Oklahoma is well known as prime hunting and fishing territory, but red-dirt country also offers many opportunities for hiking, running, and off-road biking. Though trail guides for neighboring states abound, outdoorsmen Kent F. Frates and Larry Floyd found no such book for Oklahoma. The outcome of their collaboration, Oklahoma Hiking Trails, fills that void as the first comprehensive guidebook for the state. A welcome addition to the travel library of both locals and visitors, this illustrated guide extends a hearty welcome to hikers, bikers, runners, birders, campers, and photographers. For the amateur and expert alike, Oklahoma Hiking Trails covers trails accessible to the public across the state. This handy reference will take outdoor adventurers from Tulsa to Lawton and from Broken Bow to Boise City--and all points between. It includes such familiar sites as the Ouachita National Forest and the Wichita Mountains as well as lesser-known gems such as Black Mesa and the Oxley Nature Center. The authors also provide tips on how to prepare for any hiking adventure. Color photographs of trail sites identify landmarks to look for and highlight the natural diversity to be found along the state's hundreds of miles of public trails. Detailed maps, GPS coordinates, and clear directions ensure that the runner, biker, or hiker will get to the trail and stay on it. Each trail is rated easy, moderate, or strenuous. Providing a wealth of information to help you navigate your Oklahoma adventure, Oklahoma Hiking Trails offers big returns in a small, light-weight package ideal for your backpack.

For fans of Cheryl Strayed, the gripping story of a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure. During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals. In March of 2012, she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic, traveling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft, and canoe. Together, they survived harrowing dangers while also experiencing incredible moments of joy and grace -- migrating birds silhouetted against the moon, the steamy breath of caribou, and the bond that comes from sharing such experiences. A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, The Sun is a Compass explores the bounds of the physical body and the tenuousness of life in the company of the creatures who make their homes in the wildest places left in North America. Inspiring and beautifully written, this love letter to nature is a lyrical testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Winner of the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Competition: Adventure Travel

Bouldering in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

Most people would not consider north central Kansas' Waconda Lake to be extraordinary. The lake, completed in 1969 by the federal Bureau of Reclamation for flood control, irrigation, and water supply purposes, sits amid a region known--when it is thought of at all--for agriculture and, perhaps to a few, as the home of "The World's Largest Ball of Twine" (in nearby Cawker City). Yet, to the native people living in this region in the centuries before Anglo incursion, this was a place of great spiritual power and mystic significance. Waconda Spring, now beneath the waters of the lake, was held as sacred, a place where connection with the spirit world was possible. Nearby, a giant snake symbol carved into the earth by native peoples--likely the ancestors of today's Wichitas--signified a similar place of reverence and totemic power. All that began to change on July 6, 1870, when Charles DeRudio, an officer in the 7th U.S. Cavalry who had served with George Armstrong Custer, purchased a tract on the north bank of the Solomon River--a tract that included Waconda Spring. DeRudio had little regard for the sacred properties of his acrea≥ instead, he viewed the mineral spring as a way to make money. In Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes at Waconda Springs, Kansas, anthropologist Donald J. Blakeslee traces the usage and attendant meanings of this area, beginning with prehistoric sites dating between AD 1000 and 1250 and continuing to the present day. Addressing all the sites at Waconda Lake, regardless of age or cultural affiliation, Blakeslee tells a dramatic story that looks back from the humdrum present through the romantic haze of the nineteenth century to an older landscape, one that is more wonderful by far than what the modern imagination can conceive.