Wanting to do a shorter hike and see something new, 7 renegade TrailBlazers made the scenic drive over to Wilburton, OK to check out Robbers Cave State Park. Ha had intended to go to Lake Fort Smith with the Energizer Bunnies, but arrived too late at the rendezvous, so she shifted gears and opted for Plan B. This was a good thing because she is detail-oriented and good at finding elusive blue trail blazes.

The park is quite large, so after passing numerous campgrounds we eventually came to the parking lot for the Robbers Cave Loop. We set out, seeing a wide trail straight ahead, but this turned out to be a decoy to confuse the uninitiated, so we turned around and found the turn we had missed and started following the blue blazes. Thankfully there was cooler air today as we trekked along a rocky trail and saw lots of fall color. After a while we saw a pretty creek and made our way down to it to look around. The spot was so pretty that we decided to eat lunch there. Afterwards we trekked a while until an eagle-eyed Ha noticed that we were seeing double – 2 blue blazes. At the same time Bonanza Bob’s cerebral GPS felt that we were going in the wrong direction; this was confirmed by Yours Truly’s cheapo Wally World compass, so we turned back until we no longer were seeing double. Actually it was just a scenic side trip and that’s our story and we are sticking to it. 

Eventually we arrived at the cave area and explored several slot caves as well as Robbers Cave, a large open cave that is best reached by mountain goats. There were lots of people scrambling around here, there and everywhere, which goes to prove that there is a little kid in all of us. We had a great time exploring this scenic area.