The mountains are calling and I must go.

When you live in Kansas, finding mountains is a slight problem considering the only “mountain” in the state is more of a hill. So we got creative this spring when we got the adventure itch and found our destination in an unlikely place – Oklahoma. I know, there’s never a good reason to go to Oklahoma, but we managed to actually find something worth our time. Tucked away in the western part of Oklahoma lie the Wichita Mountains – not to be confused with anything associated with Wichita, Kansas.

Oklahoma…I never thought we would adventure here.

I took a half day of vacation on a Friday and we jetted out of town with our pups. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of a 4 hour drive. This was considerably shorter than the other options I proposed for our adventure weekend which included North Dakota, Albuquerque, or Colorado Springs – what can I say, I really love traveling. But considering we needed to be back by Saturday night, a practical adventure was the solution.

The Wichita Mountains: The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

We arrived at the refuge around 4 p.m. or so. It feels like you have to drive a while to get to the actual campsite, but it’s really only a couple of miles to get into the refuge and to the campsite. Somewhere on some website I thought I had read that you get camping permits at the visitor center. After stopping at the visitor center, we were told we needed to simply drive to the campsite pay your fee there and set up camp. Options for camping are pretty limited as far as areas in the park to camp at. The main campsite is Doris Campground. This is where the majority of campers set up. The site does offer all types of campsites – RV/Camper, drive up (the type with a parking spot right next to where you camp) and walk up. We chose walk up as we were hoping to get a little more “campy” and less “glamping.” Walk up means that you park your car and then follow a short path to campsites a little further out than the drive ups. Some are pretty close to the main road/parking lot and some are little further out, but non are an extensive hike by any means. We actually had pretty slim pickings as we got there a little later on a Friday afternoon and it was during spring break season. From what I read, you can also get a backpacking permit and do hiking and backpacking, but it is very limited in the number of permits they give out, so we just passed on it this time.

Our campsite!

After we set up camp, we decided to do some sightseeing. We first went to the Holy city. Being completely honest – not that impressive. It is apparently a sight of a passion play on Easter weekend, but besides that it’s a chapel building and a lot of area that you can’t access. I think we spent all of seven minutes walking around.

The next stop was Parallel Forest or also called Cedar Plantation. This was an area where hundreds of trees were planted exactly in line spaced perfectly apart. I believe the story is that the trees were planted with the intent to harvest them, but it became a refuge before the trees matured enough to harvest. It was slightly more interesting than the holy city, but still not that fascinating. I think we spent maybe five minutes there.

Parallel Forrest: Just a bunch of trees

Finally we made our way to Mt. Scott – the highest point in the refuge accessible to the public. Parts of the refuge are section off for restricted use only. One peak is just taller than Mt. Scott, but this is located in the restricted area, so the highest point you can get is Mt. Scott.  A paved road winds itself up to the peak with a decent size parking lot at the top.

Mt. Scott

We really enjoyed the views from the top of Mt. Scott. The area is full of boulders so we spent about a half hour climbing all around the mountain.

Top of Mt. Scott

We then retired to our little campsite. I feel like this would have been much more enjoyable if it had not be as busy of a weekend. We had a campsite just across from us that had three tents of college-age kids that didn’t seem to care what level of noise they kept. So after they finally quieted for the night, camping was fairly pleasant.

We packed up pretty quickly in the morning and headed up to a trail on the far side of the refuge.

We did a short about mile hike on the Kite Trail and saw the 40 foot hole. This trail was nice because we only saw one other hiker.

40 foot hole

After this short jaunt we went to the Elk Mountain Trail. This ended up being full of people, but we still had a fun hike. We followed the trail for most of the way then cut our own path to the top. It never really reaches a peak because it turns into more of plateau with lots of boulders. We spent some time exploring and climbing boulders with the pups. I did managed to smash my hand against a boulder and bust up my knuckle pretty good, but nothing too terrible.

My poor little hand…

We decided to take the path less traveled on the way down – which was not a path at all…It would have been ok if it hadn’t started raining right as we were on a steep grade of boulders. The rocks got treacherously slippery and lost my footing and landed flat on my back side. After that we decided to find our way back to the path and made it back to the trailhead just fine. We packed us and the pups up and made the drive back home to end our Wichita Mountain Adventure.

