature Center to avoid the crowds that show up at Turkey Mountain on nice days. The successful fight to save Turkey Mountain from developers really aroused the public’s interest in the park and I’m happy that so many people love it but there are other parks in Tulsa to go and hike, run, bike, and whatever you want outside with a lot less people. Where you can get a little elbow room and hunt for a parking space.
Oxley, adjacent to the also hikeable Mohawk Park is a little more structured and has a interpretive center with staff to help you with planning your hike. And it has hours of operation and such but if you just want to show up and hike or run, just park and do what you want. Check the link for hours of operation, maps, and such.
So on a day where Turkey Mountain was a little crowded (only at the parking lot, you get a quarter mile from the parking lot and the crowd are diminished considerably) Heather and I found a hiking spot and took off on a circuitous route. Sure we saw other people but just every now and then.
So don’t let crowded parking lots deter you from spending time outside.
We say several deer right close to the parking lot. I haven’t seen a deer on Turkey Mountain in years.
So we were just moseying along at a leisurely pace. Our son is on a school trip to Breckenridge and of course we stopped every time he texted us.
And we had a great time. Over four miles all in all.
As far as what was going on in Breckenridge, here is a selection of some of the pics Logan sent Heather.
This was from the bus ride as they were getting close to town.
The condo they are staying in and reportedly doing lots of “hanging out” and “relaxing” when we ask him what he is doing.
And it sounds like there is an ice sculpting contest or exhibition going on so this is one of the sculptures.
And this has something to do with dragons. Anyways we miss the boy and are glad to be able to hear from him.
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This is [photo of the Arkansas River as seen Turkey Mountain on the river’s west bank. The river is quite full due to recent rains. You can’t hardly tell it but the other bank is south Tulsa. If you look close you can see cars and a couple high rises on the horizon.
I used a new app on my Ipod Touch called Stackables to edit this photo. I tried to give it a kind of a 19th century wilderness aspect to the photo. The photo was taken with with Nikon AW110 point and shoot. I posted it on Instagram a week or so ago.
The number of editing apps and their capability is exploding. Many are free and most are $3 or less. Incredible time for us picture takers is what I say. I’m wondering when we are going to see high quality cameras with downloadable and updateable apps and wifi capabilities. Many cameras now have many different effects available but they are not near as good as what is available on portable devices. Many cameras have wifi capability but I can tell you I have two cameras with wifi and it is very clunky working with them.
Oh well, for now I’ll just keep on doing what I am doing.
Linking with Digital Art Meme today
Umpteen years ago, who knows how many, somebody tied these two trees together at two levels with a very stout and thick cable. Now the trees have grown and the cable is part of the tree. Who knows why? Turkey Mountain is now a popular park in Tulsa but formally it had lots of oil wells, and hardscrabble rocky farms, and by legend alcohol stills. Many relics of its past are still on the mountain, foundations for oil well pump jacks, farmhouse cisterns and foundations, old flow lines and such.
I just love finding clues to its past and wondering what in the world happened.
Saturday I ran on Turkey Mountain for the first time since I messed my knee up there back on Labor Day. You can bet I was watching where I was putting my feet this time! It was a cold, breezy day in Tulsa and so running up on the mountain is better than plodding it out on the trail fighting the wind.
Anyways, I didn’t set any speed records. But I had a great time, and then drove back to pick up the kid.
How was your Saturday?
There is a lot of news these days of interest to those in the Tulsa area interested in preserving green spaces and wilderness as wells as the financial health of our city.
Maybe the most exciting news is that two local powerhouses, QuikTrip and the George Kaiser Family Foundation have given the Tulsa River Parks Authority a loan for $5.6 million to purchase 150 acres of land on Turkey Mountain, presumably including the 50 acre tract that Simon Properties wanted to purchase to put in an Outlet Mall. That deal fell through in September when Simon announced that that the were going to put the mall in the suburb of Jenks. Money to purchase the 150 acres is expected to be in a bond issue to be submitted to the owners within the next year. Reported separately Friday, the Jenks Planning Commission appproved Simon Properties’ plans for the outlet mall.
The bridge loan is great news. Until the land was in the public’s hands, it was at risk of development. This puts it out of private hands and into the River Park Authorities control.
It is pretty rare in Oklahoma for people to fight city hall and win. City hall is not happy. Our mayor Dewey Bartlett got people riled up in November by pitching a proposal for a restaurant on the mountain. It didn’t go down very well.
Mayor Bartlett was probably a little sore at losing the sales tax revenue from Simon’s mall to Jenks. Cities in Oklahoma are financed primarily by sales taxes and with the downturn in the energy industry and the rise of internet sales, sales tax collections are struggling. Friday, the mayor announced a job freeze because of decreased sales tax collections. The city has been working hard at attracting national retail stores to Tulsa to increase sales tax collections. Some of us wonder if all we are doing is cannibalizing existing businesses but we are generally okay with smart development.
Helmerich Park, or not a park, just been used as a park.
So now we have a new controversy over green space, this time concerning land in a city park, Helmerich Park, on the Arkansas River that the city is wanting to sell to a developer for a shopping center. Not a mall, just a moderately bigger than average strip mall type facility as far as I can tell. The problem is that you can’t sell land in a city park without going through a process involving the city council. The outdoor equipment retailer REI is expected to be the anchor tenant. To its credit REI has announced that it is not coming to Tulsa until all legal questions over the legal status of the proposed site have been answered.
The volley ball courts at Helmerich Park. Note Turkey Mountain in the background.
So the city’s attorney has come up with this claim that the park is not really a park. It is just land that has been used as a park. So we are probably headed to court to settle this. It is very complicated because of claims that money was donated to the city to purchase the land to be used as a park in perpetuity.
Acccording the city, this is not a park
The city wants to move fast to keep the project on tract, and a bunch of citizens are wanting to slow down and figure out this whole thing about what it means to say that land is not a park but is being used as a park. Plus we are trying to make sure that once land elsewhere in the city, like Turkey Mountain, is preserved as a park that it won’t be “unpreserved” by some fancy legal footwork. And of course we are also concerned about the city getting enough money to pay for services and keep our police and fire departments staffed up and with the equipment they need to keep the city safe.
So now we are going to have another real life Quality of Life vs Development controversy in Tulsa.
Check out information from Smart Growth Tulsa Coalition. Among other things, they have a link to a video of our present Mayor Dewey Bartlett stating the land for the park will never be sold.
Facebook Group: Save Helmerich Park
Channel 6 Television story on the Bridge Loan
Channel 5 Television story on Tulsa deciding to sue for right to sell land in park
Tulsa World Newspaper story in 1991 announcing brand new Helmerich Park
Channel 2 Television story back in August where city announces they sold twelve acres out of the park
