Salt flats in Oklahoma sounded interesting, so we left Black Mesa and headed east.
About five hours of driving and we arrived at Salt Plains State Park.
The State Park is a very small area attached to the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge. The blue area shown on the map is water. The green areas are marshes, and the beige area is salt flats.
The lake water is contained by a spillway located in the State Park area where the wider blue area turns into a thin blue line. The State Park campground is located along the spillway.
The photo of the spillway was taken from the campground. You can see that the water level is very low.
One of the attractions of the Salt Plains State Park is the thousands of Sand Hill cranes that stop here on their migrations. We were hoping to see this tallest member of the crane family (4’+ height, 6’+ wing span), but due to the low water levels we saw… zero cranes in the spillway. Yep, not a one.
We did see some cranes flying overhead, and in the spillway we saw Bald Eagles, Golden Eagle, Cormorants, Great Blue Herons, and a few other birds we couldn’t identify.
Our campsite backed on to the spillway, and had some great views.
The campground used the same steel container-like washrooms that we encountered at Black Mesa State Park. Good facilities!
The National Wildlife Refuge allows visitors to drive out on to the salt flats. The salt flats come up to the edge of the road creating a bit of a surreal feeling as you are driving.
At the end of the salt flat road, there is an area where visitors are encouraged to dig for selenite crystals. These crystals form about 1′-2′ below the surface and have an “hourglass” shape. We were greatly confused by this as the crystals we saw (no we didn’t dig them up, we looked at crystals dug up by others, much easier to see and you don’t get all dirty and sweaty) were prismatic in shape. It was until we did some google searching that we discovered the hourglass shape refers to the darker interior area of the crystal. Oklahoma is the only location in the world that has hourglass selenite crystals.
The holes left by the diggers eventually fill in through natural wind and water movement.
Trip Summary:
Depart: Black Mesa State Park, OK 10:30 am Apr 9; Odometer: 136481 miles
Arrive: Salt Plains State Park, OK 5:00 pm Apr 9; Odometer: 136777 miles
Gas Summary:
Guyman, OK (Apr 9): 16g @ $3.50/g ($56.14) – ODO 136570 miles
Buffalo, OK (Apr 9): 11.5g @ $3.70/g ($42.46) – ODO 136684 miles