Nature Communing On Lake Wichita Dam Whilst Staying Off The Dam's Hazardous Spillway

With the weather forecast forecasting thunderstorms and heavy rain for this next to last Friday of the 2025 version of October, it was to Lake Wichita Dam I ventured for some salubrious outdoor nature communing and potential lightning strike dodging whilst totally exposed to such on the Circle Trail on top of the dam.

But, no lightning struck, or could be seen striking in any direction. And nary a drop of rain dripped whilst I was out and about, exposed to the elements.

In the photo above I am about to walk out on the Lake Wichita Boardwalk. This is an extremely nice addition to the lake, which was added a couple years ago.

And now we are at the end of the boardwalk, looking northwest at the Mount Wichita pseudo volcano, in the distance.

It has been a few years, I think pre-COVID, when last I trekked to the summit of Mount Wichita. The trek had seemed to have become a tad treacherous, so not wanting to twist an ankle, or worse, I terminated doing any local mountain climbing.

The bizarre sign you see above has been added since last I visited this location, where a spur off the Circle Trail leads to overlooking the Lake Wichita dam's spillway.

The bizarre sign says...

DANGER!
HAZARDOUS RECIRCULATING

CURRENTS BELOW THIS DAM

CAN TRAP AND DROWN A VICTIM

So, why would I say that this sign is a bit bizarre. Well. It has been years, maybe also not since pre-COVID, that I have seen Lake Wichita at a high enough level that water was spilling over the spillway.

There may have been a time or two in the past several years where enough rain fell to cause some water to spill over the spillway for a short period, but not long enough to drown the vegetation that has grown thick near the dam's spillway.

And certainly not at a level to present any sort of danger to anyone foolish enough to climb out on the dam's spillway that was currently spilling water.

We are no past noon. And still not even a hint of anything stormy....

Hot May Day Board Walking Lake Wichita Dam

On this second Monday of the 2025 version of May, it was a short distance to the south, I ventured, to Lake Wichita Dam, to do some well-heated nature communing.

As you can see, via the view through the cyclone fence atop Lake Wichita Dam, water is still spilling over the dam's spillway, well over a week since North Texas got drenched with a lot of rain.

In the above view we are on the Lake Wichita Boardwalk, looking across the Boardwalk towards the dam's spillway we were at in the previous photo.

Still on the Lake Wichita Boardwalk, now looking Northwest, across Lake Wichita, with Mount Wichita making a slight poke to the sky, on the horizon.

Now we are back on top of the Lake Wichita Dam, looking north at a trio of bikers riding off the dam. This paved trail atop the dam is part of the Circle Trail which trails around most of Wichita Falls.

Now we are once again looking Northwest, across the Lake Wichita floating fishing dock, with Mount Wichita again being a slight poke on the horizon.

It has been a few months since I have done my daily nature communing at today's location. The temperature bordered on being HOT today. With virtually no wind blowing, there was no wind chill factor mitigating the HOT.

Walking this location, which I have walked frequently over my years of living in the Wichita Falls location, for some reason a recent email came to mind.

That being an email from a person who had been reading my blog posts and felt she needed to share with me that she was greatly enjoying her new living location, and the bedroom she had turned into an office where she spent hours reading, writing and drawing.

Whilst, she opined, I appeared to be doing the same thing, day after day. But that was okay if I enjoyed it.

For some reason I found this, what seemed to be a totally pointless judgmental comment, to be off putting. Particularly since it was coming from what I had come to see as a bloviated bore, doing basically nothing, day after day after day.

But, of course, polite gentleman that I am, I never shared that opinion. Til, now...

Celebrating Columbus Indigenous People's Day On The Lake Wichita Boardwalk

With this second Monday of the 2024 version of October chilled into the 60-degree range, pre-noon, it was to Lake Wichita I ventured on this clear blue-sky day, to commune with nature, including a walk on the Lake Wichita Boardwalk, which juts out into the lake from atop the Lake Wichita Dam.

I saw only a couple other celebrators on this Columbus Indigenous People's Day. And those celebrators were on bikes, a more sophisticated means of motion than my primitive walking means of motion.

