Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge

Winter Migration Road Trip, Day 5 | Chickasaw NRA to Wichita Mountains | Hiking & Camping in Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge | November 2023

After leaving Chickasaw National Recreation Area, we drove West across Oklahoma on OK-7, claiming new counties and avoiding toll roads the whole way. Our destination for today for both activities and camping was Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, Northwest of Lawton, OK. While these mountains are nowhere near as high as ones in the Rockies, seeing them appear on the horizon as we drove across seemingly endless flatland was just as exciting.

We decided to start our time here by driving up Mount Scott. The top was a bit crowded, and the wind made it colder than we were expecting, but we still got out and made a short loop walking around the parking area and admiring the views in all directions of the surrounding hills and lakes. We had planned on having lunch here, but decided it was too cold and instead drove to the campground to find a spot and eat there.

We found a spot in Doris Campground right within the National Wildlife Refuge, settled in and ate. The campground was right next to a lake, so afterwards we went on a long walk trying to find somewhere to see it better. This turned out to be harder than we expected, with trees and other campsites blocking all access points. This instead turned into a long walk around different campground loops. When we returned to our spot, we decided that since we still had several hours of daylight left, we would go for a hike here now so that we could get on the road earlier the next day.

We drove a little further West to a trailhead for a couple different trails. While we first intended on hiking Elk Mountain Trail, we took one look at how rocky and busy it was and decided instead to hike Charon’s Garden Trail. This one seemed to be much more suitable for Charlotte. We crossed over the creek and followed the trail into the woods, across a couple of washes, and eventually found a side trail to loop back on before returning to the van. Altogether it was about a mile and a half of easier, mostly flat trail in a quiet area. If you’re interested, check out our AllTrails recording for this hike here.

Finally content with all we had done today, we returned to our campsite where we made dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening. This night was probably the coldest that we had experienced so far, and the next morning was the only morning that we woke up to frost on the outside of the van. But we managed to keep warm, and were thankful that we weren’t waking up to snow like the Midwest was!