#2: [18-Sep-22]

#1: [09-Mar-01]

10-Aug-2024 --

Me and two others (Jack and Danielle) had a pretty extensive southwest Oklahoma map geek day trip in the works for several weeks and Aug 10 happened to be a convenient day to do it. We originally only had a couple goals: knock out a couple unvisited counties (bringing Jack and I within one county of completing Oklahoma) and clinching two state highways (driving the main segment of OK 5 in one go and finishing my last untraveled miles of OK 19). With confluence hunting recently added to our adventure excuse arsenal, it made sense to look for a confluence somewhere within a reasonable distance of our 400 mile circuit — that turned out to be 35N 99W.

The drive started out in the direction of Ardmore, from which we'd travel US 70 to the eastern terminus of OK 5, following the latter to its western end near Altus. This roughly two hour stretch knocked out two of the three target counties of the day, and would lead us to the general region of 35N 99W. Apart from some heavyish rain on I-35, this first chapter of the day was unremarkable (in a good way). West of Ringling (through which we played the Jimmy Buffett song named for Ringling, Montana), the landscape quickly opened up from patchy forest and rolling hills into wide open (and very flat) farming/grazing land. We stopped for lunch at a pretty good Mexican joint in Altus before grabbing the last target county of the day and finally setting our sights on the confluence.

35N 99W lies in the small Rainy Mountain Creek Site 23 Reservoir (catchy name), which was actually empty when Joseph Kerski visited a couple years ago. No such luck this time, with the preceding summer not quite as dry as it had been in 2022. It was pretty simple to find the grid road junction we needed, a three way intersection of dirt roads with an overgrown public track representing the trailhead to the confluence. Said path was evidently not used much and the vegetation had done a good job reclaiming it (the bugs were having a field day too). It was about 1/3 of a mile to the reservoir, where we found the water level high enough that zeroing out the GPS was out of the question.

The path to the reservoir is bounded on the south by a cattle field, and the fence surrounding this field actually ventured slightly into the water. I found this out during my initial approach to the confluence along the muddy shore; I'd initially hoped to hug the shore without having to negotiate an electric fence, but that wouldn't have been possible without boots for the water. I was able to make it within 110 meters by this strategy but could very clearly see a closer spot — the property boundary jutted out in a way that just barely cut off easy access by a few meters. Closer to the reservoir path, there was a lucky section of regular barbed fence short enough that I could simply step over it, and from there I crossed to the side of the fence nearest the confluence. For this section, I was fortunate enough to find a bit of electric fence high enough that I could slide underneath without too much difficulty, granting me access to the shore that was closest to 35N 99W. It was only an additional couple hundred feet through the mud before I got as close as I could without going swimming — about 65 meters. The others had understandably opted to stay back near the reservoir path, some 150 to 170 meters from the confluence. I got the necessary photos and took a couple moments to take in the scenery. It was a remarkably pleasant day for August in Oklahoma: a layer of high clouds obscured the late afternoon sun and the temperature sat at about a comfortable 80°F/26°C — we'd picked a good day to get out and about!

I essentially retraced my steps back to the path without a hitch, and from there the three of us strolled back up the path to the car. A group of cows had grown pretty curious at our presence and accompanied us some of the way from their side of the fence; we figured it must have been one of the more exciting days for them in quite some time. With no more counties to visit, highways to clinch, or confluences to catch, we called it a day and headed home — a decidedly successful day trip.

In a flood control pond.