The current Texas weather forecast is for a cold front to arrive on Thursday which will chill the entire state to the chilliest it has been in 6 months, with a low in the 50s and a high in the 70s.

I suspect come Thursday I will require blanket coverage all night long. Last night around three in the morning I felt the chilly need to seek limited blanket coverage via a thin throw blanket.

I have located my thick winter blankets, long underwear and sweatpants.

I am ready for incoming frigidity...

A Windy Wavy Lake Wichita Dam Boardwalk Dock Walk

It was to Lake Wichita Dam I ventured today for some windy walking on the dam and the boardwalk and floating dock. In the above photo we are at the end of the boardwalk, looked west, with that little pimple on the horizon being Mount Wichita.

Those sticks you see sticking up beyond the boardwalk's railing, are all that remains of the pavilion which was a big tourist attraction starting early in the previous century. There was a roller rink, dance floor, swimming pool, and other amenities.

The Lake Wichita Pavilion burned down in the 1950s, with only those pier sticks sticking out of the water remaining.

The lake now has enough water to float the Lake Wichita floating fishing dock. This dock was dry docked the last time I was at this location. But, today it is back floating, and rocking and rolling with the waves.

Now we are on the rocking and rolling dock. With the waves looks a tad menacing. Again, that pimple on the horizon is Mount Wichita.

More rain is on the weather menu in the coming days. Maybe Lake Wichita will finally get enough water to be back at full pool...

Not Being Bored On Lake Wichita Boardwalk

Yesterday my bike took me on an early evening ride to the Lake Wichita boardwalk.

Looking at the photo documentation of my handlebars on the aforementioned boardwalk one might think no one else was enjoying the pleasant early evening outdoors.

However, the reality was I have never seen so many people on the Circle Trail on top of Lake Wichita dam as I saw yesterday.

In addition to the dam walkers and riders, I saw multiple kayakers kayaking, along with multiple fisherpeople fishing, and two mountain climbers descending from the summit of Mount Wichita.

I would have thought the heavy rain earlier in the day would have rendered Mount Wichita too muddy to be climbed, but, apparently, I was wrong about that. Or maybe yesterday's mountain climbers enjoy the additional challenge of a slippery slope.

Being on the new Lake Wichita boardwalk, built over actual water in less than a year, reminded me of a question Mr. Bobalu asked me awhile back, asking me if I had heard anything at all regarding the current status of Fort Worth's three simple little bridges which the town has been trying to build for six years.

Six years trying to build bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

A large area of Fort Worth has been a construction destruction mess for years now due to the cataracted Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, an ill-considered, ineptly implemented, bogus flood control and economic development scheme the public has never voted for, foisted on the city by the corrupt group of cronies who run their town in a manner known as The Fort Worth Way.

Anyway, to answer Mr. Bobalu's question, I have heard nothing about the current status of America's Biggest Boondoggle for quite some time.

It seems things like a pandemic and the American people finally being fed up with police brutality, plus a tanking economy, along with the worst president in anyone's memory, puts things like Fort Worth's scandalous messes on a back burner of insignificance in the bigger scheme of things.

Has that roundabout at the center of the bridge construction mess ever been completed? As in landscaped? Does that embarrassing million dollar aluminum homage to a trash can still sit surrounded by a weed/litter infested eyesore?

Has anyone ever gotten an explanation as to why this million dollar work of art was purchased and installed years and years before anything useful regarding the Trinity River Vision has been completed?

Is wasting a million bucks, on what amounts to being a distracting eyesore, one of the reasons Kay Granger has been unable to secure the promised federal funds for the Boondoggle her son was hired to executively direct to further motivate his mother to secure federal funds?

One would think it might be difficult to make a case for federal help when somehow there is already sufficient funding to buy something like a million dollar aluminum "kinetic sculpture".

The next "bridge" building project on Lake Wichita will be the final section of the Circle Trail, with the current plan being to build most of it on the lake.

