Our next paddle trip was to Lake
Altus-Lugert. I had visited there to
paddle the lake two years ago. The sight
of the lake when it was down 35-feet was sickening. With the first wet spring in ten years, the
lake filled, so I was anxious to get back before the lake disappeared
again. Agriculture is the largest user
of water, and in the southwest part of the state it is used to irrigate cotton,
with a little going to cattle. There is
little restraint in water usage. As long
as there is water, most everyone feels they have the right to take as much as
they want, without thought for conservation, so in just five months the lake is
again down 12-feet, but still a happier scene than in the past. If you would like to see the earlier pictures
for comparison, the original post on Lake Altus-Lugert can be found in archives
on 12 December 2012.
Trying to find our way around Hobart found us out in the boonies.
We are pulled half-way off the road here, and as the road tracks show
there's still barely room for another vehicle to pass.
The sudden 30-degree drop in air
temperatures had deflated the RV tires substantially. The first thing I needed to do was to find an
air pump where I could end my own ‘deflategate’ and get the tires back to
proper inflation. It took 18-miles of
running slow before we found the first gas station with an air pump.
Our trip would take us through the
town of Hobart where Rt. 9 had been closed for construction. Going southwest, the detour was not clearly
marked. Signs simply suggested that we
find an alternate route, so we ended up on a narrow, dirt, washboard road that didn’t
allow two vehicles to pass without one getting part way off of the road,
especially if both vehicles had West Coast mirrors. With slow speed and patience, we finally
returned to a blacktop road at the town of Lone Wolf, named in honor of Chief
Lone Wolf the Elder, Chief of the Kiowa.
(After his death, Lone Wolf was buried in an unmarked, undisclosed
location near Mount Scott.) Going south
from there, we rounded the south end of the lake and arrived at Quartz Mountain
State Park. While the local mountains
are called the Quartz Mountains, they are still part of the Wichita Mountains.
Tonight, Ibi sleeps atop the Dodge Ram, but we're both wanting to
be paddling tomorrow.
As soon as we pulled into the Live
Oak campground, we encountered about a dozen white-tailed deer roaming through
the camp sites. Shortly another herd
came through with several fawns. Here’s
a video of the area that will give you a nice overview.
The area is covered with mountains
of granite divided by deep wooded ravines.
Early residents included Wichita and Kiowa Indians. Until the 1500’s, the area where the lake and
state park are were under Spanish control, but then it was included in the
Louisiana Province of France. After
being sold to the United States, the area was laid claim to by Mexico and the
Republic of Texas, until a Supreme Court decision gave control back to the U.
S. It was then assigned to the Indian
Territory that would become Oklahoma with the land run of 1901.
These deer are in a game preserve, and pay humans little attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment