This is a scene from Tulsa’s beautiful Turkey Mountain Wilderness Park after a brief snow in November. It is a beautiful place where Simon Malls plans on putting in a huge luxury outlet mall (whatever that is.)
I used Topaz Impressions with their Watercolor IV filter to make this.
Check out Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition for more information on Turkey Moutain
(Photo by Brian Hoover. I hope that he doesn’t sue me.)
I ran the trails of Turkey Mountain with a new group of people this morning. It was dark and cold at 7 am but hey there was a fire waiting for us. We were promised three or four mils but we got five. I like that getting more than what you bargained for. Most of the time anyway.
(
Above is Brian checking out a possible homeless camp on the mountain. It was a tipi looking structure with a blue tarp. Nobody home he reported.
We stayed pretty much at it the whole run. We ran a short loop of about 0.85 miles on the red trail to begin with and then regrouped in the parking lot and off we went again. I was on the slow group which was about all I could handle.
It was a great workout Running by myself I get a little lazy. A group takes you out of the laziness.
We ran right at 4.99 miles. I cheated and walked around a little bit at the end to make it an even 5. I cheat a lot but you guys already know that if you know me.
What many of us feared might happen has inched a little closer this week. Real estate giant Simon Property Group formally revealed plans to build a 400,000 square feet outlet mall on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. They have a few more hurdles to jump over but it looks like it is going to happen.
I cannot imagine a worse place for an outlet mall. Turkey Mountain is an urban wilderness used by thousands of Tulsans for hiking, biking, running, and just a generally getting away from it all.
It is huge, huge enough that by the time you get a half mile away from the parking lot you are pretty much on your own. It is hard to find solitude like that in a city.
The basic problem is that only about a third of the mountain (very very roughly speaking), the eastern third closest to the Arkansas River is public land. The next third to the west is owned by the George Kaiser Family Foundation who have announced that they are not selling their land for development. The western third is private property. It is unfenced and unposted and all sorts of people, including me use it like we do the rest of the mountain. We really cannot expect private landowners to provide us free public parks. The city or some other public entity needs to step up and buy the various properties. Where is the money to come from? I don’t know.
On the other hand Simon Property Group is expecting the city to step up and provide free enhanced road access and other infrastructure. I am totally against that. Why is that we are totally against welfare to poor people but trip all over ourselves to give money to companies worth billions of dollars?
So I’ve already emailed by brand new city councilor telling her my feelings on the issue and asking what her position is. If you are a Tulsa citizen then contact your councilor and let them know how you feel about this mall. In fact email Simon Property Group and politely let them know also.
The dirty little secret about shopping malls is that they are declining. Tulsa has several shopping malls that are in severe decline. Maybe Simon could rebuild an out mall in such a location and leave a wilderness alone.
One thing for sure is that if we don’t do anything we’ll lose a big chunk of Turkey Mountain.
I don’t know about you.
But that is unacceptable to me. If it is built I’ll still have a place to live.
Not everybody is that fortunate.
Links
No Mall by Turkey Mountain Facebook site
Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition Web Site
Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition Facebook Site
Trail Zombie blog post about the mall
A Statement from the Developer
NewsOn6.com – Tulsa, OK – News, Weather, Video and Sports – KOTV.com |
Linking to Our World Tuesday
a
Saturday, with a forecast of snow on Sunday, Brian of Tulsa’s Runners World, and one of the leaders of Tulsa’s active running community, put out a call on Facebook for a Snow Run on Sunday on Turkey Mountain followed by a lunch somewhere. There was a huge response. So a bunch of people of all ages and abilities showed up. I had never run in the snow before on Turkey Mountain so I hey I put aside my concerns about bad streets and all that showed up myself. We had Trail Zombie, the mayor of Turkey Mountain as our guide. He did a great job. Check the link for his post on the run.
It was just a dusting of snow but it was beautiful.
The trails were beautiful. I actually ran in my hiking boots cuz I like my feet to stay warm and I didn’t know how wet it would be. The running in the boots went fine. They are well broken in.
It was beautiful. Oh, I already said that? Well it bears repeating.
Everybody kind of shuffled along the Snake trail for 3.5 miles. Nobody was in a big hurry. We waited at the trail forks for the stragglers to come in and off we went again.
Afterward some of went to Cracker Barrel to eat and enjoyed some great company and conversation.
Afterward I went home. LJ the cat was not interested in my Snow Run. A belly rub was more what he was looking for.
This was our route. 3.5 miles the scenic way.
