The wonders of Charon's Garden Trail

With a beautiful blue-sky day, we were anxious to check out some of the trails at Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. We plan to be here for close to a week, and it looks like there are more than enough trails to keep us busy. Our first morning we started off on the Charon Gardens trail.

We love the jumbled stacks of rocks that make these interesting mountains. We talked to other visitors from New Jersey and North Carolina and Texas, who were amazed to find this interesting landscape in Oklahoma.

About a mile into the hike, we arrived at the entrance to the boulder field. From here it doesn't look like there's a way to continue this hike.

But Mark is great at rock scrambling, and he found a way up and over those boulders. More importantly, he found a way to help Denisa to the other side as well.

Much of our hike took us beside a creek. Denisa is enjoying the view as she sits beside the little waterfall formed by the water cascading into the bowl.

This tall rock ridge serves as a perch for two of the named balanced rocks in the park.

That would be "apple and pear" perched on top of that high ridge.

We were hoping to see elk grazing on these hills further from the road, but our only wildlife sightings were of lizards.

In the course of our hike, we found many. Because they were sunbathing on the rocks, they were content to sit quietly and pose for pictures.

With such cooperation from the resident wildlife, of course Denisa took pictures of several.

We found out later that the reason we were seeing so many was indicated by their name. This is the COMMON collared lizard. Each one had some variation of this common collar.

It's hard to call a lizard pretty, but those perfectly formed polka-dotted scales on their legs,

and the interesting camouflaging on their tails make them interesting to look at up close.

At the end of the Charon Gardens trail, we are rewarded with views of the surrounding mountains, with a lake below us.

We think it should be named "Turtle Lake." We looked down from our perch high above and spotted this log with 25 turtles sunning themselves.

We even found a nice patch of wildflowers on that rocky hill top. After a nice rest in the shade for a lunch break, we are now ready for the hike back to the car.

We made some extra stops on the return hike. That included the spur trail to see Post Oak Falls. You probably won't be surprised to find that Mark scrambled up the rock wall for a bird's eye view from the top of the falls.

It's hard to find him, but he continued to scramble to the top of this rock wall. If you look carefully, you can see him in front of the tree at the top center of the picture below.

As temperatures neared 80 degrees, we were glad to stop in at one of the caves close to the trail. As we moved further into the cave, the temperatures dropped by twenty degrees.

That very big rock at the entrance is wedged into place by some strategically placed smaller stones. It's a good thing that Mark is holding it up while we are in the cave.

With such a cool rock to recline on, it seemed like a good place for a rest. This is the longest of the two hikes in the refuge that are rated as "difficult." We can tell that we are out of shape from our normal hiking conditioning.

By the time we got back to the car, we had hiked almost six miles, and we were hot and tired. But we were reminded that this Wichita Wildlife Refuge is a great place for seeing wildlife AND hiking. We have wandered into another of His wonders, and we are blessed that we get to live here right now!