The “top” of Elk Mountain

End of the trail at Elk Mountain

If you go

Getting there: Be prepared for tolls. Yes, you have to pay money to drive on Oklahoma’s terrible roads. It’s best if you bring a quarter collection with you. Some of the tolls booths have lanes that you can just toss the exact coins (only coins – not bills). These lanes seemed to go a bit quicker.  Once you were in Oklahoma, I think one toll was $1.50 and the other was $1.75 – one way. We also had the turnpike leaving Kansas.

Camping: walk up sites $8 , drive up site $10, campsite has grill, picnic table, and fire ring. Ice machine at camping permit booth.  Vault toilets at various places (bring your own toilet paper.) Getting there earlier on a Friday or going on a less busy weekend may help with campsite selection.

Don’t miss: Mt. Scott – we went at sunset and it was just beautiful

What I would change: The amount of people – not a fan of crowds when I’m trying to get away. I also would have changed getting there a bit earlier to have time to do a short day hike the first day and skip the holy city and forest (even though we didn’t spend much time here anyways) But we made do with the time we had.

Overall Opinion: I thought this was a perfect weekend adventure. It was far enough away it felt like we were getting away, but close enough that it was able to be done on a quick weekend. It was a new place for camping and had some interesting terrain for hiking. Our pups loved it and had no problems with bouldering. Obviously compared to other adventures like Colorado and such, you’ll be disappointed, but if you’re looking for an adventure that is nearby and can be done in just over 24 hours, I definitely suggest it.

Something that Josh and I have really learned to appreciate is the stage of life we’re in. We’re young, well more like mid twenty year olds, married, no kids, and love for life together.

Over the last few months, I felt like I was wasting the precious time we had in this glorious stage of life. Don’t get me wrong, I cherish the quiet evenings of cuddling on the couch watching “Getting Out Alive” and making fun of how bad the contestants are at making shelter. But I also was getting a growing sense that this was becoming the norm,  not the “every now and then.”

So we put a renewed focus on getting back to the roots of adventuring and exploring and we’ve had an incredible time. We’ve since gone sky diving, gone to a Royals baseball game, tried new restaurants, joined a new gym, and hike a 13,000+ foot mountain! It’s also led me to think about why it’s important for us to not let these wonderful years zip past us with out fully embracing them

Memories of experiences strengthen our marriage

Yes, we walked to Canada.

There have been so many times when we are eating dinner and one of us will say something to the effect of “Hey remember that time we walked to Canada,” or “I still can’t believe we walked eight miles in one day in Puerto Rico.” We often ask each other questions like what had been your favorite adventure, or if you could relive any adventure which would it be. I frequently look back at our pictures of travels and adventures and replay them in my mind. They bring back such fun memories of what we have gotten to do together. The memories of good times have helped us through rough times and help us fall in love with each other all over again.

 Gives us something to look forward to

I live for more adventures. Not because I’m greedy and am never satisfied, but I enjoy the excitement of looking forward to something, even if it’s a year away. It makes it feel like we’re moving toward something, not just going through the motions of life. It also keeps a sense of adventure and excitement in all areas of our life. While yes, we love to travel to other places, that spirit of adventure has affected our daily life also. We can’t always just up and leave, so now we see our city as a place to explore and discover new adventures in. This has lead us to finding a cute ice cream shop, new restaurants, festivals, and parts of town we never knew existed.

Delicious ice cream shop we discovered!

Ideal time

We’re at a great stage in life for this and I don’t want to let it pass without taking advantage of it. We’ve been married for a bit and have a great friendship in marriage. We’re financially in a better spot and can actually make it a priority to save for adventures. We have responsibilities, as we’re both working full time and have other responsibilities, but we don’t have kids yet or many other commitments that would shift our priorities.

1. I am not saying your life is over when you have kids. Ok, so don’t even go there. I am merely stating that we’re at a point in life where we have a lot more freedom and we’re taking advantage of that. We fully intend to travel as a family and continue with the spirit of adventure in kid’s childhoods. But let’s be realistic, we can’t just up and go on a road trip and sleep on the side of the road very easily when you have kids.

2. I am not saying that in order to enjoy life you have to be constantly busy. I am saying, it is really easy to slip into a comfort zone that you don’t want to break. Sure it’s more comfortable to stay home and watch tv, and I’m not saying you can’t have great memories on quiet nights at home. But I am also saying this stage of life is an awesome opportunity to go experience different things, but you have to make it a priority to go out and do it, other wise, it’s easy to just stay home. We have worked hard to find balance of having a certain number of nights home by ourselves and the other nights spent with friends or out doing activities.

Whether you do it a lot or a little, I hope you make the time to adventure. Life is far too short to spend it in front of the tv. Adventure on my friend.

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” – John Muir

Although I had visited Colorado many times, I felt like I had missed out on one its greatest experiences – climbing a mountain. So when our friend Jason, asked us if we wanted to go on a camping adventure, I knew exactly where we should go – to the mountains.

Jason is a great friend and fellow church planter. Last year, he joined us for a backpacking trip to Elk River Trail down by Independence, Kansas. So when this year rolled around, he asked us if we were interested in another backpacking/camping adventure. Of course, the Ericksons couldn’t say no!

Jason, Tricia, and Josh ready for the adventure!

Jason has a really cool part of this story that is about more than mountain climbing. He had been saving up all summer for this trip when his car broke and he had to spend his vacation fund on car repairs. A week before we were set to leave, he called to let us know where he was at with things. He decided that he was still planning on going and was going to have faith that the money would come in that week. Later that week, we shared Jason’s situation with some friends and a generous lady gave $75 towards his part of the trip. When we let him know about the money, he told us that a family member had also given him some money for trip. And when we returned from home, there was more money from an anonymous friend waiting for him – God had provided for his entire trip. God had his back on this one.

Anyways, so about our adventure.

After seven hours of western Kansas – if you’ve ever driven this, you know the awfulness of that statement – we made our way up to Boulder, Colorado. I had never been to Boulder so we drove around the city a bit. I liked it for the most part. You could tell it was a college town, but, over all, a fun city. Although, we stopped at a grocery store that was sort of like a Whole Foods, and I had a pretty interesting experience with a lady coming into the bathroom singing “All you need is love.” Not helping your stereotype Colorado.

Onward.

We went west from Boulder to a town called Nederland. It was a decent size with a large lake that greeted you from the main road. We drove through town and followed a road to where our trail was. Let me tell you about this “road.” The pavement ends and it turns into a dirt road. The first few miles aren’t too terrible. We came to the Fourth of July campgrounds, but the hiking trails are another five miles or so on this “road.” Pretty much as soon as you pass the campgrounds, it turns into the path of destruction. Huge pot holes, jagged rocks, mud pits, and just rough terrain plagued us for the next five miles. To the local Coloradian in a jeep, no big deal. For the Kansas adventurers in a Jetta – sheesh. But the Jetta was a champ and we made it to the trail head.

The original plan was to camp at the base of the trail and just hike all day the next day. But, of course the Erickson (i.e Josh:) can’t stick to a plan. We arrived at the trail head around 5p.m-ish and it wasn’t going to be dark for a couple more hours, so we decided that we would backpack as far as we could that night, camp, and then summit the mountain the next day.

The Erickson’s camp for the night

The trail didn’t have mile markers, so we’re not entirely sure how far we went the first night. Our estimate is we went two miles or so. The trail was mostly through woodland at a moderate incline. Since we were on the side of a mountain, it was difficult to find a flat, open space to set up camp. But after nearing dark, we finally found a decent spot.

The view from camp in the morning!

Sadly, about the only pleasant aspect of that night was the view over looking the valley. We all were victims of altitude sickness – head aches, short breathe, dry mouths- making sleeping nearly non existent. After a looonng night of mostly no sleep, we packed up and hit the trail excited to summit a mountain!

We were so naive.

That morning was full of grueling inclines and a trail that seemed like it would never end. After leaving our camp, we found ourselves in a meadow/marsh area that was really beautiful.

The pretty meadow

After the meadows, the trail split – one going to Diamond Lake, a very popular day hike, and one to Arapaho Glacier that would lead us to Arapaho South Peak. It was after the trail split that things got really difficult. It was all switch backs up the side of the mountain. There were a couple of plateaus, so you would think you would be getting close to the end, only to discover there were more switch backs. At one point, I could barely hike for more than five minutes at a time because of sheer exhaustion and inability to catch my breath. So for a stretch, we hiked for five minutes, rested a few minutes, hiked five minutes, and rested.

almost to the saddle

After reaching one of the plateau points, we lightened our pack of the gear we didn’t need – like the tents and sleeping bags and just grabbed them on our way back down, and only continued on with food and water. This helped, but it was still exhausting.

The saddle looking down at the glacier

After a couple of grueling hours we finally made it to what they called the saddle. It was exactly that, a saddle, or a small valley type area between two peaks – Baldy, and Arapaho South. From the saddle, we could look down to Arapaho glacier – a small glacier that was melting into a lake in a large valley below.

