In Honor Of LJ Boycott, I Fell Down A Mountain..
.. and then I had to climb all the way back up to get to my freaking car. D:
I was at Turner Falls Park in Davis, Oklahoma which is nestled in the Arbuckle Mountains. You can check out the wiki article about the Arbuckles to get some information on them. They're incredibly old, and are estimated to at one time have been over 20,000 feet high. Now most of you wouldn't call them mountains anymore, but more of glorified hills. Still, they are the roots of a mountain system so we call them mountains. Besides everything else around here is so damn flat, so give us a break.
Turner Falls is the 77 foot falls that the park is named after. It's located along Honey Creek. The water is always icy cold, and the minerals in the water make your skin feel so lovely. We had some amazing rain for two days straight, so I knew that once the park was able to reopen, the falls would look amazing. I also wanted to go climb around in the caves. If you look at the picture of Turner Falls in the wiki article, on the right side of the falls, in the rock you can see a black spot. That's a cave entrance. I was trying to get to that from the top of the mountain going down around the side, like I did about 12 years ago. It's very steep and rocky. Some 60-ish year old lady in sandals was ahead of me, and she made it all the way down. I, in my hiking boots, found a wonderful patch of slick mud and rocks to slip on. My foot got stuck under a rock as I went down. That wasn't even the bad one. As I freed my foot and stood back up I fell again, caught the same foot under another rock, the foot went left and the knee went to the right, and I slid down the mountain. I was very close to the cave, but I hurt myself pretty good. I sat there for a few minutes trying to decide if I could get up or not. Then I got up and climbed back up the mountain to get to my car. If I had gone ahead to the cave and gone to the bottom where the falls pool is located. I would have had to walk all the way around the darn thing and up a road to get back to my car. I really wasn't feeling like doing that. The good thing is that, as I mentioned above, the water is really cold. So, I got in my car, drove down to the creek, and shoved my foot in the water for a while, before I made the several hours drive back home to Texas.
I took a bunch of pictures, and here's a few I thought I should share with you guys.
Turner Falls, from the overlook outside and above the park on Hwy 77.
Falls from ground level. I was standing on a walkway with water running above my ankles. The pools were closed to swimmers because the water was too deep.
The cave I was trying to get to, and a successful climber. Damn him. >:(
Small falls at the end of Crystal Cave Trail.
My mother yelling at me from the entrance of a cave, "No thanks! You go ahead!"
Honey Creek above the 77 foot falls. When I was there 12 years ago it was safe to swim up there. I think the current and depth would be too much right now.