Trekking thru the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge with a 4×5 Field Camera

Shaggy Beasts, Three-Legged Beasts

Last Last Sunday [Sidenote: Wista 45DX 4×5 field cam­era. This is the same cam­era I use for OKIE-X .] I drove out to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton with cus­tom leather­worker and hik­ing enthu­si­ast Michael Parham. We intended to pho­to­graph the wilder­ness, and espe­cially the rock for­ma­tion called Crab Eyes, with a large for­mat cam­era. Michael acted as guide and sherpa, car­ry­ing my Wista 45DX, a lens and shut­ter, six film-hold­ers, and other cam­era gear in a Domke F-3X cam­era bag. Additionally he car­ried a small pack for my dark cloth, water, and snacks. For most of the day, I car­ried the Ries tri­pod. [Sidenote: Weighing a lit­tle over twelve pounds (5.45 kg), includ­ing the lev­el­ing base, geared head, and quick-release plate, this maple­wood tri­pod is a beast. I still have bruises on my scapulæ from car­ry­ing it on my shoul­ders. Michael and I each used one of the tri­pod legs as a trekking pole. For the Crab Eyes descent, we switched loads.]

After leav­ing the vis­i­tors’ cen­ter we turned back on the main road. We set up on the shoul­der to cap­ture a scene of a small bison herd graz­ing near the road, keep­ing a respect­ful dis­tance. [Sidenote: National park reg­u­la­tions require vis­i­tors to main­tain at least 25 yards dis­tance from bison and elk. We fig­ure that holds for state parks too. If we had seen any of the ubiq­ui­tous long­horn cat­tle we would have kept the same dis­tance.]

Next we hiked the Kite Trail to Forty Foot Hole, a series of cas­cad­ing pools on West Cache Creek. Lack of rain had reduced the some­times impres­sive water­fall to a mere trickle, with storm debris and floata­tion devices left by care­less hik­ers mar­ring the oth­er­wise pic­turesque view. A light breeze made the heat bear­able and the bur­bling creek gave us a feel­ing of peace­ful calm.

Dropping blood sugar and heat took their toll on me dur­ing the return descent. We stopped about ¾ way down so I could rest. Reaching the car, we both drank copi­ous amounts of water and decided to drive to Medicine Park for lunch. We ended up on the patio of the Riverside Café. As the name implied, we had a view of Medicine Creek. We watched tur­tles, geese, and giant carp fight­ing for the potato chips some­one had tossed on the water while we waited for a pleas­ant and fill­ing meal, then headed back to the refuge.

Reservoirs & a “Haunted” Tower

We stopped at Lake Jed Johnson and took the stairs to the dam, where I set up the cam­era to cap­ture the lake and the decom­mis­sioned fire watch tower. Although a trail leads to the tower, hik­ers are pro­hib­ited from enter­ing it due to its dan­ger­ous state of dis­re­pair. [Sidenote: The 60-foot tower resem­bles a cas­tle for­ti­fi­ca­tion. The Civilian Conservation Corps built it from native stone in 1941. Numerous ghost sto­ries sur­round it and the lake.]

Next up, we drove to Osage lake, another of the numer­ous arti­fi­cial reser­voirs dot­ting the park, and hiked down to the dam, where I took two images of the lake and the rocky cliffs and islands sur­round­ing it. Finishing that, we hiked back to the car and drove to the Crab Eyes/Charon’s Garden Wilderness Trail.

Crab Eyes & Good Night

Arriving at the trail­head at about 6:30 PM, we entered the for­est. Coming upon the trail fork, we turned right, away from the Charon’s Garden Trail and toward the Echo Dome/​Crab Eyes trail. Continuing through the woods, we slowly gained alti­tude, even­tu­ally com­ing into the open. 

From there we boul­der-hopped and climbed, occa­sion­ally cross­ing nar­row almost-creeks and muddy slashes fed by recent rains. Fatigue con­vinced us to stop below a rocky out­crop, where we enjoyed the shade and drank a lit­tle water. Resuming our trek, we crossed a short dis­tance to the vista over­look­ing the gorge carved by Post Oak Creek. Below us lay Boulder Field, and to the west, the sun already behind it, stood our objec­tive: two mini­van-sized boul­ders bal­anced on the mountain’s nar­row gran­ite spine.

I made three brack­eted expo­sures (+1, 0, and -1 EV, or 2, 1, and ½ sec­onds, respec­tively), [Sidenote: I had hoped that com­bin­ing them in NIK HDR Pro would yield sat­is­fac­tory results, but the soft­ware cre­ated unpleas­ant arti­facts in the sky, notably a dark band along the moun­tain ridge and notice­able halos. I ended up using only the -1 EV expo­sure, with tonal adjust­ments made in Adobe Lightroom 6 and NIK Silver Efex Pro.] then packed every­thing up. We descended the moun­tain and walked through the for­est in twi­light. Michael checked the time about ten min­utes before we reached the park­ing lot: it was 8:00 PM.

From there we drove to Meers, hop­ing to grab a bison burger, but the restau­rant had closed for the day. We opted to take the back roads home. Stopping in Elgin, we shared some mediocre short­ribs at a local fran­chise bar­beque restau­rant. [Sidenote: I won’t name names, but the restau­rant chain bears the name of a promi­nent Oklahoma sports­ball fig­ure.] It wasn’t good — soggy ribs, any­one? — but it filled our bel­lies. We arrived in Norman late and said good­bye, vow­ing to return. 

Blood-Sucking, Skin-Dissolving Arachnids

We plan to camp on the other side of Crab Eyes this fall and hike back to its east side to pho­to­graph the for­ma­tion at dawn. On my to-do list: obtain per­me­thrin to insect-proof cloth­ing and per­caridin to insect-proof myself (ticks and chig­gers abound), and buy bet­ter hik­ing boots (already ordered). Optional: buy a Tilley “Endurables” hat and leave the cow­boy hat at home.

Want to know when I post pic­tures from the next trip? Sign up for the newslet­ter. In the mean­time, here are the pic­tures from this trip.

Thanks for reading,