I suspect that final section of the Wichita Falls Circle Trail will be taking people over water long before any of those three simple littles bridges in Fort Worth take people, or anything, over water...

Long Ride Down Lake Wichita Boardwalk Pier

The long awaited completion of the 2020 version of  Lake Wichita Boardwalk has arrived. The anticipated Grand Opening event has been postponed until the Coronavirus Pandemic has subsided making it safe to encourage crowds to gather in close proximity.

The Boardwalk seemed way bigger than I had anticipate it would seem after months of watching it be constructed.

In the view above we are at the end of the Boardwalk, looking at Lake Wichita Dam and the mainland.

Above we are on the aforementioned mainland, looking west across the finished Boardwalk. To the left of the Boardwalk, in the water, that is a two man kayak with some sort of pedal mechanism propelling the watercraft. I do not recollect seeing such a thing before. It looked fun, and seemed to be making easy headway against the strong wind and waves.

A Lake Wichita Boardwalk monument has already been installed, making note of how this Boardwalk came to be. That is Mount Wichita you see in the distance, hovering above the horizon and the lake and the monument.

I have no idea what is up next with the Lake Wichita Revitalization Plan. This plans seems to lumber along in slow motion.

But not nearly as slow as that town to the southeast of Wichita Falls known as Fort Worth, a town which has been limping along with a Trinity River Revitalization Plan called the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, for most of this century, so far not completing anything as complex as this new Lake Wichita Boardwalk.

With, for example, three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, being stuck in slow motion construction mode, for no sensible reason, for six years, which originally begin being built in 2014, with a then astonishing four year building timeline, now stretched well into this new decade.

There is another construction project underway in Wichita Falls, the completion of which I look forward to. There are three gaps in the Circle Trail which circles around Wichita Falls. One of those gaps is the project underway, connecting the Wichita Bluff Nature Area section of the Circle Trail to the Lucy Park section of the Circle Trail.

One of the other two Circle Trail gaps involve building a bridge over some railroad tracks. I believe that section is already designed and ready to build. The other Circle Trail gap is between the southwest end of Lake Wichita Park and the existing Circle Trail which runs alongside Barnett Road. There has been some talk of building this connector out over Lake Wichita. Methinks that is the best solution, an elevated trail above the lake.

What I can say with almost 100% certainty is that Wichita Falls will finish its Circle Trail long before Fort Worth finishes up with its long troubled Trinity River Vision Boondoggle..

Lake Wichita Boardwalk Over Water Nears Completion While In Fort Worth...

This first Thursday, fifth day of the 2020 version of March, with the outer world being void of clouds, and a temperature high today supposedly nearing 70, and despite ailing from what matches Coronavirus symptoms, it seemed like a good idea to turn the key on my motorized motion device and drive to Lake Wichita Dam to check out the current status of the building of a new Lake Wichita Boardwalk.

Well, as you can see, there has been a lot of progress since I last checked out this construction project. The signature vertical piers are now completed, with the boardwalk and railing installed atop the signature vertical piers.

As you can see this boardwalk is being built over actual water.

Whilst, meanwhile, for years now, Wichita Falls neighbor to the southeast, Fort Worth, has been struggling to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Those Fort Worth bridges boast highly touted imaginary signature V-piers, with a design which looks like nothing special, despite the signature propaganda. The Fort Worth bridges, in their current un-finished state, look like simple freeway overpasses. Waiting for water to one day possibly flow beneath them.

If I remember correctly the new Lake Wichita Boardwalk is projected to be completed soon. Imagine that, undertaking a project over water with the funding to pay for the project in place before starting. And completing the project in a timely fashion.

Regarding Fort Worth's infamous ongoing Boondoggle fiasco. The attempt to tie Kay Granger to the Boondoggle, with Boondoggle disgruntled Republican voters voting to replace Granger with a right wing nutjob Trump acolyte, predictably failed.

It is now up to Democrat. Dr. Lisa Welch, to prescribe the cure to the Granger disease in the upcoming General Election with its anticipated Blue Wave Tsunami, with a few million bucks of help from Michael Bloomberg to counter the Granger machine's millions...