Over a week ago, several dozen trail lovers and various politicos gathered on Turkey Mountain to dedicate a new area. The Sanctuary with 88 acres (some sources say 90) and six miles of trails. The contractor has been working on the area since last fall and it is now fully opened up. It is on Turkey Mountain but across the street from the main area of the park.
The trails were built on land already owned by Tulsa RiverParks through a $2 million grant from the Daryl and Julie Christner Foundation. Above is a family representative talking about how his dad loved being outdoors. I saw him later leading a group of mountain bikers on the trails.
I was standing right next to Oklahoma’s Lieutenant Governer, Mike Pinell. Rather than take point blank photo, I took a picture of his cowboy boots. So I am on oil and gas twitter (or X if you must) and one of the ongoing things there, tongue in cheek, is that round toed boots are lame and square toed boots are cool. You can see he is wearing round toes. I elected not to call him out on that. (True confession, I have two pairs of square toe boots and one of round toes.) His big mission as lieutenant governor is publicizing and pushing Oklahoma and he does a good job of it.
He talked about how everybody is always welcome at Turkey Mountain. He also said that Tulsa is the most philanthropic city in America and how many public private partnerships go on here. He mentioned that Oklahoma has 34 sovereign nations within our borders (talking about the Native American tribes) and twelve ecosystems.
So the speeches were limited, and then everyone was invited to hike a quarter mile to treehouse for refreshments.
So off we went. I had a peanut butter cookie and chatted with a few people I knew.
That’s the heaviest duty treehouse I have ever seen.
I studied on the posted map a little bit and decided I was going to go on a hike.
I love the trails. They are all single track and some of them are pretty rocky. So you have to kind of pick your way carefully, especially if you are an old codger.
It was a bright sunny day, and there are lots of trees so there were lots of shadows.
I head lots of birds but they wouldn’t come out and sit still for a photo.
At one of the trail hubs I found this headboard. I was thinking. I have seen that before!!
I saw it in 2014 when this was all privately owned and some outlaw trail builders built their own trails on the property. Take a look to the left and behind the headboard.
It’s an oil well! A relic of Turkey Mountain’s past. It looked familiar as well.
So here is my wife and son at the same well eleven years ago.
So we were pioneers of the Sanctuary. Somebody got hurt crossing the road back to the main part of Turkey Mountain and the owners of the property posted it and so exploration of the property came to an end.
Enough of past history. I finished my hike and went through the moongate at the main entrance. I just love moon gates.
So a little over two miles. A friend and I hiked about three miles on a different route a few days later.
At least one Tulsa News Station had a crew there. Channel 6 news. Check the link for several videos.
I am linking with My Corner of the World.