Wichita Mountain Hiking Experience

I woke around 7:00a to do some packing and get my gear ready for my hike. I set out to do the Charon’s Garden trail, hitting the trail head at about 9:00a. The Charon’s Garden trail is only a 2 mi./2hr. trail, and it seems to me to be a fairly intermediate difficulty – nothing too taxing, but plenty of rocky areas. The trail heads through a nice valley next to Elk Mountain, a beautiful area of the reserve.

Stop by the reserve visitor center and get a topographical map for about $3 before you try this trail and you could easily spend the entire day exploring the Charon’s Garden area that the trail cuts through. One caveat – as with the whole reserve, the bison and elk are free range, and they don’t call it Elk Mountain for nothin’. Last time I hiked this area we encountered an elk from within 2 yds. and during the hike this year I had three separate encounters with bison ranging from 2 yds. to 20 yds. off the trail. Please, look, but don’t touch.

The temperature was perfect for hiking, somewhere in the 60’s. The sky was foggy on my way out, but cleared off on the return.

Overall I had a good experience on the Charon’s Garden trail, but there was one disappointing thing about the trail – it is very poorly marked. You will have to rely on some hikers markers and – if you’re lucky – some good footprints to keep you going. Of course, this was particularly irritating for me because I was on a solo hike (and I had not yet purchased an area topographical map). It came to the point that I lost the trail toward the end going on an offshoot for about 45 min. I still got to see some pretty sweet scenery, but it was a real pain trying to stay on the trail, and I couldn’t regain the trail and go to the end due to my own time constraints. I’d recommend the trail for hiking through some beautiful country, but you should know what you’re getting into – and how to get out of it. If you do give it a shot, you’re going to see some beautiful granite rock formations, a wonderful plateau in the valley, great streams and wildlife in their natural home. Well worth the trip.

Wichita Mountain Camping Experience

It took me about 30 minutes to set up camp – pitching the tent and transferring all my gear from the car to the tent. I’ve come to set a high value to any gear that will help in a fast set up and tear down. You want to have your time frames defined by your camping activities, not by your set up and tear down. Since this was my first solo camp, I knew things like setting up would take me a lot more time than with a buddy, so I made sure that I only brought and set up essential equipment. Really I think that most of my time was spent lugging equipment to and from the road – the tent went up fairly easily, but I would have had a rough time if there had been a strong wind.

The site fees are $8, and they have ice and firewood for sale at the entrance to the camp grounds. Unfortunately for me, there was a burn ban in effect for the county so firewood wasn’t a concern of mine. I prefer to use deadwood for the camp rather than buy it, but sometimes you’re only options are wood that is either too wet or too wick for use. On this trip there was a serious lack of deadwood laying around, so it wasn’t an option even if there hadn’t been a ban, although there was abundant kindling.

As of 5:30p I only have two sets of neighbors, one to the WNW and one to the NNW, but they are pretty courteous and quiet, so no problems there. Things are looking to turn into a peaceful evening.

I brought brauts, creamed corn, and baked beans for dinner. I’m trying to keep things pretty simple since I only have two burners to work with.

Since I didn’t have a grill over a cookfire to work with, I boiled the brauts to warm them and then let them sear in the pan when the water boiled off. This was a quick and easy dinner for making on a camping stove – really a great meal if you don’t have the option of a fire.

I forgot to bring any dishrags or paper towels, so I had to get creative with cleanup. Boiling water took care of most of it, and a couple of extra hot dog buns made serviceable scrubbers for the pot.

The sun set at 6:40p, and the surrounding trees made for much more privacy at night. I strung up a couple of lamps and read until about 9:30p and then turned in for the night.

My night’s sleep went very well until about midnight when a couple moved into the sight next to me. They took about an hour to get their site set up and were annoyingly loud. I’m not sure how they got in to the camp site, because the gates are supposed to be closed at 8:00p. Needless to say, I was pretty hacked at them for showing up and setting up in the middle of the night.

The sun rose at about 6:00a, and I decided to get up at 7:00a. I made myself a breakfast of eggs, bacon and coffee to get ready for the day of hiking I had in store. I highly recommend finding a good plastic french press for your coffee instead of relying on a percolator. You’re going to get a much better cup of coffee in the same amount of time with the french press. After breakfast I packed up the majority of my gear and stowed it in the tent so I could set out on my hike. I’ll tell you about the hiking experience in my next post.

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Reserve

I’ve decided to kick off a reboot to the old blog with a little camping post. I’m going to go through a rundown of my one night  trip and then give a little review of the camp ground as well. I’m planning on splitting this into three parts, with an overview of the campgrounds, my camping experience, and my hiking experience.

I went to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge for this trip. I’ve been there once before, in April of 2010, with my buddy Miller. The refuge is only about 2 hours away from the north OKC Metro, so it rests in a fairly convenient distance for even quick camping trips, while still landing pretty far from home.

Being in the southwest area of the state, the Wichita Mountain range have a very different feel from the ranges that dominate the eastern half of the state. These mountains will leave you with a feel for the west and give you daydreams of hiding behind a ridge to scope down on some rustlers. Or something like that. Expect plenty of granite boulders (ranging up to the size of semi trailers), plenty of low-height blackjack, post-oak and a mix of evergreen trees, and plenty of cacti (which can make for some tricky off trail hiking). On top of that, the refuge is home to free ranging herds bison, and Texas longhorn, and elk. Free ranging, as in, bison in your camp site. On my latest trip, I encountered bison on the trail on three occasions, at a range of 2-30 yards off the trail. The bison are calm and docile most of the time. The rest of the time, they will gore you to death. There are also three known mountain lions, but I’ve never come across one of them.

This was my first solo camping and hiking trip – if you plan a solo trip, be sure to let someone know when and where you plan to camp, and especially when and where you are hiking. Something that’s just annoying when with a partner, like an ankle sprain, can be dangerous when you have no help around. Particularly when a buffalo is sizing you up cause you looked at him funny. Did I mention that they can weigh up to 2,000 pounds?

I arrived at Doris Campground in the refuge at about 3:30pm on Friday afternoon, and there were still ample available sites to pick from.

I generally use the following guidelines to select a good spot in a general semi-primitive camp ground:

• Seclusion (the most desirable, but most difficult to obtain)
• Water access
• Tree cover
• GHD (gear-haulin’-distance)
• Restroom access (I don’t mind going in the woods, but given the choice, playa please

Doris Campground is the only general public use campground in the refuge, but it has some pretty good offerings. There are a selection of primitive sites in the campground that are more secluded in general compared to the semi-primitive sites, but the GHD can be high, and the primitive sites are tightly spaced, so all it takes is one annoying neighbor deciding to set up shop to ruin the whole primitive camping section. Not worth the risk in my experience – you’ll end up with more privacy in most of the semi-primitive areas.

The semi-primitive sites in Doris have a few notable pros in a general comparison to most semi-primitive setups:

• close parking (1-2 vehicles) GHD is reduced to 3-20 yards with parking spots for each individual site. Makes for a markedly easier setup and tear-down.
• moderate  tree cover between each site
• well kept fire pits
• charcoal grill and generally undamaged concrete picnic table (seats 6)
• large and spread out camping site area (rental covers two tents, but there is room for more).

Of course there are a few cons:

• While the sites are spread out, your neighbors are quite close
• line of sight is mostly unbroken between campsites
• close parking means close road
• bison in your camp (not just raccoons)

Overall it’s a pretty good setup and it’s your only choice, unless you get a permit for wilderness camping. Check back again in a few days for a look at the camping experience.