dirtpro06
Member
I'm currently in the process of building up my equipment and experience to the point of being able to do some larger trips. At the same time I'm teaching my wife the ins and outs of living outdoors since she missed the childhood of camping and backpacking I had. Each trip we learn new things and target additional things to learn on our next trip. For instance, this was our first trip that was primarily on the road rather than sedentary. My intention is to log our progress on the OAT over several trips both to try to help out those who may try the route after me and just to keep track of our lessons learned and maybe even get the word out a bit more about this cool route.
We first hopped on the OAT where it crosses HWY412 just west of Keystone Lake. We followed the route south and quickly found our first landmark of Frog Rock. After the required photos, we continued west along a mix of gravel roads with a sprinkling of pavement.
We crossed a cool bridge and eventually popped out on the north bank of the Cimeron river and stopped at the graffiti wall for a light lunch.
Our next leg of the trip was a bit longer but we arrived at the shoot out memorial before too much time. There wasn’t much to see here so we continued on. The road quality declined during our next leg of the trip. When they were gravel, good time was made but many miles were simple dirt roads and many showed erosion damage. Caution had to be taken as there were numerous ruts crossing the road, especially in low spots that would bottom out our suspension if taken at more than single digit speeds. Now that said, our Xterra is stock with 160k miles so this may not be as big of a deal for those with significant upgrades.
Also of note in this leg was quite a bit of mud. As anyone from OK knows, that red earth turns snotty slick when wet and there was about a 200yd stretch that I walked before proceeding as we were travelling with one vehicle with street tires, sans winch or MaxTrax. This was really the only part of the route that I wasn’t 100% confident I could pass without issue. In this specific instance I had to engage 4wd to get through about a 50ft section of deep mud but had no issues remaining in 2wd the rest of the trip. I never aired down either as we were constantly on and off pavement and I don’t have a compressor on board yet. My plan of action in case we did get stuck was to engage 4wd, air down and dig out in that order. The route never gets super remote and we did have go bags in case we had to leave the vehicle as a last ditch redundancy.
We stopped by Lake McMurty on our way into Perry and surveyed it as a possible campsite as it was nearing dinner time. Like the other Army Corps of Engineers campsites in OK, it has ample camping, cabins and RV slots, restrooms, a boat launch, etc. It looked like a great place to camp with small clumps of camping spots here and there rather than a huge group of them in one place. That said, our target camping location was the salt flats so we continued on to Perry for dinner.
Over dinner we discussed what our next course of action should be. We had spent about 6 hours on the trail at this point and if we continued along it to the salt flats we estimated it would take roughly the same amount of time or longer. As it was already after 6pm we weren’t very excited about that so we explored some other options. We settled on taking the highways out to the salt flats and taking the OAT back towards Tulsa for as long as time allowed the next day.
We arrived at the salt flats campground around 8pm, set up camp and spent some time stargazing before bed.
The next morning we ate a nice breakfast overlooking the spillway and jumped back on the road to the viewing area. Unfortunately, it was closed so we weren’t able to drive out on the salt flats. I’m not sure when the gate is open but I anticipate we’ll do some research and come back again at another time.
From here we went into Cherokee for gas (our first fill up after leaving Tulsa) and then proceeded east to pick up the OAT again.
Our next point of interest would be the cowboy tombstone/Chisolm trail rest stop. We would cross several highways through our day and decided to assess our drive time and decide whether to continue down the route or hop on the highways and head home at each crossing. Roads on our second day were a mix of gravel and red earth, almost all of which we could fly down. This enabled us to follow the entire OAT back to Perry despite our assumption from our progression the first day that we would have to cut out halfway at best.
The cowboy tombstone was neat, as was the Chisolm trail rest stop marker as well. It’s crazy to think that not too long ago, brave men (and I assume women too) braved what was considered a very dangerous Oklahoma to get their cattle, aka their entire livelihood to market.
