Hiking in the Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma

Although the majority of Oklahoma is flat, if you drive an hour and a half southwest you come to the Wichita mountains, some of the oldest mountains in the world. Now they are more like overgrown hills because they've been eroded over millions of years, but the most impressive area is Elk Mountain, which is an entire mountain made up of boulders.

My good friend Shawn and I decided to go hiking there a few days after I arrived back in Oklahoma, on a beautiful sunny day that hit 70 degrees only a few days before Christmas. Shawn is well known among our friends for bypassing the trail and instead heading straight up the mountain, climbing and jumping from boulder to boulder. Going hiking with him is more like going mountain climbing, but without ropes, and it's scary, exhilirating, and challenging, and a true total body workout.

The views at the top were well worth it, and we even spotted a buffalo way off in the distance.