Training day

Who knew such an amazing place existed just three hours drive from Dallas!   The Wichita Wild Life Refuge in Oklahoma was the setting for my very first solo, back to back, long distance hike in preparation for my walk.  

The Wichita mountains are quite rocky and estimated to be around 500 million years old, making them one of the oldest ranges in the world (this adds to the spiritual feel you experience there). Some of the boulder strewn mountains tantalise the imagination to create scenarios under which they formed.  Giant children getting creative with their own version of rock stacking art was one that best fit the appearance of some of the mountains near the Bison trail.

The vegetation in the refuge varies from prairie fields (wild Bison and all) to dense woodlands.  I look forward to visiting in the spring or summer when all will be a lush green, I can only imagine how much that will add to the experience.

Day 1

I did the Bison trail which is roughly 9 miles if you go once around, I went around each loop within the main track to rack up the miles to 15, it took me right at 4 1/2 hours so I was quite happy with that pace, 3.3 miles per hour on rocky terrain but not too much in elevation change. 

I managed to get a little lost after just two miles as a number of people had decided to blaze their own trail and over time it has become worn enough to look like part of the legitimate trail I was trying to follow.  It was after this experience and a prompting from a friend that I decided one should probably tell someone where they are and what time to expect them back!!  These are the simple lessons to learn.  

My equipment was a Coleman 45L day pack that was not at all comfortable, I still feel the pain of the straps on my shoulders.  I managed to stuff it with about 14kg of weight in order to simulate the real conditions I will face in Europe.  It contains a camel pack within the actual backpack which was good since I didn't need to take a second pack, but putting 2l of water inside the backpack does take up a lot of room, so I need to do a little more research on other designs that may alleviate this.  

Day 2

After a rather cold night in the back of the car (it got down to around -2 Celsius) and my Coleman sleeping bag was not warm enough.  The top did not cinch in to retain the heat necessary for this creature's comfort!  As a result I was unable to get much sleep and finally decided to get up at 6 am and go watch the sun rise while sitting on top of Little Baldy mountain.  What an amazing sunrise it was.  

After a few Quaker Oats breakfast bars I headed out to do two trails to add to my milage from yesterday.  Elk Mountain trail is only 2.2 miles round trip but it is straight up and down and gave my legs the workout I was missing form the relatively flat, all be it rocky, terrain yesterday.  Charon's Garden Trail is 4.4 miles roundtrip and goes through some nice canyons on the western side of the refuge.  They refer to this area as primitive and you can get permits to camp out there, I will put that on the to do list for a future visit.  

My final trip of the weekend was to go with a friend to try and take pictures of a chain that was anchored to a sheer rock face which assists hikers in getting onto the mountain.  In order to accomplish this task we had to hike out about 45 minutes (not sure the exact distance but I estimate 2 miles) and then climb large boulders to the top of a mountain range.  I was informed that this type of climbing is really referred to as scrambling and so through scrambling up many boulders, getting steeper as we ascend we came to one that I was informed may be a bit 'scary'.  

It was a steep slope (to me it was) that went up about 18 feet but the trick is there was not any real hand grips, so you had to rely on your shoe's friction to hold you to the rock; Asics running shoes were not well suited to this task.  When I managed to get up to the part where it was almost conquered I found that something else almost conquered me, a feeling of self preservation.   I will have to come back to this idea and the feelings it engendered in a future blog because it is worth exploring.