Climbing Mount Wichita On A Cool Cloudy August Texas Monday

Til today it seems like it has been weeks since I rolled myself to Lake Wichita Park to do some mountain climbing to the summit of Mount Wichita.

Mountain climbing has not seemed appealing with the temperature over the century mark.

But today, as you can see, is a bit overcast, with thunderstorms in the realm of the possible, according to the weather prognosticators.

Since I last mountain climbed giant dandelion-like flowers have sprung up at the lower elevations of Mount Wichita, adding a welcome bit of yellow to the green and brown earth tones.

The temperature at the base of Mount Wichita, according to my phone, was 83 degrees when I began the ascent. I did not think to check the temperature when I reached the high elevation of the summit.

The air is being pretty much dead calm today, which helped make that relatively chilly 83 degrees feel relatively hot.

I made only two ascents to the Mount Wichita summit today, with the first ascent via the rarely climbed east face of the mountain. The second ascent was via the popular, heavily trekked west ascent.

From the Mount Wichita summit it did not look like there was much thunderstorm potential in the looking south view you see below. However, taking a 180 degree turn and looking north, the dark sky did look like there was thunderstorm potential. I did not think to photo document the dark northern view.

You can see today's dead calm windlessness reflected in how glassy like smooth Lake Wichita is being today. Nary a ripple in sight.

Upon reaching the summit of Mount Wichita today I found a guy taking photos with his phone. He was from Missouri, in town to visit his grandma and introduce grandma to his fiance.

The last time he was in Wichita Falls was during the drought. He said that on that visit Lake Wichita was reduced to being a small pond. He also said that when he was a kid he and his friends would swim in Lake Wichita.

I knew long ago, like early in the previous century, swimming was doable. People in this century have told me no one swims in Lake Wichita.

The Lake Wichita Revitalization Project hopes to restore Lake Wichita to being swim worthy, with a sandy beach near the base of Mount Wichita. That would be a real good thing....