THE BIG HIKE 3-6-2010

This trip to the Big Hike on the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge was with great anticipation. We have wanted to do this trip for over a year. Here we go. This is a picture of the wall and Mt. Scott. We will start at the Parallel Forest on the West end of this picture. This is a four mile trip which will take us 4 hours going up, down, over and around the terrain on the Wildlife refuge.

Jay is looking back at the Parallel Forest. This is where we started our trip from. See the greenry below..the cedars in a row that is the Paralle Forest. You can get to it on the road to Meers. It is a fun place to walk through and on the far NE corner you will come across a Spanish Arrastra which was probably used to grind the rock from the three mine shafts across the creek from the arrastra. Great history trip.

Once on top we traveled along the wall which was about a mile and a half long.
We had a friend of Helen's traveling with us for part of our trip. Bobby is an avid hiker and has hiked the Appalachian Trail. That is a lot of hiking. He was leaving for Virginia to do some more major hiking the next week.

Taking a water break before we forge on.

Helen sees the next mountain peak we were to go to. It was on the far end of the Wall.

The peak in the distance was the last peak on the Wall before we head across the valley to another peak. We are standing on peak 3 looking to peak 4

Looking to the North we can see we are looking toward Meers and the housing addition below the Wall Mt. range. Look at the two rocks sticking up on the right. How in the world did that happen? We all know it was a result from God's works thousands of years ago.
We just love the rock formations on top of these mountains. So unique and amazing. It is a wonderful place to get away from the city and see the mostly untouched area on top of the mountains!

Looking South to Quetone Mt. Peak.

LUNCH TIME~ We decided to stop around 10:30 since we had so much ahead of us. Knew we would need the nourishment to keep going! PLUS we like to eat in a unique place and we found it.

Stopping for lunch we found this neat rock formation. We have had lunch in some of the most unusual places. This is another to put on our list.

Helen and Marki ready to head onward after a quick picture at their new found hiking place!!!

This is what we have to forge next. Down one valley and up another hill then down and up another and then up a boulder field on Mt. Scott. We couldn't wait!!! Here we go!

The Elk are very visible in this part of the Wildlife Refuge. This female didn't know were were watching her. When we finally got her attention she started running.

We were able to capture her stopping and looking to make sure we were still there before she headed out again.

We have almost made it to peak number 5. This is a mountain peak to the NW of Mt. Scott. No name but a very easy mountain to climb. It was a good restful hike to get up it.

Heading to the top of peak 5

We are almost there! The top of Peak 5 is getting closer.

While on top of peak 5 we look ahead and see the boulder field we will climb to get half way up Mt. Scott. Yea. Just one and half more hours!!!

Looking back at the Hunting Horse Mt. peak. We will climb that sometime soon. (DONE 3/15/10 YEA)

The boulder field is very close now. Mt. Scott is the last

peak we will climb. It is a major hike just to climb Mt. Scott.
We have one and half hours left to get to the top!!!

We hoped to do the entire trip in 4 hours!

Looking straight across to Huntinghorse Mt. Peak. Isn't is beautiful. It is like a piece of rock lace. Molded and formed into a beautiful picture.





Just love the cedar trees on the Wildlife Refuge. Some are so odd shaped due to the growing around the rocks.

Helen is looking back at peak 5 which is on the right side. The left peak is Hunting Horse Mt.

Jay in the middle of the boulder field. Look at the trees behind him. We eventually have to hike through the bushes and trees like that. They cover the boulder field on the top. What is sad is the broken limbs form the ice storm we had in January. It has made it 10 times harder to go through.

Still smiling and loving it. You can see peak 5 on the right and Hunting Horse on the left.

Every boulder pile is different. Each is challenging in its own way. This was like a small cave. Kind of hard to see it that way but it was pretty deep.

Looking back at peak 5. We have traveled through all kinds of trees and terrain to get to the boulder field.

Looking to the Southwest at the Quetone Point Mountain Peak.

Getting off the boulder field was a lot of work. We had to travel through 25 yards or more of trees and bushes.

Looking down at the boulder field and across to Huntinghorse Mt. peak from the first road. See all the trees and bushes we had to travel through. I actually had a tick attached to my under arm. It was a warm day but we didn't think the ticks were out yet. We still had to head up giant boulders around the top of Mt. Scott to get to the top.

This tree is almost to the top of Mt. Scott. It reminds us of the 100 year old trees all over the wildlife refuge. It is amazing to see odd shaped trees. Wonder what their story is? If they could only talk!

Here is another odd shaped specimen of an old cedar tree.

Well We did it!!!! We made it in 4 hours. It was exactly 4 miles of over, under and around the rocks and terrain. We are looking back to the West to see the terrain we crossed to make the BIG HIKE. Look very closely at the Peak in the center of the page in the distance. It is across the road from the Parallel Forest. In the middle of the picture is the boulder field on Mt. Scott.

Our friends Petra and Tiera Robinson picked us up on top of Mt. Scott. We we very happy that we didn't have to walk back to our car in the Parallel Forest. Hmmmm Maybe that is the next BIG HIKE!!! Up and Back...NOT!!!!!

Jay and I celebrated by going to Ann's Country Kitchen for an Indian Taco. It was the perfect ending to a amazing day hiking on the Wichita Mt. Wildlife Refuge.

This picture is from the back side (North) of the mountain range on our way home.

Gorgeous isn't it?

COME HIKE WITH US! We would love to show you around!