From this point, it was a turn and burn to Perry. I was motivated to stick to the route so that I could provide some sort of report on road conditions/bridges out for those to follow. We cruised back into Perry and snagged HWY 64 east to home.
Speaking of bridges out, we found several. In my next post is a photo and grid of each along with how we got around them.
We first hopped on the OAT where it crosses HWY412 just west of Keystone Lake. We followed the route south and quickly found our first landmark of Frog Rock. After the required photos, we continued west along a mix of gravel roads with a sprinkling of pavement.
We crossed a cool bridge and eventually popped out on the north bank of the Cimeron river and stopped at the graffiti wall for a light lunch.
Our next leg of the trip was a bit longer but we arrived at the shoot out memorial before too much time. There wasn’t much to see here so we continued on. The road quality declined during our next leg of the trip. When they were gravel, good time was made but many miles were simple dirt roads and many showed erosion damage. Caution had to be taken as there were numerous ruts crossing the road, especially in low spots that would bottom out our suspension if taken at more than single digit speeds. Now that said, our Xterra is stock with 160k miles so this may not be as big of a deal for those with significant upgrades.
Also of note in this leg was quite a bit of mud. As anyone from OK knows, that red earth turns snotty slick when wet and there was about a 200yd stretch that I walked before proceeding as we were travelling with one vehicle with street tires, sans winch or MaxTrax. This was really the only part of the route that I wasn’t 100% confident I could pass without issue. In this specific instance I had to engage 4wd to get through about a 50ft section of deep mud but had no issues remaining in 2wd the rest of the trip. I never aired down either as we were constantly on and off pavement and I don’t have a compressor on board yet. My plan of action in case we did get stuck was to engage 4wd, air down and dig out in that order. The route never gets super remote and we did have go bags in case we had to leave the vehicle as a last ditch redundancy.
We stopped by Lake McMurty on our way into Perry and surveyed it as a possible campsite as it was nearing dinner time. Like the other Army Corps of Engineers campsites in OK, it has ample camping, cabins and RV slots, restrooms, a boat launch, etc. It looked like a great place to camp with small clumps of camping spots here and there rather than a huge group of them in one place. That said, our target camping location was the salt flats so we continued on to Perry for dinner.
Over dinner we discussed what our next course of action should be. We had spent about 6 hours on the trail at this point and if we continued along it to the salt flats we estimated it would take roughly the same amount of time or longer. As it was already after 6pm we weren’t very excited about that so we explored some other options. We settled on taking the highways out to the salt flats and taking the OAT back towards Tulsa for as long as time allowed the next day.
We arrived at the salt flats campground around 8pm, set up camp and spent some time stargazing before bed.
The next morning we ate a nice breakfast overlooking the spillway and jumped back on the road to the viewing area. Unfortunately, it was closed so we weren’t able to drive out on the salt flats. I’m not sure when the gate is open but I anticipate we’ll do some research and come back again at another time.
From here we went into Cherokee for gas (our first fill up after leaving Tulsa) and then proceeded east to pick up the OAT again.
Our next point of interest would be the cowboy tombstone/Chisolm trail rest stop. We would cross several highways through our day and decided to assess our drive time and decide whether to continue down the route or hop on the highways and head home at each crossing. Roads on our second day were a mix of gravel and red earth, almost all of which we could fly down. This enabled us to follow the entire OAT back to Perry despite our assumption from our progression the first day that we would have to cut out halfway at best.
The cowboy tombstone was neat, as was the Chisolm trail rest stop marker as well. It’s crazy to think that not too long ago, brave men (and I assume women too) braved what was considered a very dangerous Oklahoma to get their cattle, aka their entire livelihood to market.
From this point, it was a turn and burn to Perry. I was motivated to stick to the route so that I could provide some sort of report on road conditions/bridges out for those to follow. We cruised back into Perry and snagged HWY 64 east to home.
Speaking of bridges out, we found several. In my next post is a photo and grid of each along with how we got around them.
Last edited: