DigitalRoadtrip: April Roadtrip, Day 13...Bison Everywhere

Day 13

Thursday April 14

There were only two things on tap for the day. First, a return to Caprock Canyon State Park. The plan was to tackle the six mile out and back Canyon Rim Trail. It was fairly level and I was expecting an easy go of it.

But first, a bison herd...

To get to the trailhead, I had to ditch the car and walk around the prairie dog town, while keeping an eye on the other herd of bison milling around on the other side of the road.

The trail begins alongside a campground full of RVs. A few people were out with their morning coffee watching the bison and listening to the clearly agitated prairie dogs. . As for the trail, at this point, it's through a nice wide open area. Though there's plenty of evidence not only humans use it.

The wide open area was beginning to narrow and I was starting to see canyons on both sides of the trail. At about the half way point, it drops down a bit to it's narrowest point.

Ordinarily, I would have thought nothing of it as I walked on. But, something was nagging at me the further I walked. Ten years ago, I was doing a similar hike through Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. I had chosen a double loop trail that took me pretty deep into the park. Suddenly, there, at the one single choke point on the trail, a herd of bison and it was clear they weren't going anywhere soon.

If a similar thing happened here, I'd have to go the long way around. So, I turned around. In the end, it was the right decision. Part of the bison herd did in fact cross the road and were now in this part of the park. More on that later...

From the top of the hill...

I did add an extra half mile or so with a side trail overlooking Holmes Canyon...

Meanwhile, at the next trail junction...

Another short loop through Holmes Canyon...

Yeah, I definitely made the right call to turn around when I did...

Back at the trailhead and annoying the prairie dogs...

It was time to move on. On the road outside the park, there was another fence with shoes on the posts. I just wasn't sure what all the bicycles were for.

From this point, it was just a matter of zigzagging through the Texas countryside, back towards Oklahoma.

My goal for the afternoon was Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. The refuge has numerous trails throughout. What I didn't know, they also have a bison herd. Their herd runs six hundred.

There wasn't enough time to commit to a long trail, so I simply chose one in the area they call Dog Run. The trail heads back along the river to a small canyon...

It was one thing to be surprised with the bison encounter. This was something else...

There's a quirky place in neighboring Meeks I had read about, simply named Meeks Store and Restaurant. It turned out to be an interesting place. The food, nothing special.