Tag Archives: Lake Bixhoma

Skywatch Friday – Walking the Trails of Lake Bixhoma

Lake Bixhoma is a water supply lake for the Tulsa suburb of Bixby. It’s a not a big lake but is very pretty especially in the fall. This is from an outing a few years ago. I’m kind of out of commission temporarily I went and fell during a hike last Friday and not getting around too much lately. But hey, I’m healing fast!

Lots of people go fishing on the lake and there is a decent network of trails there as well. Plus geocaches. In fact I took these photos during a geocaching event at the lake.

It is just a great place to go wander around in. Kind of snaky though so watch your step!!

Part of the trail system goes by this beautiful cliff. I’m told by my geology minded people that those rocks are about 330 million years old and are full of small fossils. I’m a lousy paleontologist. I can see the fossils when they are pointed out to me otherwise all I see is rock.

Those rocks from deep under the earth played a role in a nuclear test treaty between the United States and Russia under the terms of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in 1990 at the nearby Leonard Geophysical Observatory. Check the link for the story here. They monitored American and British underground explosions in Nevada from the site. The arrangement only lasted a few years and then the Russians gave the site back to the Americans and left. I’ve read other articles that I couldn’t find online. One thing that amused me was that the Russians refused to honor no smoking rules in the buildings. They’d say, this is now part of Russia and we don’t have no smoking in Russia.

I’d love to see the old test monitoring site but it is all fenced off now.

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.

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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.

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Still the first part of the trail is walkable.

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Here is some of the abandoned infrastructure.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The trail got a little rough.

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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.

Skywatch Friday – The Skies of October

I’ve been enjoying my October so far. The weather has been good and I have been doing a lot of hiking and wandering. Above is the sky over Lake Bixhoma south of Tulsa about ten miles. I love it there during the week because nobody else is there.

This is a photo taken by “cousin-in-law” in western Oklahoma of Angus cattle on their ranch.

And this is at Martin Nature Center in Oklahoma City. I stopped there for a short hike on my way to pick up son at his college.

I’ve shown these chairs before. The City of Bixby repurposed the old auto bridge across the Arkansas River to a pedestrian bridge and added all sorts of extras such as these recliners.

And of course I had to try them out.

Here is the view I had.

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The bridge ties into Washington Irving Park in Bixby where the man camped during his tour of what is now Oklahoma back in 1832.

And here is sculpture of the man. This is part of an outdoor amphitheater. The park is another good place to go during the work week cuz of hardly anybody else being there.

And this always makes me think and ponder. This is one of the girders from the World Trade Center that were destroyed on the attack on America.

So I’m really enjoying the moderate weather. How about you?

Come join me and and bunch of other photobloggers at Skywatch Friday

Late night bonus content – I flew my drone for a little while this evening.

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Roughly a little south of northwest. All these were taken at about 150 feet elevation.

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Looking almost straight west

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Roughly a little north of southwest.

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A really big cloud was passing over Tulsa. This is looking almost straight south.

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A little bit north of northwest.

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Almost straight north.

I flew the drone in “periscope mode” in other words I launched it straight up from my back yard and just rotated it and snapped a few pics.

Our World – Geocaching Fall Fest

This past weekend was the annual Fall Fest for the Tulsa Area Geocachers (“TAG”) at Lake Bixhoma. Usually it is a multi day affair with camping and catered meals but this year it was an abbreviated one day affair. No camping, bring your own food, etc. I was busy with flooring and wall repair contractors so I was very late getting out there.

So here is proof that I can be social. I’m on the far left with two other geocachers. Yep, there was a cache on that dock.

In addition to meeting people, the big thing at Fall Fest is all the temporary geocacaches that people put out. There are typically dozens of them. I only saw a few. You will never see caches like this “in the wild” because they would be muggled in no time. (Muggles are people who are not geocachers, muggling is vandalism by muggles.)

Many of them involve puzzles or riddles to solve. Me and another guy had worked on this one for a while and the young man showed up and solved it in no time.

This was a pinball type cache where you had to notice numbers that were revealed as the ball fell down to solve a code.

And there were some water caches you could use a kayak to go find it. It was cold so I declined.

And then you had some more straightforward ones that even I could find.

I didn’t join the big group, I said hello to a few people and then found a trail around the lake. Social Distancing!

It was cold and overcast but still pretty in my book.

Bits of Fall Color were present. And then I went home!!

LJ the Cat, and Rascal enjoying the new floors

Come to find out that while I was off at the lake, the flooring guys knocked off early and my wife reclaimed our living room and master bedroom. We had been living upstairs during the time they were working downstairs and it was nice to have a couple rooms back. Our dogs and cats were highly stressed and they were glad to have Saturday afternoon and Sunday without being locked up with all the banging and other noises going on.

Abby loves the contractors. They give her belly rubs in the morning and evening but she slept almost all day Sunday.

Lizzie camped out in the master bedroom.

That’s about it this weekend.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday