Friday, September 30, 2016

Litter Free Wichita Falls Walk With Rapid Mystery

This morning due to the natural air conditioning occurring in the outer world I opened my windows, causing fresh air to flood my interior space, along with noises I don't hear with the windows closed.

Such as the sound of what sounded to be the sound of roaring rapids.

A usually sedate creek flows through a green canyon in my backyard, on the east side of the Circle Trail which circles around Wichita Falls.

An hour before noon I left my abode, initially intending to find the source of the roaring rapids sound. It did not take much walking to discover the rapids, a photo of which you see above.

This usually sedate creek is named Holliday Creek. Holliday Creek is the primary source of the water which makes up Lake Wichita, a short distance upstream from this rapids.

Last Sunday morning, after heavy rain had caused flooding all over Wichita Falls, I checked in on Holliday Creek expecting it to be running high and wild.

At that point in time the creek pretty much looked its usual sedate self. This perplexed me.

But I was even more  perplexed today when I saw way more water moving in Holliday Creek than I saw last Sunday. I thought maybe there is another water source between my location and the Lake Wichita Dam spillway that I did not know about.

Yesterday when I saw Lake Wichita from high atop Mount Wichita the lake did not look any fuller than it usually looks.

So, I decided to walk the Circle Trail upstream, towards Lake Wichita, to see if I could find where all this water was coming from.

This turned into an interesting walk.

Eventually a bridge came into view, which I figured had to be  Kemp Street, which is due east of the Lake Wichita Dam.


Soon I found myself under the Kemp Street bridge over Holliday Creek. That would be part of the aforementioned Circle Trail, with rail, you see on the right. That slice of white you see in the distance is the Wichita Dam spillway, spilling water, which is something I'd not seen before.

Let's get a closer look.


So, that explains the roaring rapids in my backyard. But the source of this excess water flowing out of Lake Wichita remains a mystery.

Another thing I made note of today was the fact that I saw absolutely no litter today. Not a single piece. Such is a claim I could never make any time I was out and about in my former Texas location.

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