Mountain of Dreams

I've written about this place before, but I figured I'd touch base on it again.

For many years--decades, in fact--I kept having this recurring dream of walking up a very steep mountain composed almost entirely of solid rock. It may have been that I was having dreams influenced by my childhood trips to see Stone Mountain near Decatur GA where we lived when I was in grade school.

But in my dreams it wasn't exactly Stone Mountain. The color of the rock was always darker--more toward the yellow/orange spectrum than the pale granite of the Georgia plutons. Finally, a few years ago (after I'd stopped having this recurring dream), I saw a photo of this place:

It's called Quartz Mountain and it's part of a chain of strange granitic peaks in Oklahoma called the Wichita Mountains. The color and profile was perfect, but in my dream you could drive right up to the base of the peak and begin walking up the very steep slopes. And then I found this photo:

Apparently, Quartz Mountain (aka Baldy Point) is a popular rock climbing spot in Oklahoma. But you can also hike up the mountain without resorting to a technical climb.

It moved high on my list of places to see. Hopefully we'll stop there on our way out to Kings Canyon/Sequoyah and Yosemite National Parks in two years.