After talking about it for over a year, Seth and I finally managed to schedule and execute a backpacking trip.
I say "managed" and "schedule" loosely. Due to our less-than-advanced planning, we ended up not going to our first pick, the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge (they ran out of permits). Instead, we tried our luck and visited Greenleaf Lake State Park to backpack on the dually named "Greenleaf Lake Hiking Trail" / "Ankle Express Hiking Trail". Neither of us had ever heard of this place or trail, but instead blindly trusted our random Google searching to find us a good place to hike.
As it turns out, the Greenleaf Lake state park was very nice and the trail was excellent! The park sits right on the edge of the ozarks and we were treated with colorful views of fall throughout our 13 miles of hiking.
Day 1: Friday November 8th, 2013
We got up early in hopes of hitting the trail early enough to make camp before the sunset.
|
|
The information we had on the trial was mixed and we were not exactly sure how long we would be hiking, as it turns out, 7.5 miles the first day. (See a GPS log of our hike on a map here)
The trail was really fun. It was clear that not a lot of people hike this trail, many times we couldn't really tell where the trail was and had to simply follow the trail markers that were sporadically attached to trees. A few times we caught ourselves having diverged from the trail and had to backtrack until we found trail markers again.
At one point, we crossed a hanging footbridge with a good view of the lake.
We made it to Mary's Cove campground just in time to setup our tent and catch this sunset.
At one point, we crossed a hanging footbridge with a good view of the lake.
 |
| Seth on the Bridge |
 |
| View from the Bridge |
 |
| Sunset over Mary's Cove |
The campsite was very isolated and if it wasn't for the overcast sky, I'm sure we would have had a great view of the starry night sky. During the night we could hear coyotes howling and other various animals scurrying about (deer, armadillo, Sasquatch, etc).
We got up early Saturday morning so that we could get back to the car, cleanup, and drive to Stillwater for the Oklahoma State vs. Kansas football game.
The hike back was shorter, only about 5.5 miles, and much easier. The previous day's hike had much more elevation to it as we traversed the ridge around the lake. This day's hike followed the shoreline and was much smoother sailing.
 |
| Favorite Tree of the Hike. |
Definitely a good backpacking trip!
