Near, Hinton Oklahoma...a small canyon in the middle of miles of very flat land
Did another 6+ hour drive to make up time and ended up at Red Rock Canyon State Park in Oklahoma. Neat spot, we literally camped in the canyon, right up against red rock walls. Thought it would be really hot but there’s been a decent breeze most of the time...thank god because by noon, it’s one stinking hot breeze and there’s no where to swim!
Oh ya, the book we have says this park has a pool, it does but they charge you $4/adult per day if you want to use it!! I can see that for the day users but for the overnight campers, what a rip off! And the showers in the newer facility, they make you pay for them too...50 cents for 3 minutes, again, what a rip off. So I went and checked out the older facilities in the other campground areas and they had free showers, although not the nicest. Crazy! Lucky we have an outdoor tap and hose on the trailer that’s come in very handy this stay. Dave and I have been hosing each other off with the water at the campsite, gets us cooled off thru the day anyways.
If we were into rappelling, this would be a great place to do that. There’s spots all over the grounds indicating that you can do that but we didn’t see anyone going over any of the walls.
Mornings were cooler (slightly) so I ran the first morning and Dave biked. Yes he can actually do that with his leg...it’s coming along amazingly well.
The second day we were here we decided to do the “easy” hike up to the top of the canyon. The ranger who checked us in the first day said it’s only a mile long and the trail goes all along the top. Dave also checked out the trail entrance at the far end of the park and he thought it would be OK for him to do, even with his slightly gimpy leg. So we start out early enough while it was still cool and the first part of the hike is relatively easy and then the trail starts to get narrow and seems to get poorly maintained. Not typical for the state parks we’ve been in before. Then we get to a spot where there’s no way we can cross, too close to the edge and nothing to hang on to. So we hop over the barb wire fence that had “No trespassing” signs on it earlier on so that we can get by this spot. Tresspass or die, easy choice!
Turns out we’re now in a farmer’s cow pasture but hey, the walking is marginally easier....and safer! So much for the warnings about staying on the trail and not to go off it because we might hurt some sensitive plants. Who the #$%@# can tell where the trail is? Very poorly marked if at all. So after 2 hours, we finally find a way out and back onto the campground road. We were never lost but the exit took a lot longer to get to than expected. We made it back to the entrance signs with the maps on them and it turns out the trails don’t go all the way around the canyon, they go in a short ways, then you’re supposed to know you’ve reached the end and go back. Hell if we saw anything like that.
Oh well, got very hot and scratched up but we survived and managed to get our exercise in for the day. The hosing down back at the campsite with cold water felt extremely good and it was FREE!!!
We did break down and spend a $1 each for a 6 minute shower the morning we left yet...guess I’ll include that as a human laundry expense :-)
Check out these pictures!