Rock Hoppers

One of the attractions at Wichita Wildlife Refuge is the rock-hopping.  From Charon Gardens to Little Baldy to Mount Scott, you can climb and jump and chase to your heart's content.

I am exempt from jumping, leaping and scrambling. I use picture taking as my excuse, knowing all the while that it's really because I have knees older than me. (Did you have to think about that one?)

 

I leave that to the young un's.  Those supple, flexible, healable, fearless ones...

Now spelunking. Spelunking I can do. I don't mind tiny, dark places, even with the threat of rattlesnakes. 

I have some hesitation to leaping, camera in hand, and sliding off the mountain, bouncing down to the valley below like a ping pong ball, my head hitting every fifth boulder, and ending up more befuddled than I already am. I really can't afford to be more befuddled.

But absolutely one of the great things about rock hopping all day long...

Is how incredibly hot, tired, windblown, and rock scratched you get...

And how well you sleep on the way home!