Linking with Our World Tuesday
Cold weather is coming but Sunday is warm. I put the Cowboys vs Jaguars game on DVR and we loaded up and drove to Turkey Mountain for a little outing on the Lollipop and Zoi trails.
The sun was out and the temperature was warm.
We saw a lot of stuff. We saw too washing machines out in the middle of nowhere. No driers though. Contact Baltimore appliance repairs to fix any kind of appliances.
We found this old bed frame in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a homeless guy was going to put in a flower bed? Logan didn’t see the humor in that.
We found these strange little berries. Heather thought they might be persimmons. I don’t know. What do you think?
Heather and Logan found an oil well and announced they were rich! I asked what about me? And they said “What about you?” What about you? Have you ever been left out of an oil deal? I know what you feel like.
The woods were beautiful Sunday. It was like a cathedral.
This is my favorite pic from Sunday. It looks like the woods are creeping up behind him and are going to swallow my only son. Of course his shirt doesn’t help.
Have you been on a good walk lately?
I participated in the Great Tulsa Camp Out on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain this past weekend. In addition to a great night of music, campfires, a glow walk, and lots of fun, there was a Yoga Class on Sunday morning. As you can a few people took the class in their jammies. I had my snuggie with me but I didn’t want to be the guy that took things too far.
Now really, does Yoga get any better than this?
Have you ever done yoga in your jammies? Or your snuggie?
If you know anything about me then you know that I love Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Wilderness Park. A sizeable plot of land in Tulsa right on the Arkansas River. It contains miles of trails for people who like to walk, hike, run, bicycle, unicycle, geocache, picnic, and other things. The one thing you can’t do legally on Turkey Mountain is camp. Saturday night though the Great Tulsa Campout was held. One night this year where one could go camping. So I bought a pass, signed up to volunteer and headed for the mountain.
I got there, checked in, got my volunteer tshirt, and set up my tent. I haven’t had it out since Logan graduated out of Cub Scouts years ago. It still works just fine! Goes up and down easily, small to carry, holds all my stuff.
Here’s a 360 degree panorama. As you can see there were tents everywhere.
I rotated among several jobs. For a short while I helped people with parking. I also helped for a little while at the bounce tent.
Mostly I spent the time helping at the Atlatl demonstration helping Jason. He was a very patient teacher especially with the little kids. I tried it a couple of times, I’m needing practice bad.
Jason was pretty good. He ought to be. Plus he had the best tee shirt at the event. I got my work out in. I ran up and down the range fetching the spears. I got in my 10,000 plus steps in on my fitbit at least.
I also provided a little moral support to the firebuilding effort.
The smores crowd early, followed by the late night beer drinking crowd later, really enjoyed the fire. You can’t go camping without a campfire right?
For dinner Louies Dawg House was there with hot dogs and hot links with any topping you could think of. I had two!
There was lots of great music at the camp. Green Corn Rebellion, Ali Harter, and Grazzhopper played to an appreciative crowd.
I also helped create a glow walk through the adjacent woods. About 1600 glow sticks along the trail handing in the trees and strewn on the ground provided a magical effect while walking on the trail.
The next morning the sunrise was spectacular and everybody kind of slept in, others attended the yoga class. The beauty of an urban campout is that for coffee I went to a Starbucks about a mile away and got breakfast. I know that is major slacking but hey, the coffee was good.
The event was well organized and I think that everybody had fun. The guys that ran the event, Ryan Howell, Matt Carver, and Tyler Hanes were here there and everywhere making sure that everybody had a safe good time. If they have it next year I’ll be there again.
Explore Tulsa put together a nice video of the event narrated by Ryan Howell. You can get a little more of the flavor of the event.
I’m going to close with a video by Grazzhopper. They are good!!
Linking with Our World Tuesday
Have you been camping lately?
Early Labor Day morning I ventured over to Turkey Mountain for the Escape From Turkey Mountain trail race. It is five miles long and they claim that it is the oldest trail race in the Tulsa Area. This was the tenth running.
They had everybody begin by walking through the finish line so they know how many people were running and to make sure that they didn’t leave any stragglers on the course.
A little fashion note. A guy wearing an orange shirt with a pink kilt and leggings.
And off we went! I always start at the back and the farther the race went, the backer I went.
The course went this way and that way and up and down and all around. Good thing that they had traffic cops to guide us, prevent any cheating. Not that taking a few short cuts crossed my mind at all.
We looped back to the parking lot where those who were in the two mile fun run peeled off, lucky dogs. The rest of us went right up Lipbuster to the top of Turkey Mountain.
When I got to the top I was pretty much all by myself. I came up on a mother and son team who didn’t want me to pass. Not at all, but I did it anyway and then later came upon somebody else who didn’t want me to pass either and were rude about it. I don’t blame any of them!! They were about to enter Yogi’s Hall of Shame, which are those people younger than me, who are slower than I am!
And here I am toward the finish (photo by Fleet Feet Sports of Tulsa). Notice that I am not one to criticize guys who wear pink kilts but hey, the shirt is by Kohl’s and no, my shorts were not matching. At the finish, I got my obligatory adult malted beverage. At first they said one per person (grown) but later rescinded that (yeah!) and a hamburger.
Anyways, I finished 94th out of 96 men. So only two guys entered the Yogi Hall of Shame!! Actually, I admire and respect anybody that gets out there and tries it. So that makes me special right!! I would do it over again in a minute. Well maybe the day after tomorrow I’d do it again.
Have you run in a race lately?
Added Content – Video by Fleet Feet Tulsa
Since the controversy erupted about Simon Properties‘ plans to put an 800,000 square foot outlet mall on Turkey Mountain you would think that all there is on Turkey Mountain is trails. Goodness knows there are trails on Turkey Mountain.
There are big wide trails and there are very faint, barely used, tracks through the grass and brush and everything in between.
The trails are used by runners, walkers, hikers, bikers, and even a few unicyclers. There is a lot more than trails on Turkey Mountain. Yep.
There are petroglyphs. I had heard about them and it took me a while to find but I finally found them.
Some say they were made by the vikings way back when or the Celts. Who knows. I think such things are a lot more interesting than anything I have found in an outlet mall.
What do you think?
I’ll tell you something else that goes on up on the mountain. Logan and I went up there to check our geocache in an area called Rock City. We found a several guys up there with their radio controlled jeeps negotiating the rocks. It was pretty darned interesting watching them maneuver their cars around the various obstacles.
Now that beats the pants off an outlet mall any day. Well guess what. I’m not really sure but if that mall goes in I am thinking that Rock City will be part of the mall. Yep, the best you can hope for is a Nike discount store. Buy two get a third half off is my motto.
Do you know what else goes on up there. Geocaching and geocaching is all about families and being outside and adventure. Kiss that goodbye also.
And you know something else, geocaching is all about whimsy and serendipity. You won’t find any elves doors at the mall. Not one you could afford anyway. This one is free. It is on a pretty darn steep slope. Find the cache with one hand and hold for dear life with other is the method I recommend.
Know what else? How about an Oklahoma Rock? It is probably safe from the bulldozers, for now at least. You know how it is, haters have to hate, and developers have to develop. It’s in the Bible somewhere. I think.
The thing about Turkey Mountain is that is not a real wilderness. It has old abandoned farms, cisterns, fields, and lots of oilfield. I think it used to be kind of an outlaw kind of place that is slowly going back to nature. If only we would let it.
There are lots of ghosts up on the mountain. You can almost see them at certain times late in the evening when almost everbody has gone home. There is an air of mystery about it.
Anyway Turkey Mountain is unique. A wilderness within sight of downtown. It is important to keep it that way. An outlet mall can go anywhere. If you think we need one of course. We’ve been doing fine without is my opinion. Here is a little more information on the matter.
And here is a Online Petition opposing the location of the mall. Check it out.
And here is some information about the George Kaiser Family Foundation regarding their property on Turkey Mountain. They own 139 acres and pledge not to develop it. Lots of people thought that the acquisition happendd this week and that the mall is prevented. Actually, if I understand correctly, they have owned the property for some time. I guess that I have a little take on their announcement. I see it as a head nod to Simon to go ahead and send the bulldozers in, we won’t oppose you. I guess I’m a little cynical maybe. The Foundation has been really good to Tulsa They are a great supporter of the Turkey Mountain but I detect a note of surrender in their announcement. The foundation is putting together a mammoth park project on the River Parks called A Gathering Place for Tulsa. It will cost over $300 million and will be wonderful. Check out the Link.
And here is the City Council and Tulsa Mayor web sites. Drop’em a line. Let them know how you feel.
Other Resources
Trail Zombie’s Post concerning the environmental impact.
The Tulsa Voice article referenced in Trail Zombie’s Post
New Facebook Page – Forgotten Malls of Tulsa reminding us that all malls have a lifecycle and it doesn’t last very long.
Blog Post by Bob Doucette on zoning and land use
You know sometimes the most colorful skies during sunset are away from the sun. If you look just to the right of the pavillion you can see the top third or so of the Citiplex Towers in south Tulsa reflecting the evening sun.
