For reasons not of my design, I spent more time on the Tandy Hills today than any day previous.And I saw the Tandy Hills first bluebonnets of the year. A big patch of the State Wildflower of Texas was coloring up the top of Tandy Mountain, near the Fort Worth Needle.
One of my informers had informed me that I needed to check out and possibly photograph something possibly nefarious going on on the Chesapeake Energy Thomas Pad Site at the end of Scott Avenue.
So, that was my Tandy Hills goal today. To hike from Tandy Mountain to Ben Avenue to look down on the Chesapeake operation to see what those bad boys are up to.
To get to that part of the Tandy Hills requires hiking on the west side of the main entry trail. This is the Tandy Hills zone less traveled. I can't really get lost on the Tandy Hills, you can always get your bearings. But, I can manage to get off trail and then have to blaze a new one to find my way back to civilization.It is sort of like finding your way out of a maze.
It's not like when I've gotten lost at a place like Dinosaur Valley State Park. There, I have lost my bearings. I got lost there, so bad, Christmas Day of 2002, the sun was setting, I was panicking, almost ready to leave my bike and see if I could hike out of there, but suddenly the confusing trailmarkers quit being confusing and I realized where I'd been turning wrong and I got out right as the sun left for the night.
My little semi-lost escapade today turned what is usually about 45 minutes of hill hiking into an hour and a half.
On the wild west side I did come upon a really bright wildflower I do not recollect seeing before coloring up the Tandy Hills.
After about a half hour of going up and down and around and under various hills, valleys and areas of thick brush, I finally popped out into familiar territory, seeing my vehicular transport in the distance.
That is a zoomed view, looking east towards where my mechanized mobile device is parked. It's the white dot slightly to the right of the flag. The zoomed view takes out the hills and compresses the distance. But, without zooming the mechanized mobile device is not visible.So, I have had myself an unintentional amp up of the exercise regimen today. It's fun getting semi-lost. And aerobic.
3 comments:
Your pics are getting better.
I agree, the daisies are especially nice. Lit from the side and in an almost soft focus.
So you had a little scare in Glen Rose, did you? What were some of the panicky thoughts crowding out your ability to think lucidly? Thoughts of night time cold and mountain lions. Visions of steep deadly drops onto the rocks below? Surely someone who has hiked through the densely treed forests of the north west has an old compass tucked away somewhere.
I remember reading in the paper about the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, down in that part of the world. Fossil Rim had obtained some animals from Africa and someone who had attended the animals delivery said that the country side down around Glen Rose looked, to him (the African)very much like Africa. A wildness, that in part, has been scrubbed clean of much of its wildness.
Twister, a compass was of no use. If you've not biked the trails at Dinosaur Valley, you really need to do so. There are a lot of them. And they are confusing.
If you've not visited Fossil Rim Wildlife Center you really need to do that too. It's the funnest thing I've done in Texas.
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