If you ever get the opportunity to meet up with complete strangers to spend the afternoon with, TAKE IT! I met up with the organized group called Women Who Hike in Oklahoma to wander through the Wichita Mountains.

I’m not typically someone who enjoys a group setting. Meeting new people makes me nervous. I’m not great at this type of stuff… but, I threw a friend of mine in the car and drove an hour north in hopes of meeting new hiking friends.

This is how it went!

Women Who Hike

This amazing women’s only hiking group has communities in every state. <—link to the website that has the list

They organize group hikes. Fantabulous for solo hikers, or those who want to bring a pal with them. (Let’s not question why I just used the word ‘fantabulous’ in a sentence)

I joined up with the Women Who Hike Oklahoma chapter for a meetup in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.
The Refuge is filled with camping, hiking, picnic spots, amazing rocky boulder scenery, bison, prairie dogs, longhorn, lizards, and more. You could spend days exploring the trails here!

In the above poor quality map, you’ll see a big loop called “Dog Run Hollow Trail System”. There are a lot of trails there, and many overlap for portions. The big loop is part of the 6ish mile long Bison Trail.

I’m naturally a fairly shy person. I have some social anxiety, so I made sure to bring a buddy with me on this hike. Nothing sounds more petrifying than walking up to a group of complete strangers and saying “hi, I’m here to hike with you”. Say hi to my buddy behind me, Sara!

Sara is a beast. This woman has MS, and refuses to handle it sitting down. She is up and moving and living life. Even when that means finishing out a hike without being able to feel your limbs. No, really!

We went into this hike thinking it was a do-able 6 miles of on trail walking. Our fearless lady leaders, and all the rest of us weren’t paying attention and somehow went off trail. We couldn’t even backtrack enough to find the correct trail. None of us dummies downloaded the trail map to our phones, and no one had cell signal. A very confusing mile or so ended up tacked onto our hike as we found out way out. Trail walking is not the same as off trail walking, and Sara ended this one in a bit of pain.

I also think it was longer than the 6 miles it ‘says’ it is, even excluding the getting lost thing. Once we were done, my watch logged us going well over 8 miles!

All of the women on this hike were great. Walking in a single file line, over a dozen of us were having conversations the best we could with the strangers in front of us, behind us, etc. We stopped every mile or so to chat, take pictures, get the slower folks caught up.

This really was a group that wanted everyone to feel included, and left no one behind.

I didn’t get as close to the Bison in this photo as it looks like I did. There was a good 25yards of distance between us as I passed by.

Trail Information

Admission fee: Free
Trail Name: Bison Trail
Trailhead: Bison Trail Indiahoma Oklahoma. Trailhead Coords: 34.71604, -98.70571
Trail Length: A little over 6 miles
Difficulty: Moderate. There are some boulders to scramble over in parts, but most of us it flatish trail. Though it’s tough to follow in some spots.
Elevation Gain: 416 ft.
Dogs: Allowed. PLEASE keep your pups leashed as there are lots of wild animals.
Restrooms: Visitors center, when it’s open. Some trail heads in the park have restrooms.
Parking: Small parking lot.

The Wildlife

Do you see that Bison skeleton?! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?
The rest of the bones were scattered about quite a bit.
We passed someone around this point who said they had done this hike 4 weeks prior as well, and that the bison looked like a fresh kill then. Which means in a month, scavengers picked it clean. Woooah.

You might see little blue and yellow lizards along this trail. Or some longhorns. Some people run into multiple herds, just depending where they’re moving around on the reserve.
Maybe you’ll spy a bison if you get lucky…. and also watch for rattlesnakes in case you get the opposite of lucky.
There are dams. a few lakes. streams. Parts of the trail are overgrown a bit so I’d recommend pants.

Trail Warnings

AllTrails does rate this as a ‘moderate’ hike. I’d agree. There are a few places where you have to climb up boulders. There are also a few places it’s easy to go off trail. (obviously, as shown by our getting lost). I’m guessing this rating is higher due to the heat/length combo.

There isn’t a whole lot of shade, so don’t do this one in the middle of a hot summer day. In the summer months, plan to be off the trail by 10am or so. Those rocks can really reflect some heat. So much so that in the summer, sometimes the rangers come and shut the trail down due to how many people attempt it without enough water that they have to go in and rescue!

Overall, this is a great hike, and doing it with these ladies was a great experience!

Going to Oklahoma and want to see what else there is to do in the state? It’s FULL of awesomeness!

I’m always heading up this direction, because this mountain range is the closest nature area to where I live.