To our left was our summit. Another 700 feet of scrambling up to the top of the mountain. When we reached the saddle, we weren’t convinced that we were going to go to the top. It had been so extremely difficult to even get to this point, I wasn’t sure I could do the last climb.

But the more I sat there staring at the peak, the more I convinced myself I could do it. I felt really silly coming all the way from Kansas, climbing all this way, only to look at the peak of the mountain. So we all dug down deep and found strength somewhere and started our final ascent.

I immediately regretted my decision…

I regretted my decision immediately.

My legs we burning, my body was trembling, I could barely catch my breath. It seemed like those last 700 feet were 7 miles. At one point, I was almost in tears because I was so frustrated with the stupid mountain. I wanted to reach the top, but I was so tired of being exhausted.

Mountain conquered!

And then we summited.

We had finally made it to the top of the mountain (13,400′). I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as joyful as I had expected, it was more just a wave of relief that I was finally done with that ridiculous mountain. But the more I sat there looking all around and seeing mountains as far as I could see, the more I realized what we had just accomplished.

It was gorgeous!

We didn’t stay too long on the top of the mountain because it had taken us longer than we expected and it’s easy to get caught up in storms the later in the day it is. So we started our descent down the top of the mountain. We were able to cut a straight path going down instead of following all the switch backs, which helped shave off a lot of time on the initial descent. After making it back down to the meadows, it was a fairly uneventful jaunt back through the wooded trail and we got from the very top of the mountain back to our car in less than two hours.

After traversing the 5 mile path of destruction once again, we made our way back to the town of Nederland and immediately found a place to eat the biggest burgers we could find. We just climbed a mountain, we deserved a burger.

Sweet summit

So we jumped out of an airplane.

That’s right. We went sky diving.

We went with our great friend Becca who was the instigator of all of it! Well, we just like to blame Becca 🙂 She had mentioned to us earlier in the summer that sky diving was something she had always wanted to do.  At the time, we didn’t have much planned for the summer, so we decided we would all save up and go sky diving at the end of summer.  I think the thing I loved most about it was our attitudes of “let’s not just talk about doing something, but actually do it.”

So August rolled around and we jumped out of an airplane!

The sky diving group!

We went to a sky diving company outside of town that seemed the most reputable. (I mean, we were trusting them with our lives after all!) When we arrived, we watched a video that tells you about 14 times that you could die doing this. It was only then that I realized I forgot to ask our friend Chelsea to take in Gus if anything ever happened to us. But, don’t worry, she has since agreed to do so.

After the doom and gloom video, we had some hands on training which involved learning how we would be strapped to the instructor, practicing the position you take when you’re in the initial free fall and then also how to get to the edge of the plane to make the jump.

Then it was time to suite up!

The Ericksons!

Josh and I went together in the first plane. I was actually most nervous about the airplane ride up to 10,000 feet. Last time I was in a small airplane, it did not end well (throwing up, losing all electronics in the airplane, shutting down Honolulu International airport, making an emergency landing…but that’s another story) so I took my dramamine and hoped for the best.  The ride wasn’t terrible, I just closed my eyes and tried not to focus on the jolting as best I could. Next thing I knew, it was time to start getting hooked to the instructor.

Then the door flew open.

Whew! It’s chilly 10,000 feet in the air! Josh and his instructor inched to the edge of the door way. And I saw my husband disappear out of the airplane. Let me tell you, that alone was an unnerving experience. Then it was my turn to edge my way to the door. I looked down at the ground, 10,000 feet below me. That was the only time I second guessed my decision to do this, but there wasn’t any going back….so the next thing I knew, I was flying through the air at 160 mph.  I’m really glad my instructor reminded me to breathe, because it’s hard to catch your breath diving that fast!

After about 20-30 seconds of intense free fall, the parachute opened and it was nice gently cruise through the sky. I saw Josh’s parachute under neath me. So that was a nice relief knowing he was safe. We glided through the air for several minutes, and even flew through a cloud!

Cruising through the air

The instructor pulled the ropes controlling the parachute hard to one side which sent us in to a fast spiral turn. After a few times of that, I was done with fast turns (remember the whole motion sickness thing…) and with 1,000 feet left we started getting aligned to make our landing. I popped my feet up to make an “L” shape with my body and we made a safe landing on the ground.

Coming in for the landing

After we got all of our gear off. It was time for Becca to suite up and make the same journey!

We had so much fun crossing that off our bucket list. It was definitely worth it.

Wohoo!