Well, this will be my first (hopefully of many) trips reports. First of all, a little about me. When I was in high school and college I was an avid backpacker, and when I got married I was beginning to ease my wife in to those activities as well when she became pregnant with our only daughter. Well, the kiddo is almost 5 now so I figured its time to get the family camping again. But, I knew that the wife and the youngin weren't up for backpacking, so I thought that 4x4 camping would be a pretty cool compromise, and it gives me an excuse to do some cool things to my truck.
So, that sets the stage, and with really no true "modifications" to speak of I set out with the family for a very mild camping trip, and some 4x4 driving. Because also keep in mind that I'm no 4x4 expert. Don't give me wrong, I've driven around on the hunting lease through mud etcetera, but no real off road driving per se.
So, on Friday afternoon we set out for a 3 hour trip to the Oauchita mountain region of Oklahoma. Most people who are not familiar with OK don't realize we actually have mountains here. They're no rocky mountains of course (rising only slightly above 2,000 feet) but they are indeed mountains. In fact, they are actually the oldest mountains in the country and according to geologists they were once taller than the rockies.
I purposfully planned the route to try and spend as much time off pavement as possible with only one full day, so I thought I'd take advantage of the numerous logging roads and unmaintained county roads running through the national forest. So I picked out Forest Road 6022 which goes from OK HWY 1 (Talamenic Scenic Drive) south to the Billy Creek campground which was our intended base camp. The road was actually very well maintained and very attractive. It was easily 2wd capable and probably sedan capable. the only real "issue" for a car would be the rocks flying up and damaging paint.
Billy Creek camp was a lot more populated than I expected. I didn't find a lot about it online, and looking at google earth it didn't appear easily findable. Despite this, there were several people at the site. I think they were mostly hunters staying there during the hunting season. One person had their camper set up like they had been there for a while. Other than that, it was pretty nice with Billy Creek running right next to the campsite.
Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast, then headed out for County Road 4645 on the west side of Muse, OK, which eventually becomes County Road 4675 and leads up Kiamichi Mountain to an old Forest Service fire watch tower where we planned to have lunch, then return to Billy Creek.
Oops!! I would have offered assistance of course, but there was definitely no one around.
Can we say.... Dis connectable sway bar? Well, I mean I need one!!
Once the "road" started leading up the mountain it actually got pretty rough. Like I said before, I'm no 4x4 expert, and I was actually surprised how well this big truck handled it. This road was easily as rough as any jeep "trails" I've driven in Colorado and New Mexico with rented jeeps. Which was quite encouraging as to the capability of the truck with such few mondifications. This I assume will only get better as more modifications come along, and I hopefully gain more experience / skills.
This is about 3/4 mi away from the fire tower. I read every report and all the information about the trail up to the fire tower I could, but I never heard anyone mention this. It appeared to be abandoned, but all the windows were intact. I didn't spend any time looking because there can be some... Interesting people in this part of the state and I wasn't looking for any trouble.
For the way out, we were a little short on time and took a shorter route back to camp via County Road 245. This road was very well maintained as well (very pretty though) and I didn't take any pictures here. The road lets out at HWY 259 which is the Three Sticks Monument
This is a monument to several politicians in Oklahoma's history who supposedly aided in the development of the recreation and beautification of this are of Oklahoma. I would have taken a picture of the plaque on the monument, but unfortunately it was so badly defaced by vandalism It was barely legible.
So in all, it was a pretty great trip. The girls were cold during the night, and my wife was cold most of the time. I need to invest in more cold weather gear, and figure out a way to "heat" the tent in the mornings. I know, that's not "roughing" it. But if I'm going to keep the womenfolk coming along I'm going to have to make some compromises. Any suggestions on the cold weather stuff would be greatly appreciated
Thanks for looking!
So, that sets the stage, and with really no true "modifications" to speak of I set out with the family for a very mild camping trip, and some 4x4 driving. Because also keep in mind that I'm no 4x4 expert. Don't give me wrong, I've driven around on the hunting lease through mud etcetera, but no real off road driving per se.
So, on Friday afternoon we set out for a 3 hour trip to the Oauchita mountain region of Oklahoma. Most people who are not familiar with OK don't realize we actually have mountains here. They're no rocky mountains of course (rising only slightly above 2,000 feet) but they are indeed mountains. In fact, they are actually the oldest mountains in the country and according to geologists they were once taller than the rockies.
I purposfully planned the route to try and spend as much time off pavement as possible with only one full day, so I thought I'd take advantage of the numerous logging roads and unmaintained county roads running through the national forest. So I picked out Forest Road 6022 which goes from OK HWY 1 (Talamenic Scenic Drive) south to the Billy Creek campground which was our intended base camp. The road was actually very well maintained and very attractive. It was easily 2wd capable and probably sedan capable. the only real "issue" for a car would be the rocks flying up and damaging paint.
Billy Creek camp was a lot more populated than I expected. I didn't find a lot about it online, and looking at google earth it didn't appear easily findable. Despite this, there were several people at the site. I think they were mostly hunters staying there during the hunting season. One person had their camper set up like they had been there for a while. Other than that, it was pretty nice with Billy Creek running right next to the campsite.
Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast, then headed out for County Road 4645 on the west side of Muse, OK, which eventually becomes County Road 4675 and leads up Kiamichi Mountain to an old Forest Service fire watch tower where we planned to have lunch, then return to Billy Creek.
Oops!! I would have offered assistance of course, but there was definitely no one around.
Can we say.... Dis connectable sway bar? Well, I mean I need one!!
Once the "road" started leading up the mountain it actually got pretty rough. Like I said before, I'm no 4x4 expert, and I was actually surprised how well this big truck handled it. This road was easily as rough as any jeep "trails" I've driven in Colorado and New Mexico with rented jeeps. Which was quite encouraging as to the capability of the truck with such few mondifications. This I assume will only get better as more modifications come along, and I hopefully gain more experience / skills.
This is about 3/4 mi away from the fire tower. I read every report and all the information about the trail up to the fire tower I could, but I never heard anyone mention this. It appeared to be abandoned, but all the windows were intact. I didn't spend any time looking because there can be some... Interesting people in this part of the state and I wasn't looking for any trouble.
For the way out, we were a little short on time and took a shorter route back to camp via County Road 245. This road was very well maintained as well (very pretty though) and I didn't take any pictures here. The road lets out at HWY 259 which is the Three Sticks Monument
This is a monument to several politicians in Oklahoma's history who supposedly aided in the development of the recreation and beautification of this are of Oklahoma. I would have taken a picture of the plaque on the monument, but unfortunately it was so badly defaced by vandalism It was barely legible.
So in all, it was a pretty great trip. The girls were cold during the night, and my wife was cold most of the time. I need to invest in more cold weather gear, and figure out a way to "heat" the tent in the mornings. I know, that's not "roughing" it. But if I'm going to keep the womenfolk coming along I'm going to have to make some compromises. Any suggestions on the cold weather stuff would be greatly appreciated
Thanks for looking!
